Tuesday of the Third Week of Easter
April 21, 2026
Hello and welcome to the Word, bringing you the Good News of Jesus Christ every day from the Redemptorists of the Baltimore Province. I am Fr. Karl Esker from the Basilica of our Lady of Perpetual Help in Brooklyn, NY. Today is Tuesday of the Third Week of Easter.
Our reading today is taken from the holy gospel according to John.
The crowd said to Jesus: “What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”
So Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
So they said to Jesus, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”
The gospel of the Lord.
Homily
Today’s readings ask us to examine where our lives of faith are grounded. Are they grounded in the words and actions of Jesus or are they simply a set of practices with which we have become comfortable?
In the gospel the crowd asks Jesus for a sign to believe in him. Remember, Jesus had just fed the crowd with the five barley loaves and two fish the day before. But they wanted something like the manna which had accompanied their ancestors in the desert for forty years, which they called bread from heaven. Jesus tells them that the true bread from heaven is what God is prepared to give them now, which will not just sustain the body, but will give life to the world. Of course, the crowd responds asking him to give them this bread always. Jesus then says to them: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”
When we hear these words, we immediately think of receiving the body and blood of Christ in Holy Communion; but Jesus is not speaking just of the Eucharist. He is calling each of us to share in his way of being: to love as he loved, to forgive as he forgave, to relate to God as his beloved children and to see in others our brothers and sisters and bring them consolation and healing as he did. That is just as difficult for us today as it was for those listening to Jesus’ words. The bishop St. Augustine liked to tell his people: “become him whom you eat.”
One who did just that was Stephen, whom we hear about in today’s first reading. St. Luke tells us that Stephen was filled with the Holy Spirit and fearlessly proclaimed Jesus as the Lord and Savior promised by God through the prophets. This did not sit well with the elders and the scribes of the Jewish people. They thought they were done with Jesus by crucifying him, but Stephen accuses them not only of being blind to the law of God, but also of being in the line of those who murdered the prophets. He then proclaims Jesus not only as risen, but seated at the right hand of God. This was all too much for them. They threw Stephen out of the city and began to stone him.
In this moment of facing death, Stephen remained a faithful witness to Jesus. He shared Jesus’ way of being by his attitude toward his murderers: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And he died as Jesus did: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” A young man named Saul witnessed the stoning and may even have incited it; but I am sure he was affected by the manner of Stephen’s death, because when Jesus appeared to him on the way to Damascus, he was quickly converted.
The question for us is whether our lives witness to the power of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus? In a world where our Pope and bishops are being attacked by figures in authority who feel threatened by their preaching the gospel, may our way of living and speaking in and of Christ Jesus be a witness that can transform the world.
May God bless you.
Fr. Karl E. Esker CSsR
Basilica of our Lady of Perpetual Help
Brooklyn, NY
POWERED BY BLUBRRY
