Message of Abbot Paul - Wednesday - 17th April 2024

As you read this message, I will probably be snoozing on the plane flying me down from Paris to Lima or, if you’re an early bird, from Birmingham to Paris. I ask for your prayers as I visit our brethren at the monastery in Lurin, less than an hour south of Lima. I will endeavour to keep in touch each day and share with you some of the things I’ll be doing, including on 23rd April, the First Profession of Br Miguel Rimarachin, whom some of you might have met at Belmont recently. Needless to say, I will be keeping you all in my prayers. When I pray for people I know, I invariably see their faces before me. For others, I usually see the image of a saint or an angel.

 

Our Gospel reading from John, (Jn 6: 35-40), is the continuation of yesterday’s passage, the famous Discourse on the Bread of Life. We begin where we left off, with Jesus saying to the crowd:

 “I am the bread of life.

 He who comes to me will never hunger;

 he who believes in me will never thirst.”

Jesus is struck by the fact that, although they can see him and have seen the works he does, yet they still fail to believe in him and ask for further signs.

​ ​​ “All that the Father gives me will come to me,

and whoever comes to me I shall not turn him away; 

because I have come from heaven, not to do my own will, 

but to do the will of the one who sent me.” 

Jesus talks of his relationship with the Father and of how he has come from God in order to do the Father’s will, that none of those given to him should be lost. In fact, whoever comes to him will not be turned away. Not only will no one who comes to him be turned away, but he will raise them up on the last day. This is what he means when he says that he is the bread of life, who takes hunger and thirst away from those who come to him and believe in him.

​ “Now the will of him who sent me

  is that I should lose nothing of all that he has given to me,

  and that I should raise it up on the last day.

  Yes, it is my Father’s will

  that whoever sees the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life,

  and that I shall raise him up on the last day.”

To be raised up on the last day is the final stage of eternal life. God’s deepest desire is that each one of his sons and daughters should have eternal life, but that life comes through seeing and knowing the Son and believing in him. That is the very touchstone of salvation and receiving the gift of eternal life, God’s own life, that begins not with death but at the very moment when we come to know and love Jesus as Son of God, for he is the Bread of Life who gives life to the world. The discourse will continue tomorrow and we look forward to that.