Thursday in the Third Week of Easter, April 23, 2026

John 6, 44-51

Jesus said to the crowds: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day. It is written in the prophets: “They shall all be taught by God.”  Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my Flesh for the life of the world.”

The Lord continues his teaching on himself as the Bread of Life.

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day.”  Having taught that all those who come to him are given to him by the Father, the Lord Jesus teaches that only those drawn by the Father may come to him.  The Father draws certain ones to his Son.  Another way to put it is that the Father’s will is that people might come to the Son, but only certain people respond to his grace — are “drawn” by his grace.  Each human receives sufficient grace to be drawn to the Son, but many refuse it.  Those who are drawn by the Father and so come to the Son will be raised up on the last day by him.  “They shall all be taught by God.”  The full passage the Lord quotes is, “All your children shall be taught of the Lord: and great shall be the peace of your children” (Isaiah 54, 13).  Using the verse, Jesus affirms that all people shall receive sufficient grace to be saved: all people will be offered the Father’s grace, but just like teaching, it can be rejected, no matter how profitable and attractive it is.

“Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.”  Here, the Lord Jesus speaks of those who follow the Jewish Law, but also those who follow the natural law written on our hearts.  Those who live righteously and seek the good shall be drawn to Jesus.  “Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father.”  That is, no matter how good a student a human is of the Father’s words, the Son has a unique relationship with the Father that cannot be approached.  Conversely, because of this relationship and the Son’s perfect alignment with the Father’s will, we can see the Father in him, as the Lord will explain to St. Philip at the last Supper when Philip asks Jesus to show the Apostles the Father: “He who sees me sees the Father also” (John 14, 9).

“Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.”  The use of “amen” signifies the presentation of a solemn teaching.  The doubling of the “amen” emphasizes the solemnity of the teaching.  Normally this Hebrew word means something like, “let it be done”, but in this context it could be understand by the word “truly”.  “Whoever believes”, that is, whoever believes in me has eternal life.  We should pause and consider what the members of the crowd were looking at: a man very much like themselves, dressed in ordinary clothes and who had not washed or slept in a few days, speaking to them with his ordinary voice, was telling them that if they believed in him, they would possess eternal life.  Perhaps they were not thinking of the miracles he had performed at this point.  It would seem that he, a plain man, as he appeared, was asking them to render the same belief in him as in Almighty God.

“I am the Bread of Life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the Bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die.”  He repeats that he is the Bread of Life, and in order to teach what that meant compares the Bread of Life to the manna in the Sinai desert.  Their ancestors had been fed miraculously, wondrously, with the manna that came down from heaven.  They were sustained by this manna for forty years when otherwise they would have perished from hunger.  But the Bread of Life would feed them, those present, and so convey eternal life to them.  “I am the living Bread that came down from heaven.”  Not only is he the Bread of Life, but this Bread is alive, which could not be said even of the manna.  Living Bread would surely nourish in greater ways than bread made of dead wheat.  This living Bread came down from heaven, from the Father.  The Father sent this Bread down to the people and was drawing people to it in order to eat it.  And, “whoever eats this Bread will live forever.”

“And the Bread that I will give is my Flesh for the life of the world.”  The Lord now speaks of his Flesh: the “bread” that he will give them to eat is in fact his own Flesh, but under the appearance of bread, “for the life of the world”.  In other words, he means to offer his Flesh in sacrifice for the salvation of the world.  In no way had the Pharisees prepared the people for a Savior of the world.  The Messiah, they taught, would save Israel and destroy its enemies, that is, the nations of the world.  Further, their teaching concerning the Messiah did not have him sacrificing his Flesh for anyone.  He was to come, overthrow the Romans, and rule.  The Lord Jesus is here teaching the crowd which had lately sought to make him king and March with him to Jerusalem, that he, the Messiah, was very different — vastly greater — than what they had been told.

Wednesday in the Third Week of Easter, April 22, 2026

John 6, 35-40

Jesus said to the crowds, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst. But I told you that although you have seen me, you do not believe. Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.”

