Dear Parishioner,

Have you ever seen the daytime cookery programme “Ready Steady Cook”? A guest would arrive with a bag of ingredients worth about £5.  The challenge for the chef was to prepare some amazing, tasty dish with the limited ingredients.

2 fish and 5 barley loaves belonging to a small boy is all there is to feed over 5,000 people.  “What is that among so many?” How could that feed over 5,000 people? Impossible, surely!  That’s the apparent challenge.  How chapter 6, a fundamental chapter of John’s gospel, begins.  A chapter that forms the core and heart of our understanding of the Eucharist.  And for the next 5 weeks we are immersing ourselves in what this feeding of over 5,000 people truly means and Jesus’ teaching of the people.

This incredible miracle of feeding so many people is a launching pad for something far deeper, more profound about Jesus and who he is. Jesus is challenging the people, and us too, to make that dive and grasp what he is ultimately revealing and giving them and us.  There’s a far more wonderful nourishment satisfaction that is being taught and being manifested and given.  

So today and over the next 4 Sundays as we hear and read these gospels from chapter 6, let us reflect, meditate, challenge and thus deepen our understanding of what the Eucharist is truly about.   How we are being fed and nourished spiritually by the Word of God in Scripture and then culminating in receiving the body and blood of Jesus in Holy Communion.   

In the Eucharist we are invited to hand ourselves over to Jesus and let his life flow through us.  The Eucharist gives us all we need to bring his love and his message of eternal life into our world.

-Fr Ambrose OSB-