April 21, 2026
Tuesday of the Third Week of Easter
Lectionary: 274
Reading
I
Stephen said to
the people, the elders, and the scribes:
“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears,
you always oppose the Holy Spirit;
you are just like your ancestors.
Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute?
They put to death those who foretold the coming of the righteous one,
whose betrayers and murderers you have now become.
You received the law as transmitted by angels,
but you did not observe it.”
When they heard
this, they were infuriated,
and they ground their teeth at him.
But Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit,
looked up intently to heaven and saw the glory of God
and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,
and Stephen said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened
and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
But they cried out in a loud voice,
covered their ears, and rushed upon him together.
They threw him out of the city, and began to stone him.
The witnesses laid down their cloaks
at the feet of a young man named Saul.
As they were stoning Stephen, he called out,
“Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
Then he fell to his knees and cried out in a loud voice,
“Lord, do not hold this sin against them”;
and when he said this, he fell asleep.
Now Saul was
consenting to his execution.
Responsorial
Psalm
Psalm 31:3cd-4, 6 and 7b and
8a, 17 and 21ab
R. (6a)
Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Be my rock of refuge,
a stronghold to give me safety.
You are my rock and my fortress;
for your name’s sake you will lead and guide me.
R. Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Into your hands I commend my spirit;
you will redeem me, O LORD, O faithful God.
My trust is in the LORD;
I will rejoice and be glad of your mercy.
R. Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Let your face shine upon your servant;
save me in your kindness.
You hide them in the shelter of your presence
from the plottings of men.
R. Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia,
alleluia.
I am the bread of life, says the Lord;
whoever comes to me will never hunger.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
The crowd said to
Jesus:
“What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you?
What can you do?
Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written:
He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”
So Jesus said to
them,
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven;
my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.
For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven
and gives life to the world.”
So they said to
Jesus,
“Sir, give us this bread always.”
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life;
whoever comes to me will never hunger,
and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042126.cfm
Commentary on Acts
7:51—8:1
Today’s passage continues the story of Stephen, although
most of his long discourse to the Sanhedrin on the history of the Jewish people
has been omitted in our readings. This reading describes just the climax of the
story.
Stephen calls those who have arrested him “uncircumcised in
heart and ears”. Although they are physically circumcised, their behaviour is
more like the uncircumcised pagans around them. They were resisting the spirit
of God, who spoke through Moses and the prophets. Paul will speak later on of
the ineffectiveness of bodily circumcision if there is not a corresponding
circumcision of the heart. It is not circumcision which makes the Jew, but
rather his commitment to following God’s will. And similarly for us, it is not
just the pouring of water at baptism that makes the Christian—to be a
Christian means a lot more.
Stephen attacks his judges as doing what their predecessors
did to the long line of prophets God sent to his people. Now they have killed
Jesus, the greatest prophet of all. It is not Stephen, but they, his judges,
who are not keeping the Law. This, not surprisingly, infuriated the council
members, but Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, now had a vision of God in
glory and Jesus standing at his right hand:
Look…I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing
at the right hand of God!
This was the title that Jesus had used of himself to
emphasise his links with Messianic prophecies and, in the New Testament, it is
very unusual for anyone but Jesus himself to use this title. The Sanhedrin knew
very well that the one he was speaking about was the one they had executed for
his own blasphemies. To say that this executed blasphemer was now sharing God’s
own glory was beyond the beyond. The religious leaders and trial judges could
not stand hearing such ‘obscenities’ and:
…they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all
rushed together against him.
At this point, all thought of a proper trial went out the window.
Stephen was driven beyond the walls of the city and stoned there and then, just
as Jesus, too, was crucified outside the city on Golgotha. It was the right of
the hostile witnesses in a case (here, perjured witnesses) to initiate the
execution of a sentence.
Almost as an aside, Luke tells us that the witnesses put
their clothes at the feet of a young man called Saul, who “approved of their
killing him”. It is believed that it must have been this experience which sowed
the seeds of Paul’s future Christian faith. As Tertullian wrote:
The blood of martyrs is the seed of the church.
