Texts taken from the “On Your Word” Daily Missal July-August 2024

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)
2nd week of the Psalter

FIRST READING

From the Book of Exodus (Ex 16:2-4, 12-15)
In those days, in the desert the whole community of the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them: “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by pots of meat and ate bread to our fill! Instead, you have brought us out into this desert to put this whole assembly to death by famine.” Then the Lord said to Moses: “Behold, I am going to rain down bread from heaven for you. Each day the people shall go out and gather their daily portion, so that I may test them, to see whether they follow my instructions or not. I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them this: ‘At evening twilight you shall eat flesh, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread, so that you may know that I am the Lord, your God.’” In the evening quail came up and covered the camp. In the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew evaporated, there on the surface of the desert was something fine and flaky, as fine as frost on the ground. When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “What is this?” because they did not know what it was. Moses then said to them, “This is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.” – The Word of the Lord. 

Commentary on the First Reading

The desert should not be thought of as a solitary place where each of us wishes to spend a few days to find some peace and quiet. On the contrary, it is a place where it is difficult to live and where people often die easily. Faced with suffering, the Jews react with distrust, protest, and an attempt to abandon the undertaking. They regret having set out, do not accept the freedom they have gained, and seek the Egypt of security, forgetting Pharaoh’s slavery and the liberation brought about by the Lord, who intends to test them in order to verify their faith. This is certainly a painful and life-threatening action, but on the Lord’s part it has the pedagogical purpose of educating the people, who are described as God’s children. Thus the desert can become the place where the Lord’s power is mightily revealed. We need only think of the miraculous aids: manna, quail, water flowing from the rock, and healings after being bitten by poisonous snakes. The believing community is urged to choose life, which consists in loving the Lord and walking in his ways.

SECOND READING

From the Letter of Saint Paul the Apostle to the Ephesians (Eph 4:17, 20-24)
Brothers and sisters, I tell you and insist on this in the Lord: do not live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. That is not how you learned Christ, assuming that you have heard him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus, to put away your former way of life, your old self, which is corrupted through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. – The Word of the Lord. 

Commentary on the Second Reading

Paul is a convert, and the communities he addresses are made up of people who have recently accepted the Gospel, abandoning the worship of idols to serve the Lord Jesus and to live according to a moral conduct entirely different from when they were pagans. Through faith, by welcoming the Gospel, the neophyte dies to the past life of the old self and rises with Christ, becoming a new creation. Likewise, through Baptism, the sacrament of faith, we are immersed in death in order to rise as children of God guided by the Holy Spirit. This can be seen in the signs of the sacrament, when the person being baptized is immersed in the water of the baptismal font to indicate death, then emerges from the water as a new creation, illuminated by the light of Christ, consecrated with sacred chrism, and clothed in a white garment, the color of the resurrection. Conversion, which continues throughout our present life, does nothing other than make this founding and initiating event present. For this reason, the person who comes to faith crucifies their own selfishness and experiences a new life being born, freed from every evil inclination.

GOSPEL OF THE DAY

From the Gospel according to John (Jn 6:24-35)
When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. When they found him across the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Jesus answered them: “Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him the Father, God, has set his seal.” So they said to him, “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God: that you believe in the one he sent.” 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 Gospel of the Lord.

Commentary on the Gospel of the Day

Jesus begins his discourse centered on faith as the necessary “work,” which consists in welcoming the One whom the Father has sent. Just as we take care to nourish ourselves with material food, even more must we commit ourselves to finding the true food. Therefore, from the joy over those abundant loaves offered, every disciple must turn their attention to the One who provided that sustenance: Jesus is the true bread. What God offered at the time of the Exodus is only something temporary and foreshadows what is lasting and true. The bread that the Father now offers humanity has the following characteristics: first of all, it is “the bread of God” and is not kneaded and baked by human beings; it “comes down from heaven” and does not come from the grain of the harvests; finally, it “gives life to the world” of humanity, life not limited to the few days of earthly existence, but “eternal” life insofar as it is participation in God’s own life. The promise is enticing, and those present ask Jesus to receive this bread, whose qualities they do not yet know, and to have it continually. Now Jesus concludes this first part of the discourse: “I am the bread of life.” It means going to him definitively in order to be truly satisfied.