Whoever Believes in Jesus Has Eternal Life
Life is essentially associated with eating. It reveals the reality that life is to be sustained from the source without. Man has to receive from outside himself to continue to live. He is not self-sustaining nor self-sufficient to continue being alive. The experience of hunger in the absence of food and drink by prophet Elias (First Reading) due to years of famine in the land made the prophet thought that his life will end until and an angel of the Lord provided him food and drink. Without divine provision he will die. This shows God’s solicitude for our life that the Psalmist sings: “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord” (Psalm 34:2). God’s love is tangible and experiential that to appreciate God’s goodness, it has to assume some form of food for his goodness is life-sustaining. In the Gospel, Christ’s assertion that he is the true bread that truly nourishes—meaning, that makes us truly live was received with resistance, with doubt and murmuring. The people’s response reminds us of how often we, too, resist the mysteries of faith when they challenge our limited understanding. We are quick to confine God to our human categories, expecting Him to conform to our preconceived notions. But Jesus’ declaration invites us to expand our vision, to recognize that He is far more than a mere human teacher or prophet. He is the living bread, the source of eternal life, sent by the Father.
Jesus goes on to say, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them.” Here, we see the profound truth that faith itself is a gift from God. It is not something we can achieve on our own through reasoning or effort. Instead, it is the Father who draws us to Jesus, who opens our hearts to receive Him. This teaches us humility—acknowledging that our faith is not a product of our own making, but a grace that we must continually seek and nurture. When Jesus speaks of the bread that He will give, He reveals that this bread is His flesh, given for the life of the world. This statement points directly to the Eucharist, where Jesus offers Himself fully—body, blood, soul, and divinity—to be our sustenance. In receiving the Eucharist, we participate in the mystery of Christ’s sacrificial love, a love that nourishes us and transforms us into His likeness.
The promise of eternal life is central to this passage. Jesus says, “Whoever eats this bread will live forever.” The bread He offers is not merely a symbol or a reminder of God’s provision; it is the very life of God shared with us. When we partake in the Eucharist, we are united with Christ in a profound and intimate way. This union is not just for this life, but it carries the promise of resurrection and eternal life.
As we read and reflect on these words of Jesus, do we approach the mysteries of our faith with murmuring and resistance? Or do we welcome them as gifts from the Father by not allowing the limited horizon of our human understanding gets on our way. Do we allow the grace of the Father to draw us to Christ through obedience of faith. Moreover, these readings reveal how crucial the act of faith is to life. When our reception of the Eucharist is not accompanied by faith, our communion is without fruit. Although we truly receive Jesus under the species of bread and wine, we don’t partake of its fruit due to lack of proper dispositions of faith, desire and love to be united with him.
Indeed, life is sustained from without, from God who is Life Himself. Eternal life, that is, unending life, is only made possible through participation in God’s life and not our own creation. But the condition is to be united with him in an intimate way by eating his flesh and drinking his blood sacramentally in the Eucharist with an approach of faith; FOR WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM HAS ETERNAL LIFE.
- Rev. Fr. Martin M. Fonte, FFI
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