Having established, through the miracle of the loaves and fish and his miraculous transportation to Capernaum, the Lord Jesus has established for the crowd that God’s favor rests upon him.  And so he speaks to them in a way that he will not speak again on earth except at the Last Supper: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”  He does not say, “I am as though the bread of life” but “I am the bread of life.”  St. John is the only Evangelist who does not show Jesus telling parables, and it could be because he wants to make it absolutely clear to his readers that the Lord is not speaking in parables now.  We who have heard this passage many times and come to it already as believers should try to imagine how the members of the crowd heard these words.  No one had ever spoken like this: no prophet, no patriarch, no lawgiver.  Jesus elaborates: “whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”  The crowd must have grown silent upon hearing this.  We can hear their thoughts, though: “Who are you?” (John 8, 25).

“Although you have seen me, you do not believe.”  Jesus means that although they see him here where he could not have come naturally, since he did not go with the Apostles on the boat and he could not have walked here in time, they still do not believe his words.  He has demonstrated divine power and they do not believe what he tells them.

“Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me.”  The Greek word is rightly translated here as “everything” because it is in the neuter.  Still, the Lord would seem to mean “everyone”.  Those who come to him, then, are given him by the Father.  It is staggering to think about that.  You and I who have gone to the Lord Jesus have done so because the Father gave us to him.  The Lord will reject no one who comes to him because the Father has given them to him.  He does this out of obedience to the Father: “Because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me.”  We can feel secure in our belonging to Christ because the Father has given us to him and he will keep us with him out of his obedient love for the Father.  Furthermore, “This is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me.”  He will neither reject out of malice nor lose out of carelessness anyone given him by the Father.  “But that I should raise it on the last day.”  “It”, that is, “him”.  The Lord Jesus keeps those whom the Father gives him in order to raise them up on the last day.  The Jews already had a concept of a “last day” at the time Jesus walked the earth.  It was derived from the Prophet Malachi’s “great and dreadful day of the Lord” (Malachi 4, 5).  Some believed it would be a day of judgment or simply the day when the just would be raised by the Messiah into heaven.  The Lord speaks in detail of this day in Matthew 25.

“This is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life.”  The Lord speaks over and over of the Father’s will.  His own will is only to do the Father’s will, showing us how we should direct our own wills.  If even the Son does this, so much more we should strive to do this.  The Lord says “everyone who sees the Son”, that is, to understand who the Son is, and then also believes in him, “may have eternal life”.  Notice how this goes far beyond anything the Jews were promised for obeying their Law.  They were promised prosperity on the earth for keeping the tenets of the Law.  But to gain eternal life, they would have to believe in Jesus as the Son of God.  Preposterous, but for the miracles he had performed to validate his claims.  “And I shall raise him on the last day.”  Thus, “having” eternal life meant enjoying it not here in this world but in heaven with the angels.

Tuesday in the Third Week of Easter, April 21, 2026

John 6, 30-35

The crowd said to Jesus: “What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” 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. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” So they said to Jesus, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”  

Some governors are planning to “reopen” their states in the next week or few weeks.  (One day, I guess, we will get into the constitutionality of how a governor can order a “lockdown” or “quarantine” of his state without declaring martial law).  Whatever happens here in the Diocese of Arlington depends on the bishop.  My thought is that the diocese will reopen fully when it does reopen, rather than in steps, as some governors are saying for their states.  Governors want to tell restaurants, for instance, that they can only take so many customers at a time, but it is not practical for a Catholic church to do this.  How would it manage this?  Post signs out front for when the church is deemed “full”?  Or take reservations for a given Sunday Mass over the phone?  Allow inside the church only officially registered members of the parish?  Anything short of opening up in a fully “back to normal” mode isn’t really practical.  

The Gospel reading for today’s Mass ought to be compared to the account of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, which John describes in  his Gospel, in 4, 5-42.  The two accounts are strikingly similar, and I think John is careful to highlight their similarities.  In the first case, the Lord speaks of water to the woman, and in the second he speaks of bread to a crowd.  The Lord begins with the human need for water or for bread.  The woman and the crowd express their desire for the water or bread of which the Lord speaks, which he promises them will be completely satisfying.  The Lord then teaches that the water and bread of this world, which we must have in order to live, are but signs of the heavenly water and heavenly bread which confer eternal life.  Jesus insists and clarifies so that no doubt can remain for either the woman or the crowd as to what he means.  The Samaritan woman responds by rejoicing and running to tell the people of her town about Jesus.  The crowd of the Jews walks no more with him.  The outcast Samaritan believes;  the children of Israel lose their initial faith.  

