“ Anyone who does eat my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in him."

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊ 

Acts 9:1-20*

  (….)There was a disciple in Da­mas­cus

Named Ananias, to whom the Lord called in a vision, “Ana­nias!” He answered, “Here I am, Lord!”   Then the Lord said to him, “Go at once to Straight Street and ask, at the house of Ju­das, for a man of Tarsus named Saul. You will find him pray­ing,   for he has just seen in a vision that a man named Ana­nias has come in and placed his hands upon him, to restore his sight.”

 Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many sources about this man and all the harm he has done to your saints in Je­ru­salem, and now he is here with authority from the High Priest to arrest all who call upon your name.”   But the Lord said to him, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to bring my name to the pagan nations and their kings, and the people of Israel as well.  I myself will show him how much he will have to suffer for my name.”

So Ananias left and went to the house. He laid his hands upon Saul and said, “Saul, my brother, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me to you so that you may receive your sight and be filled with Holy Spirit.”   Immediately something like scales fell from his eyes and he could see; he got up and was baptized.   Then he took food and was strengthened.

 For several days Saul stayed with the disciples at Damascus,   and he soon began to proclaim in the synagogues that Jesus was the Son of God.

 

Ps 117:1bc, 2

Go out to all the world and tell the Good News.

 

＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊

John 6:52-59

 The Jews were arguing among themselves, “How can this man give us flesh to eat?”  So Jesus replied, “Truly, I say to you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.   The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood live with eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day.

 My flesh is really food and my blood is drink.   Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood, live in me and I in them.  Just as the Father, who is life, sent me and I have life from the Father, so whoever eats me will have life from me.  This is the bread which came from heaven; unlike that of your ancestors, who ate and later died. Those who eat this bread will live forever.”

Jesus spoke in this way in Capernaum when he taught them in thesynagogue.

     

Gospel Reflection：

Communing with Truth

Look at Saul: Here is a man with the best of brains and schooled by Gamaliel, the best of teachers of his time. He knew the Scriptures; he knew the Truth. But then, that part of the Truth that he had not known hits him hard, felling him to the ground, blinding him, and breaking open spaces in his mind and heart for the entry of the Truth, not as a concept, but as a person, an encounter, a relationship.

If he was willing to kill for the sake of the impersonal truth he had known before, now he is willing to suffer, as the Lord informs Ananias, for the sake of Him, the Truth in flesh and blood. It is to such an intimate encounter that Jesus is inviting the Jews (and us) who are listening to him: to commune with him in his body and blood so as to live in him.