[28] So they said to him, "What can we do to accomplish the works of God?" [29] Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent." [30] So they said to him, "What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do? [31] Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" [32] 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. [33] For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."
(CCC 2835) This petition, with the responsibility it involves, also applies to another hunger from which men are perishing: "Man does not live by bread alone, but . . . by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Deut 8:3; Mt 4:4), that is, by the Word he speaks and the Spirit he breathes forth. Christians must make every effort "to proclaim the good news to the poor." There is a famine on earth, "not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD" (Am 8:11). For this reason the specifically Christian sense of this fourth petition concerns the Bread of Life: the Word of God accepted in faith, the Body of Christ received in the Eucharist (Cf. Jn 6:26-58). (CCC 698) The seal is a symbol close to that of anointing. "The Father has set his seal" on Christ and also seals us in him (Jn 6:27; cf. 2 Cor 1:22; Eph 1:13; 4:30). Because this seal indicates the indelible effect of the anointing with the Holy Spirit in the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders, the image of the seal (sphragis) has been used in some theological traditions to express the indelible "character" imprinted by these three unrepeatable sacraments. (CCC 1296) Christ himself declared that he was marked with his Father's seal (Cf. Jn 6:27). Christians are also marked with a seal: "It is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has commissioned us; he has put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee" (2 Cor 1:21-22; cf. Eph 1:13; 4, 30). This seal of the Holy Spirit marks our total belonging to Christ, our enrollment in his service for ever, as well as the promise of divine protection in the great eschatological trial (Cf. Rev 7:2-3; 9:4; Ezek 9:4-6). (CCC 728) Jesus does not reveal the Holy Spirit fully, until he himself has been glorified through his Death and Resurrection. Nevertheless, little by little he alludes to him even in his teaching of the multitudes, as when he reveals that his own flesh will be food for the life of the world (Cf. Jn 6:27, 51, 62-63). He also alludes to the Spirit in speaking to Nicodemus (Cf. Jn 3:5-8), to the Samaritan woman (Cf. Jn 4:10, 14, 23-24), and to those who take part in the feast of Tabernacles (Cf. Jn 7:37-39). To his disciples he speaks openly of the Spirit in connection with prayer (Cf. Lk 11:13) and with the witness they will have to bear (Cf. Mt 10:19-20).
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