WHAT CAN YOU DO?

At 7,51-8,1a; Ps 30; Jn 6,30-35
17 APRIL
Faith in Scripture is obedience to every Word that comes from the mouth of God. Obedience to the Word is taken away, there is no faith. The sign that the Word of God is true is given by the fulfilment of the Word. Whether one obeys or does not obey the Word, it always produces what it says. The history of humanity begins with a Word of God from the first moment of the creation of man and woman. In the second chapter of Genesis, the Word is given before the creation of the woman. Since the woman has been taken from the man and given to man, the command given to man is also given to the woman.

Then God said: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the cattle, and over all the wild animals and all the creatures that crawl on the ground.” God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them, saying: “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that move on the earth” (Gen 1,26-28). The Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being. The Lord God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it. The Lord God gave man this order: “You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and bad. From that tree you shall not eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die” (Gen 2,7.15-17).

The life of the earth and of man is in obedience to this Word. One does not obey, it is death. The death that arises from disobedience is the sign that the Word of God is true. The damned of hell will confess forever the truth of the Word of the Lord and so also the blessed ones of paradise. Having abolished hell, we have declared every Word of God false. While the damned say it is true, we say it is false. The Jews saw the sign of the multiplication of the loaves. They have all said that Jesus is the prophet to come. If Jesus is the prophet promised by God, the prophet must be heard. The words of the promise are clear. The prophet must be heard.

I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kinsmen, and will put my words into his mouth; he shall tell them all that I command him. If any man will not listen to my words which he speaks in my name, I myself will make him answer for it. But if a prophet presumes to speak in my name an oracle that I have not commanded him to speak, or speaks in the name of other gods, he shall die.’ “If you say to yourselves, ‘How can we recognize an oracle which the LORD has spoken?’, know that, even though a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if his oracle is not fulfilled or verified, it is an oracle which the Lord did not speak. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously, and you shall have no fear of him (Dt 18,18-22).

According to these words of revelation, Jesus must not perform any work. He must only say the Word of God. It will be the Word that will attest to his truth, by fulfilling itself. Jesus is great in his mercy and wants to help the Jews put their faith in him. He tells them that it was not Moses the one who gave them bread from heaven. This is a miracle or a sign given directly by God. Instead, Jesus was sent to give them the true bread. This bread is not of matter. Because the bread of God is he who descends from heaven and gives life to the world. We pass from the material bread to another bread.

So they said to him, “What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'” So Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” So they said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.

The Jews do not understand what Jesus is telling them, but they ask for bread. Jesus once again leads them to the truth of the bread: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will not be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty, never.” The bread of God is Christ Jesus.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels, Saints, give us Christ our bread of life.