One Bread

Tuesday of the Third Week of Easter (School Mass)

Readings: Acts 7:51—8:1a / John 6:30-35

Have you ever made bread before?

It all starts with tiny little grains of wheat.

First, the farmers harvest them from the field.

Then a miller crushes the grains into a fine powder, called flour.

Then you add water and mix it all together until it becomes one lump of dough.

You add a little yeast to make it rise.

And finally, it goes into the oven.

When it comes out, it’s one warm, delicious loaf of bread.

That loaf is kind of like a picture of us.

We’re like those little grains. Each one of us is different, but Jesus brings us together and makes us one.

He gives us His Holy Spirit, the yeast, so we can grow in love.

And then, even when life is hard, like being in the oven, we know God is using it to make us stronger and better.

St. Stephen in the first reading shows us this.

Even when people were hurting him, he forgave them.

How? Because Jesus was living in him.

And today, Jesus says to us, “I am the Bread of Life.”

We’ll receive Him here at this altar, in the form of Bread, so that He can live in us and make us one family, one Body, with Him.

So today, let’s be like that dough, ready to grow, full of the Spirit, and made strong by Jesus’ love, always, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.