Stop The Murmuring: 19th Sunday_August 12, 2018 Have you ever received this text on your smartphone: “POS”? Probably not! Not unless you are a teen! Sometimes young people murmur against their parents when they block something the youth want to do. This text:”Parents over shoulder”, warns their friend to be careful of what they text. Parents have the wisdom of experience; they know the consequences of certain actions; “they have been there, done that”. Youth, on the other hand make judgments out of limited knowledge and a need to act on their own. Parents push young people to open themselves to deeper knowledge even though they’ve not yet had experience. In our Gospel today, Jesus pushes his hearers to go beyond their knowledge of him to a deeper experience of him. The Jews in the gospel have heard Jesus speak about himself as “the bread of life” but they cannot get beyond their limited knowledge of Jesus as the son of Joseph. For them, Jesus cannot be the living bread comer down from heaven. He commands them to stop their murmuring and open themselves to new knowledge and understanding about who he is. It is not an easy task to be faithful disciples, to live the gospel message. It is an ever more difficult task for ourselves to teach as Jesus did. If we are to be true to our call to discipleship, we need Jesus’ words of life to bring us hope and strength. Our challenge is not to get discouraged, but to hand ourselves over to the nourishment of word and sacrament that God offers us on our journey. That means we open ourselves to the mystery of who Jesus is as the Bread of Life. Adapted from PrayerTime: Faith-Sharing Reflections on the Sunday Gospels available at the RENEW International.