4 August 2024 John 6: 24-35

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Please read the passage before the homily.

My sisters and brothers,

In today’s gospel, Jesus said, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he has sent.”

The people asked Jesus for a sign.  The people had eaten of the five loaves and two fish in a miraculous way, yet they did not believe in Jesus?  Was not the multiplication of the loave a sign from God?

The multiplication of the loaves was an act of the mercy of God.  Was God’s mercy less a sign of God than God’s anger?  If Jeus had killed the five thousand men instead of feeding them, would that be more a sign that God had sent Jesus?

Jesus came into the world not to condemn it but to save the world.  The Bible says that “God so loved the world that he gave it his only Son so that everyone who believes in him would not perish but have eternal life.”

We need to do the works of God.  Therefore, we need to believe in Jesus as the only Son of God, who is equal to the Father.  Jesus is the sacrament and sign of God in the world.  Jesus is God’s sacramental presence in the Church.  The Church, then, is the sacrament and sign of Christ in the world. 

We are the Church, and we need to do the works of God so that all the people of the world can believe in God and be saved.

If we do not believe in Christ as the only Son of God and if we do not believe in ourselves as the body of Christ, then we cannot believe that Jesus is in the bread and wine of the Eucharist.

The work of God is that we believe in the one whom he has sent, who is our Lord Jesus Christ who became one of us to save us.