First Reading: A reading from the book of Proverbs Prov 9:1-6

Come and eat my bread, drink the wine I have prepared.

Wisdom has built herself a house, she has erected her seven pillars, she has slaughtered her beasts, prepared her wine, she has laid her table. She has despatched her maidservants and proclaimed from the city's heights: 'Who is ignorant? Let him step this way.' To the fool she says, 'Come and eat my bread, drink the wine I have prepared! Leave your folly and you will live, walk in the ways of perception.'

This is the word of the Lord

Second Reading: A reading from the Letter of St Paul to the Ephesians Eph 5:15-20

Be watchful that you may know the will of God.

Be very careful about the sort of lives you lead, like intelligent and not like senseless people. This may be a wicked age, but your lives should redeem it. And do not be thoughtless but recognise what is the will of the Lord. Do not drug yourselves with wine, this is simply dissipation; be filled with the Spirit. sing the words and tunes of the psalms and hymns when you are together, and go on singing and chanting to the Lord in your hearts, so that always and everywhere you are giving thanks to God who is our Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the word of the Lord.

Gospel Reading: A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John Jn 6:1-58

My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.

Jesus said to the crowd:

'I am the living bread which has come down from heaven.

Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world'. Then the Jews started arguing with one another: 'How can this man give us his flesh to eat?' they said. Jesus replied: 'I tell you most solemnly, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you. Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood live in me and I live in him.

As I, who am sent by the living Father, myself draw life from the Father, so whoever eats me will draw life from me. This is the bread come down heaven; not like the bread our ancestors ate: they are dead, but anyone who eats this bread will live forever'..

The Gospel of the Lord.

GOSPEL REFLECTION

In the Kairo’s there was an article by the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI for the world day of migrants and refugees 2012.

Dear friends let us invoke the intercession of Mary, Our Lady of the Way, so that the joyful proclamation of salvation in Jesus Christ may bring hope to the hearts of those who are on the move on the roads of the world. This title for Our Lady came from a tradition of iconography which shows the Mother of God holding the infant Jesus and showing him to us as “the way, the truth, and the life. An alternative translation of the title is ‘Our Lady of the road,” and because of this, “Our Lady of the Way,” is the patroness of all migrants and refugees who are ‘ON THE ROAD’ seeking a new home where they can live in safety, peace and prosperity. Our Lady of the Way also images the church, which walks alongside those who travel through life and points them the way to their eternal home.