As he saw Stephen dying with such dignity and grace, Paul
must have been deeply moved—and disturbed.
Stephen, as he dies, follows the example of his Lord. He
surrenders his life into God’s hands:
Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
Stephen prays also for his executioners and all their
supporters:
Lord, do not hold this sin against them.
So many elements in Stephen’s death resonate with the
experience of his Master:
- His
performing wonderful signs among the people.
- His
uncompromising challenges to the authorities on their integrity (or lack
of it).
- The
inability of his opponents to best him in debate.
- The
throwing up of false witnesses to discredit him.
- A
trial involving these false witnesses.
- The
vision of God in glory totally accepting Jesus.
- The
total surrender of his life into God’s hands.
- His
forgiveness of his executioners.
All in all, Stephen is the paradigm of the perfect follower
of Jesus, and hence a model for our lives. So too, we have here all the
ingredients of a true Christian life:
- Total
commitment to Jesus as Lord.
- Readiness
to speak up for one’s faith in spite of hostility and opposition.
- Readiness
to lose one’s physical life and possessions for the sake of the gospel
vision.
- An
unconditional love for all, including those who would hurt or destroy us.
- A
policy of active non-violence whatever the provocation.
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Commentary on John
6:30-35
Today’s passage from John continues the discussion of Jesus
as the Bread of Life. Again the Jews ask Jesus for a sign, a sign like the
manna that their forebears enjoyed in the desert. They quote Scripture at him:
Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is
written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’
(see Exod 16:4-5; Numbers 11:7-9; Ps 78:24)
As a gift from God, the manna was said to come from the sky
(“from the heavens”). Some think it was identified with a natural substance
which can still be found in small quantities on the Sinai peninsula. Here it is
understood as something preternatural, and Jesus sees in it a forerunner of the
Eucharist. Also the manna, thought to have been hidden by Jeremiah, was
expected to appear again miraculously at the Passover as a sign of the last
days. As described in the New International Version Study Bible:
“A popular Jewish expectation was that when the Messiah came
he would renew the sending of manna. The crowd probably reasoned that Jesus had
done little compared to Moses. He had fed 5,000; Moses had fed a nation. He did
it once; Moses did it for 40 years. He gave ordinary bread; Moses gave ‘bread
from heaven.’”
Jesus replies that the manna was not the real bread from
God; it was only a sign or symbol. It fed the body, but not the spirit:
For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven
and gives life to the world.
They say to him:
Sir, give us this bread always.
Clearly they were speaking in a materialistic sense. It
reminds one of the Samaritan woman at the well who asked for the water which
would prevent her ever again being thirsty and spare her having to come to the
well every day.
Jesus now tells them solemnly:
I am the bread of life.
The “I AM” strongly identifies Jesus with God and this is
the first of seven “I AM…” statements that appear in John’s Gospel. The
phrase—in Greek, ego eimi, recalls the name of God revealed to
Moses in the burning bush (see Exod 3:14). Both the manna and the recent
feeding of the 5,000 are action-parables of God (“I AM”) giving himself to his
people.
Jesus goes on to clarify the meaning of his statement:
Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever
believes in me will never be thirsty.
To “come to Jesus” is to bond oneself closely to him and all
he stands for. And we have seen what “believes in” entails. It implies much,
much more than just “receiving Jesus in Communion”.
To eat that Bread of Life, we have to soak ourselves in the
life of Jesus, to penetrate deeply into the Word of God that comes to us in the
Gospels and the rest of the Scriptures, and to assimilate his Way into our own
lives. The Eucharist we celebrate is the sign of that Bread of Life which, in
fact, is available all day long to those who are in close contact with Jesus.
Those who live in that close relationship with Jesus are the
ones who are truly alive—here and now. Am I one of them? How deep is my faith,
my Christianity, my knowledge of and commitment to the gospel, and my
understanding of the place of the Eucharist in our Christian life?