In the reading before us, the Jews demand a sign so that they may believe.  This, although they have just received (and eaten) a splendid sign.  Realizing that Jesus has just made clear that he considers himself greater than Moses, the crowd brings up the sign of the Manna that came down from heaven for their ancestors to eat while they wandered in the wilderness.  It is as though they are saying, You indeed fed us a little while ago, but so did Moses feed our ancestors: you may possibly be as great as Moses, but you are not so much greater that you can tell us to believe in you.  Jesus then tells them that he himself is the true Manna that came down from heaven.

In his recounting, John, writing in Greek, gives us the Hebrew word “manna” that Jesus used on this occasion.  He does not try to translate this word into Greek.  He shows his wisdom in not doing this because “manna” does not mean “bread” or “food” or anything like that.  “Manna” is actually a question.  Translated from the Hebrew, the word means “What is it”.   It is actually not a description or a label but a question.  And the Hebrews who first saw and ate it did not know what it was, either (cf. Exodus 16, 15).  It was beyond their realm of experience.  Jesus, identifying himself as the bread that comes down from heaven, answers the question, What is it? The manna itself was a sign for the reality that would come in due time.  Moses and the manna, as great as they were, served as signs for the Lord Jesus.  (Matthew, in his Gospel, is particularly insistent on Jesus as the true Moses).  The sign, then, that the Jews seek from Jesus was given long ago, and what Jesus does is to show the Jews that the time for signs has come to an end, that a new and final age has arrived.  The majority of the Jews rejected his claims and the proofs of his claims, no matter how great.  But the Gentiles, signified by the Samaritan woman, received him with joy.  

We see how precious the gift of faith is, and how the simplest faith can lead a person to the waters of baptism, and to the Food of eternal life.  The woman, who was still thirsty when she hurriedly left the well,, received faith.  The Jews, with their full bellies, rejected it.

Monday in the Third Week of Easter, April 20, 2026

John 6, 22-29

[After Jesus had fed the five thousand men, his disciples saw him walking on the sea.] The next day, the crowd that remained across the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not gone along with his disciples in the boat, but only his disciples had left. Other boats came from Tiberias near the place where they had eaten the bread when the Lord gave thanks. When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus. And when they found him across the sea they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Jesus answered them and said, “Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him the Father, God, has set his seal.” So they said to him, “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.”

Many of the crowd that the Lord had fed with the bread and fish slept overnight in the field where he had fed them.  As this event had occurred in the Spring, which we know because St. John told us that this was done near Passover, the weather would have cooperated with temperate weather.  But they did not retire until after they had seen the Apostles push off in their boat.  Their descent from the mountain would have been noticed, as would the Lord’s absence from the group.  Only after it had grown very late and dark did the Lord steal down the mountain to walk across the water.  When the sun rose, the people saw that no boat had come back for Jesus, but evidently Jesus had departed.  They waited some hours for him in case he had remained on the mountain, but after a time they gave up and themselves left, many of them on boats that were then arriving, but many others making their way around the sea on foot.  They all headed for Capernaum, where the Lord had taken up residence in the house of Peter and Andrew.

“Rabbi, when did you get here?”  They did not know that he had walked across the sea but they sensed that he had come there by miraculous means.  The Lord does not answer their question for this sign was meant exclusively for the Apostles while the sign of the feeding of the five thousand was meant for the Apostles as well as for the crowd.  The feeding shows his love of the people and also his limitless ability to care for them.  His walking on the water shows the Apostles his divinity, for while Elijah performed a miracle involving the multiplication of food, he did nothing like that.  The Apostles, though, seeing Jesus and hearing him call our to them would have recalled these words from the Book of Job: “Then the Lord answered Job out of a whirlwind” (Job 38, 1), and then the words of God, addressed to Job, who represents the human race: “Have you entered into the depths of the sea, and walked in the lowest parts of the deep?” (Job 38, 16).

“Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled.”  The Lord makes no accusation but simply states the fact.  He does this in lieu of answering their question.  “Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”  The Lord now takes up the subject on which he will spend some time speaking: that his Body was the Bread that they should eat and which would satisfy them forever.  The Lord is saying, You are hungry again and this is why you came back to me.  The bread you consumed last night is of the earth and only satisfies for a short time.  I can give you Bread that will satisfy you forever.  This is very much like his words to the Samaritan woman at the well: “Whosoever drinks of this water shall thirst again: but he that shall drink of the water that I will give him shall not thirst for ever” (John 4, 13).  In the case of the water the Lord generally, of grace.  Here he speaks particularly, of his Body.

