If we are courageous enough to engage with today’s gospel-reading as participants rather than as side-line observers, we, too, will have to answer the very question that Jesus put to his disciples: “And you, who do you say I am?” And if other people want to find out who we really are, all they have to do is to carefully observe what we do and say in the course of a couple of weeks to see if our actions match what we say and are in harmony with the standards we claim to uphold, reflects Christian Brother Julian McDonald.

An implication of this Sunday’s gospel-reading is that it raises for me questions of my own deafness to the action and invitation of God’s Spirit calling to me from the people in the world around me and indeed from those with whom I live and work, writes Christian Brother Julian McDonald. How am I being prompted by God’s Spirit to open my ears, mind and heart to the cries of the forgotten, the displaced, the alienated, the refugees struggling in my small part of the world?

I suggest that, for us, sticking with Jesus is doing what Christians have done for centuries. - putting their bodies on the line for others or, as John put it, living and spending their lives, gifts and energy in the service of others (cf John 15, 13). By imitating that in our part of the world, we become food, nourishment and encouragement for others, writes Christian Brother Julian McDonald.

At the time of this interaction between Jesus and the crowd, nobody really understood who Jesus was. That became clearer only after his resurrection. So, when he declared “I am the bread of life who came down from heaven”, he was pleading with them to see that God could also work through each one of them, all created in the image of God, writes Christian Brother Julian McDonald.

Relationship with God and Jesus is not about accumulating merit points, preserving a past or building a tradition. That’s the sort of thing that takes the life out of relationship and militates again change, growth and new possibilities. Living faith looks forward to a future full of hope and new life, reflects Christian Brother Julian McDonald.