The blog follows the daily Bible readings of the Catholic Church

 Reading 1, Acts 7:51—8:1

51 ‘You stubborn people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears. You are always resisting the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. 52 Can you name a single prophet your ancestors never persecuted? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Upright One, and now you have become his betrayers, his murderers. 53 In spite of being given the Law through angels, you have not kept it.’

 54 They were infuriated when they heard this, and ground their teeth at him.

 55 But Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at God’s right hand.

 56 ‘Look! I can see heaven thrown open,’ he said, ‘and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.’

 57 All the members of the council shouted out and stopped their ears with their hands; then they made a concerted rush at him, 58 thrust him out of the city and stoned him. The witnesses put down their clothes at the feet of a young man called Saul. 59 As they were stoning him, Stephen said in invocation, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’

 60 Then he knelt down and said aloud, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ And with these words he fell asleep.

 1 Saul approved of the killing. That day a bitter persecution started against the church in Jerusalem, and everyone except the apostles scattered to the country districts of Judaea and Samaria.

Gospel, John 6:30-35

30 So they said, ‘What sign will you yourself do, the sight of which will make us believe in you? What work will you do? 31 Our fathers ate manna in the desert; as scripture says: He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’

 32 Jesus answered them: In all truth I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, it is my Father who gives you the bread from heaven, the true bread; 33 for the bread of God is the bread which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

34 ‘Sir,’ they said, ‘give us that bread always.’

 35 Jesus answered them: I am the bread of life. No one who comes to me will ever hunger; no one who believes in me will ever thirst.

a one-dimensional world?

 Both these stories turn on the belief that the world is not one dimensional. Our society allows all sorts of perspectives on life, it is an open multi-cultural, all-inclusive society where no one belief can claim priority over another. But is also closed: there is nothing outside the measurable world. In the Acts story, Stephen’s bold speech ends in a this- worldly defeat: he is stoned to death. But he believes in another dimension in which Jesus stands beside God, which gives him courage and comfort.

 Even religious belief can be exclusive and one dimensional, as it is in Saul, whose bigoted faith wants to rub out any sign of contradiction.

 The crowd in John’s Gospel want Jesus to offer miracles as proof of his validity. Jesus asks them to see that the true miracle is the “Bread” that comes down from heaven, that is, from another dimension, from God, and gives life to the world. When they ask for this bread Jesus points to himself: in this world, he is not “of this world” but comes from God. He shatters the barriers between earth and heaven.

 We have to find bold and imaginative ways of speaking about the God dimension for the benefit of our society, but the most eloquent evidence is when we act on our vision, as Stephen did, and Jesus.