The Nazareth Page  - A gospel meditation for your home

June 7, 2026 – Corpus Christi  - John 6:51-58

REFLECTION QUESTIONS:
Download this simple process to Prepare for Sunday using the Observe, Judge, Act Method

The longer I live, the more I am absolutely astounded and grateful by the realty and gift of life, especially my own. While this fascination begins with an increased awareness of my own life, it certainly doesn’t end there. I look around me and see life everywhere. I see life in the air I breathe. On the Earth I walk. I even see it on display in the movement of shoppers at Costco. Life is found across every surface of our planet, even in the vastness of the ocean depths.

The most pressing question in astronomy these days is whether there is life anywhere else, given that there are literally billions of places where life might exist. Even intelligent life. We haven’t found life anywhere else than on Mother Earth. The odds favor extraterrestrial life. Why would God create so may places otherwise?

Coming back down to Earth, I am in awe of the abundance of living creatures, trillions of them, that are virtually everywhere we move. I am especially filled with wonder, that here on Earth, we thinking, feeling and creative creatures have accomplished so much in service of the life we have been given.  Of course, there is an opposite contrasting story, but here let’s just be grateful for the positives.

Today we are invited to affirm God’s presence with us in the person, the body of Jesus Christ. We are also drawn to think about the presence of Jesus as continued in our own lives being enriched and nourished through the gift of the Eucharist. There we receive Jesus, whole and entire, in the sacramental forms of bread and wine. This reality of Christ among us creates the miracle of our bodily existence being supported, fed and transformed by the resurrected Jesus. He becomes part of us and we become part of him.

I have also grown in my awareness of the precariousness of life, especially human life. Currently our planet is being attacked by the Ebola virus, a deadly invader taking victims wherever it goes. Most of us recall the million victims of the COVID virus in this country alone. In other words, the gift of life is not to be taken for granted.

But the same holds true for that deeper gift of life that is ours shown especially through the coming among us of Jesus who promises us eternal life. He offers himself for us to us. Abundantly so.

David M. Thomas, PhD