First Reading
Exodus 16:2-4, 12-15
1. The Israelites grumbled about the lack of food in the desert. They remembered their abundant pots of animal flesh in Egypt when they were captives. How is your trust in God when God calls you to new journeys in your spiritual life or ministry?
2. “Each day the people are to go out and gather their daily portion” What do you think our directive for natural resources would be? Take only what we need? Share it? Develop new sources of sustainable energy (renewable, as in wind, solar, etc.)?
Second Reading
Ephesians 4:17, 20-24
1. One translation has Paul calling the Ephesians to a spiritual revolution (a drastic change). If you personally were to have such a revolution, what would go and what would stay in your life? Would you add anything new?
2. Paul urges them to “ … put on the new self.” Do you think God is ever finished creating you? Is it something you do (or God does) just once, or do you (or does God) do it continually?
Gospel:
John 6:24-35
1. “For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” Why does Pope Francis say (below) that celebrating the Eucharist is an entirely different way of praying?
We would do well today to ask the Lord to give to each of us this “sense of the sacred”— this sense that makes us understand that it is one thing to pray at home, to pray in Church, to pray the Rosary, to pray so many beautiful prayers, to make the Way of the Cross, so many beautiful things, to read the Bible—[but] the Eucharistic celebration is something else. In the celebration we enter into the mystery of God, into that street that we cannot control: only he is the unique one—the glory, the power—he is everything.
Let us ask for this grace: that the Lord would teach us to enter into the mystery of God.Pope Francis on the Eucharist
Toward the end
February 10, 2014
If we were able to “enter into the mystery of God,” would we find God in all things?
2. “Our ancestors ate manna in the desert.” What is the food that you need for your life’s journey? Why do you think Jesus comes to us as bread or even as food? Would you have found that idea “hard to endure” if you were one of his disciples?