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/e1033g/
Tuesday, April 21, 2026
Easter Time
Opening Prayer
Lord our God, generous
Father,
You have given us Your Son Jesus
that we may relive with Him and like Him His
passion and His resurrection. Through
Jesus, give us the courage
to place ourselves into Your hands in the trials
of life and in death,
that one day we may see
Your glory and at Your
right hand Your
Son Jesus Christ,
who lives with You
forever.
Gospel Reading - John 6: 30-35
The crowd said to Jesus: "What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you?
What can you do? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert,
as it is written: He gave
them bread from
heaven to eat." So Jesus said
to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For
the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." So they said to Jesus, "Sir, give us this bread
always." Jesus said
to them, "I
am the bread
of life; whoever
comes to me will never hunger,
and whoever believes
in me will never thirst."
Reflection
The discourse of the Bread of Life is not a text to be discussed and dissected, but rather it should be meditated on and pondered.
This is why, even if it is not fully understood, we should not be
concerned. This text of the Bread of Life
demands a whole life to
meditate on it and deepen it. People
have to read it, meditate it, pray it, think about it, read it again,
repeat it and ponder it, as one does
with a good sweet in the mouth.
We turn it and turn it in the mouth until it is finished. The one who reads the fourth Gospel
superficially may have the
impression that John
always repeats the same thing.
Reading it more
attentively, one becomes aware that it is not a question
of repetition. The author
of the fourth Gospel has his own way of repeating
the same theme, but always
at a higher and more profound level. It seems to be like a winding staircase. By turning, one reaches
the same place, but always at a higher level or a more
profound one.
•
John 6: 30-33: What sign will you yourself do, the
sign which will make us believe in you? People had asked: What should we do to
carry out the work of God? Jesus responds: “The work of God is to believe in
the one who was sent”, that is to believe in Jesus. This is why people formulate a new question:
“Which sign do you do so that we can see and can believe? Which work do
you do?” This means that they did not understand the multiplication of the loaves as a sign from God to legitimize Jesus before the people, as the one sent by God! They continue
to argue: In the past our fathers
ate the manna which Moses
gave them! They called it “bread from Heaven” (Ws 16: 20), that is, “bread of God”. Moses continues to be the great leader
in whom to believe. If Jesus
wants the people
to believe in Him, He should work a greater
sign than Moses. “What work
do you do?”
Jesus responds
that the bread given by Moses was not the true bread from heaven. Coming from on high, yes, but it was not the bread of God, because it did not guarantee life to anyone.
All of them
died in the desert (Jn 6: 49). The
true bread of heaven, the bread of God, is the one which conquers
death and gives life! It is the
one which descends from Heaven and gives life to the world.
It is Jesus Himself! Jesus tries to help
the people to liberate themselves from the way of thinking of the past.
For Him, fidelity
to the past does not mean to close
up oneself in the ancient
things and not accept renewal.
Fidelity to the past
means to accept the newness
which comes as the fruit
of the seed which was
planted in the past.
•
John 6: 34-35: Lord, gives us always of that bread! Jesus answers clearly: “I am the bread of life!” To eat the bread of heaven is the same as to believe in Jesus and accept
to follow the road that
He teaches us, that is: “My food is to do the will
of the one who has sent me and to complete his work!” (Jn 4: 34). This is the true food which nourishes the
person, which transforms life and gives new
life. This last verse of today’s Gospel
(Jn 6: 35) will be taken back as the first verse of tomorrow’s Gospel (Jn 6: 35-40)
Personal Questions
•
Hungry for bread,
hungry for God. Which of these two predominates in me?
•
Jesus says: “I am the bread of life”. He takes away hunger and thirst. Which of
these experiences do I have in my life?
Concluding Prayer
Lord turn
Your ear to me, make
haste. Be for me a rock-fastness,
a fortified
citadel to save me. You are my rock, my rampart; true to Your name,
lead me and guide me! (Ps 31: 1-2)
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