The Gospel is from St. John 6:41-51. The main point of doctrine in this part of our Lord's discourse, as given by St. John, is the necessity for belief in Christ who has come down from heaven. It is only in the last verse of today's text that Christ explicitly states that he is about to give his own very body as their spiritual food to those who believe in him. The description of himself as "bread from heaven" and the vital difference between the effect of this bread and the manna given to their fathers in the desert, are a definite preparation for the announcement of the doctrine of the Eucharist.
We believe in a loving God, and in his divine Son, Jesus Christ, who came on earth to bring us to heaven, and in the Holy Spirit who completes the work of sanctification in us. Surely, we owe this Blessed Trinity a debt of gratitude! We can never fully repay it. Because of our Christian faith which has come to us from Jesus, we know where we came from, we know whether we are going and we know how to reach that destination. Of all the knowledge a human being can acquire on this earth, the above facts are the most essential and important. Any other knowledge is of temporary value. The knowledge our Christian faith gives us concerns eternity and our journey toward it.
Today, we must thank God from the bottom of our hearts for giving us the Christian faith. This faith means that "God out of the abundance of his love, speaks to men as friends and lives among them so that he may invite and take them into fellowship with himself," as Vatican II puts it. He did not put us on earth and leave us on our own with nowhere to go except to the grave. He sent his beloved Son on earth. He made us heirs to heaven and left to us, in his Church, all the instruction and aids we need to reach our inheritance. The unbelievers and free-thinkers may feel that they are free to do what they will here on earth, but we know that we have been given the freedom of the children of God for all eternity, if only we live according to the faith given us.
—Excerpted from The Sunday Readings by Fr. Kevin O'Sullivan, O.F.M.
From catholicculture.com
