Gospel (Jn 6,30-35) - At that time, the crowd said to Jesus: «What sign do you perform so that we see and believe you? What work do you do? Our fathers ate manna in the desert, as it is written: "He gave them bread from heaven to eat." Jesus answered them: «Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." Then they said to him, "Lord, always give us this bread." Jesus answered them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty!".

The commentary on the Gospel by Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia

“What must we do to do the works of God?” asks the crowd. Jesus had reproached the crowds for seeking only their own satisfaction. To their request, he responded by indicating only one necessary thing: believing in God's messenger. However, the crowd insisted. Perhaps they wanted Jesus to solve the food problem not only for the five thousand people who had benefited from the miracle, but for all the people of Israel as had happened at the time of the manna. To their insistence, Jesus replied that it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven, but "my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. Indeed, the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." But the hardness of the hearts and minds of the listeners did not allow them to grasp Jesus' words in depth. They continued to interpret them starting from themselves, from their needs, from their instincts. This happens to us too when we do not delve into the depths of the evangelical words because we listen to them starting from ourselves and not from what they really want to tell us. A "spiritual" reading of the Bible is necessary, a reading done in prayer and with the availability of the heart. Without prayer we risk having only ourselves in front of us and not the Lord speaking to us. Without the community of brothers, our “I” precludes us from the broad dialogue for which the Bible was written. At this point the crowd's request became correct: "Lord, always give us this bread". Jesus did not shy away from their request and, with even more evident clarity, told them: «I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will not be hungry and whoever believes in me will not be thirsty." It is a solemn and typical statement in the Gospel of John: it shows the divine origin of Jesus. Scrolling through the pages of the fourth Gospel we see that Jesus uses many concrete images to make us understand the greatness of his love for us: he is the true bread, the real life, the truth, the light, the door, the good shepherd, the true vine, the living water… it is the resurrection.