＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊

Deuteronomy 8: 2-3, 14b-16a

Remember how Yahweh, your God,

brought you through the desert for forty years. He humbled you, to test you and know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his com­­mandments or not. He made you experience want, he made you experience hunger, but he gave you manna to eat which neither you nor your fathers had known, to show you that man lives not on bread alone, but that all that proceeds from the mouth of God is life for man.

Then do not let your heart become proud and do not forget Yahweh, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of slavery. It is he who has led you across this great and terrible desert, full of fiery serpents and scorpions, an arid land where there is no water.

But for you he made water gush forth from the hardest rock. And he fed you in the desert with manna which your fathers did not know.

 

Ps 147: 12-13, 14-15, 19-20(12)

Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.

 

＊＊＊ 2nd Reading ＊＊＊

1 Corinthians 10: 16-17

 The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a com­munion with the blood of Christ? And the bread that we break, is it not a com­munion with the body of Christ?  The bread is one, and so we, though many, form one body, sharing the one bread.

 

＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊

John 6:51-58

I am the living bread which has come 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.”

 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.”

 

Gospel Reflection：

Read:

The readings for today’s solemnity all speak or the tremendous blessing we have been given and continuously receive in the Body and Blood of Christ. It is what feeds us, it is what unites us, and it is what will sustain us unto eternal life.

Reflect:

What a truly precious gift we have received in the Body and Blood of Jesus. It is real food and real drink, as he says in the Gospel. It sustains and nourishes us, just as it sustains, nourishes and brings the Church together. It is an amazing thing to think that the Father has chosen not only to sustain us physically, but emotionally, spiritually, intellectually (and in every other conceivable way possible), but giving us the Body and Blood of His Son. What more precious gift could there be!

Pray:

Lord, give me a grateful heart, for the precious gift of your Body and Blood which I am privileged to receive, which sustains my in body and soul, and which gives me the strength to remain steadfast in your commandments, until see you face to face.

Act:

See to it that you fast an hour before receiving Holy Communion. Remember that we need to be in a state of grace if we are to received Jesus’ precious Body and Blood.