The Gift of Bread That Endures

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Easter Feria

Today's Readings:
[ Acts 6:8-15; Ps 119:161-168; Jn 6:22-29 ]

The crowd in John’s Gospel is searching hard, crossing the sea, retracing steps, asking all the right questions. Yet Jesus cuts straight to the heart: “You are looking for me…because you ate your fill of the loaves”. Their hunger is real, but it is still tethered to what perishes. Jesus invites them—and us—into a deeper desire: “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life”.

From a Franciscan lens, this is a call to holy poverty of spirit. St. Francis of Assisi understood that our attachments—even to good things—can keep us from the Giver. The crowd wants bread; Jesus offers himself. The shift is subtle but everything changes when we receive not just gifts, but the Gift.

Stephen, in Acts, embodies this same orientation. “Full of grace and power”, he stands before opposition without grasping for safety or reputation. His face, “like the face of an angel”, reflects a life already given over. There is a kind of freedom here... nothing to defend, nothing to prove, only faith. Francis would recognize this as perfect joy: to be so rooted in Christ that even misunderstanding or suffering cannot shake the heart.

Psalm 119 gives us the interior posture that sustains such a life: “Those who love your law have great peace; nothing can make them stumble”. This is not legalism but love, an alignment of the will with God’s own desire. When we delight in God’s ways, we are less driven by the anxieties of scarcity and more open to the abundance of grace.

So the question lingers: “What must we do to perform the works of God?”. Jesus answers simply: “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent”. Believe, not as mere assent, but as trust that loosens our grip on lesser hungers.

Today, we are invited to live lightly, to seek deeply, and to trust wholly. The bread we chase will always leave us wanting. The Bread who seeks us will always be enough.

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