Throughout her life, St. Catherine of Siena was famous for her aestheticism and fasting. For years, she subsisted on little else but the Eucharist. While the example of St. Catherine is perhaps to be admired more than imitated, her insistence that she needed no other nourishment is a powerful testimony to the reality that the Eucharist is the “bread of God…which comes down from heaven…” (Jn. 6:33).
In today’s gospel reading, a great crowd has come to Capernaum seeking Jesus. Jesus discerns at once that they have come, not for his teaching, but to be fed again with loaves and fish. In a similar way, in the book of Exodus, the children of Israel grumble and complain that God is not providing them with food in their wilderness wandering (Ex. 16:3). In both cases, God brings forth “bread from heaven”—for the Israelites, manna, and for the Galileans, words of life from Jesus. The purpose of the heavenly bread is not just to satisfy physical hunger but rather to demonstrate that “not by bread alone does man live” (Deut. 8:3).
Despite this, when the Galileans ask Jesus for a sign comparable to the manna, they still seem to expect some source of physical nourishment. Jesus responds with a shocking claim: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven” (Jn. 6:51). The love and providence of God, once made tangible in manna, has now become incarnate in a man. This truly incredible mystery left the listeners shocked and offended, and many promptly deserted this new teacher (v.66). Even Peter, though making a sincere confession of faith, had no idea what Jesus meant by calling himself bread from heaven—he simply believed. But now the mystery is revealed to us. St. Paul writes that the “cup of blessing…is a participation in the blood of Christ” and the “bread that we break…is a participation in the body of Christ” (1 Cor. 10:16). One loaf, broken, creates one mystic body; just as one body, the body of God incarnate, has become one mystic loaf, broken for many to make us one.
Reflection by Parishioner Kathryn Wilmotte