If it is true that peace and freedom are seldom found together, that is surely because we live in a fallen world – a world that is not as God intended. In today’s Gospel, Jesus has just worked the miracle of feeding the 5,000 with just 5 small loaves. He did this at the time of the Passsover – the festival of freedom, marking the Israelites’ liberation from the Egyptians. Now Jesus warns the people not to follow Him simply because He had provided them with all the bread they wanted to eat. The peace that comes from a full stomach is not a lasting peace. Though we all need food, there is more to life, more to being human, than our material needs. Jesus teaches us them that they should work for food that will last. What is this food? Where can they find it? Jesus offers himself as the bread of God, come down from heaven. He is the one who is able to give life, able to answer deepest longings and needs of the human heart: our hunger for love, our desire for freedom, our longing for security and to live without fear.