Gospel of Saint John 6, 22-29

Today in the Gospel we have seen how people look for Jesus, the day after the multiplication of the bread. But Jesus has to blame them that the motivation for this search is superficial: «you are looking for me, not because you have seen signs, but because you ate bread until you were satisfied.» They stay with the fact, but they don’t get to the message. Like the Samaritan woman who craved water from the well, when Jesus spoke to her about other water.

With his miracles, Jesus wants people to grasp his person, his mystery, his mission. «That they believe in the one that God has sent.» It is admirable, throughout the Gospel, to see how Jesus, despite the shortness of his listeners, leads them patiently towards true faith: «I am the light», «I am the life», «I am the Shepherd». Here, starting from the bread that they have eaten with pleasure, he will help them to believe in his affirmation: «I am the bread that gives eternal life.»

Reflection

As Jesus, with pedagogy and patience, led people to faith in him, starting from merely human desires – the bread to satisfy hunger, the human and political messianism that Saint Peter sought -, we too should help to our brothers, young and old, to come to understand how Jesus is God’s answer to all our desires and values. Searching for Jesus because he multiplies human bread is weak, but it is a starting point. The man of today, although perhaps not consciously, seeks happiness, security, life and truth. Like the people of Capernaum, he is quite bewildered, searching and finding no answer to the meaning of his life.

There is good will in many people. What they need is someone to help them. Sometimes they have a poor conception of the Christian faith, out of fear or out of a mere sense of precept, or out of interest: some seek God for the favors they expect from him, without seeking him himself. If we Christians, with our word and our works, help and evangelize them, they can come to understand that the answer is called Jesus, and from human and outdated bread they will be able to come to appreciate the Bread that is Christ and the Bread that He gives us, Christ.

We, who frequently celebrate the Holy Eucharist, already know how to distinguish well between human bread and the Eucharistic Bread, which is the saving Flesh of Christ. This awareness should lead us to a journey lived much more decisively in following that Christ Jesus who is both our food and our Master of life.

Fr. Antony Majeesh George Kallely, OFM