Sometimes life can be difficult to face. The world can seem too threatening and rather than engaging it we simply want to withdraw and be untouched by all that is happening around us. But we do not give up because we hope and because we can ask for and receive help. And because we love and are loved, even if imperfectly.

Our human condition is known to Jesus. He knows our pain and has experienced loneliness, rejection, abandonment, persecution, the seeming futility of life, peoples' insatiable hunger and impossibility of pleasing everyone even some of the time. But he remained faithful to God's will. He hoped, asked and loved. And he trusted in God.

In the gospel verses today Jesus offers real food which will quench our hunger and thirst. Jesus offers himself to us as real nourishment. Rather than absorbing this food and making it a part of us, instead we are made part of the body of Christ. Through the bread of life we are strengthened to be the people we are called to be. In the gathered community we find strength and hope and a refocused vision of reality. We find the courage to live as a colony of God's Kingdom continuing what Jesus began.