“How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.

 

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊     

Acts 8:26-40

An angel of the Lord said to Philip,

"Go south, toward the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza, the desert road."

So he set out and it happened that an Ethiopian was passing along that way.

He was an official in charge of the treasury of the queen of the Ethiopians.

He had come on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and was on his way home.

He was sitting in his carriage and reading the prophet Isaiah.

 

The Spirit said to Philip, "Go and catch up with that carriage."

So Philip ran up and heard the man reading the prophet Isaiah;

and he asked, "Do you really understand what you are reading?"

The Ethiopian replied, "How can I, unless someone explains it to me?"

He then invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. This was the passage of Scripture he was reading:

He was led like a sheep to be slaughtered; like a lamb that is dumb before the shearer,

he did not open his mouth. He was humbled and deprived of his rights.

Who can speak of his descendants? For he was uprooted from the earth.

 

The official asked Philip, "Tell me, please, does the prophet speak of himself or of someone else?"

Then Philip began to tell him the Good News of Jesus, using this text of Scripture as his starting point.

As they traveled down the road, they came to a place where there was some water.

Then the Ethiopian official said, "Look, here is water; what is to keep me from being baptized?"

Then he ordered the carriage to stop. Both Philip and the Ethiopian went down into the water

and Philip baptized him. When they came out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord took Philip away.

The Ethiopian saw him no more, but he continued on his way full of joy.

Philip found himself at Azotus; and he went about, announcing the Good News in all the towns, until he reached Caesarea.

 

Ps 66:8-9, 16-17, 20 Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.

 

＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊      

John 6:44-51

No one can come to me unless he is drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise him up on the last day.

It has been written in the Prophets: They shall all be taught by God. So whoever listens and learns from the Father comes to me.

For no one has seen the Father except the One who comes from God;

he has seen the Father. Truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.

 

I am the bread of life. Though your ancestors ate the manna in the desert,

they died. But here you have the bread from heaven, so that you may eat of it and not die.

I am the living bread from heaven; whoever eats of this bread will live forever.

The bread I shall give is my flesh, and I will give it for the life of the world."

 

Gospel Reflection ：

"He draws us to him."

"Whoever comes to me, I shall not turn away." That initial urge to go to Christ does not come from us,

from our own reasoning. It comes, rather, from God the Father himself as "no one can come to [the Son]

unless he is drawn by the Father." Just like the life-saving manna in the desert, the sending of the Son is God's initiative.

God places his Son before us that we might come to him. God moves our hearts to hear his call – he draws us to him,

gently, so that we might freely choose to follow the Lord. This is what we find in the encounter between Philip and the Ethiopian official.

He is probably a God-fearer or a Jewish convert since he reads the Hebrew Scriptures.

 

As he sits in his carriage, something has prompted him to read the Prophet Isaiah.

Now, Philip acts as God's instrument to explain the prophecy and lead the Ethiopian to recognize Jesus Christ in what he is reading.

The official's response is immediate, just like the first disciples, and he asks to be baptized.

The power of God has drawn him to seek Jesus. May that same power draw us, too.