“What can we do to accomplish the works of God?”  This is the great question each of us must ask God in prayer: What can I do to accomplish your work, O God?  Here, the people ask Jesus for direction.  We should keep in mind that they believed that he was the political Messiah and so they expected him to preach againsty the Romans and urge them to arm themselves for the coming rebellion which he would lead.  “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.”  They did not expect this answer, and their unhappiness with his answer underlies their reaction to everything the Lord says afterwards about his Body being real food and his Blood being real drink.  But this was the answer their Messiah gave them and if they truly believed in him, they would have taken hold of any answer he gave to their question.  But he had essentially told them that the work of the Messiah was nothing so little as the redemption of Israel.  They were to believe in him, the one God had sent.  This is where their salvation lay, not in feats of arms.

When we eat and drink our ordinary human food we ought to think of how the Lord continuously nourishes us with grace so that we can believe, we can hope, we can love.  We take such things as eating and drinking for granted in our society but let us not fall into taking God’s grace for granted.

The Third Sunday of Easter, April 19, 2026

Luke 24, 13–35

That very day, the first day of the week, two of Jesus’ disciples were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred. And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. He asked them, “What are you discussing as you walk along?” They stopped, looking downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?” And he replied to them, “What sort of things?” They said to him, “The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over to a sentence of death and crucified him. But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel; and besides all this, it is now the third day since this took place. Some women from our group, however, have astounded us: they were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his body; they came back and reported that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who announced that he was alive. Then some of those with us went to the tomb and found things just as the women had described, but him they did not see.” And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the Scriptures. As they approached the village to which they were going, he gave the impression that he was going on farther. But they urged him, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?” So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the eleven and those with them who were saying, “The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!” Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of bread.

One thing to think about here is that the two men left Jerusalem even after they had heard the reports of the women that they had seen a vision of angels who announced that the Lord Jesus was alive.  The fact that the tomb had been opened was verified by the Apostles.  These men did not wait to find out more or to see what would happen next.  That they had no pressing need to return to Emmaus at that time is made clear through their swift return to Jerusalem after they knew that they had seen Jesus.  Were they lacking at least in curiosity?  Was their disappointment in the Lord’s Death so severe that they felt they had to leave Jerusalem?  But they did not leave right away; they waited until late afternoon.  They must not have stayed with the Apostles during that time, though, for when they return, they are told that the Lord had appeared to Peter, which they had not known before they left.

Another thing to consider is this: why did the travelers to Emmaus think to run back to Jerusalem?  What urged them on to return?  Their experience seems to have filled them with so much excitement that they had to share it with those most likely to understand and share it.  Their experience also would confirm the reports of the women who had seen the angels and it would make sense of the incredible fact that the tomb had been opened and no one could explain how.

“Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?”  The question Cleopas asks the Lord, not knowing that he was the Lord, tells us of how wrapped up Cleopas and his friend were in the events of Holy Week.  Jesus was their whole world.  Estimates of the population of Jerusalem during the life of Jesus range from 20,000-40,000 people, swelling to ten times that number during festivals such as the Passover.  Much could happen in a city of this size that would not be known to most of its inhabitants, especially during holy days.

“Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe.”  In the Old Testament, a “fool” was one who did not have God before his eyes: “The fool has said in his heart: There is no God” (Psalm 14, 1).  Jesus calls them “fools” (literally, “O foolish men and slow of heart”) because even after his miracles and preaching, they still thought of him merely as “the one to redeem Israel”, that is, to fight the Romans.  They were thinking of him not in spiritual terms but in material terms, for they thought of nothing in spiritual terms.

“He was made known to them in the breaking of bread.”  Luke points out the realization of the Lord’s very real appearance by the two disciples in their supper as a sign of the Lord’s very real appearance on the altar during Holy Mass, which was sometimes called “the breaking of the bread” at the time.

We ought to give thanks to our almighty Lord who appears to us today, who fills us with his grace, who speaks to us through the Gospels, and who longs to greet us in heaven.

Saturday in the Second Week of Easter, April 18, 2026

John 6, 16-21

When it was evening, the disciples of Jesus went down to the sea, embarked in a boat, and went across the sea to Capernaum. It had already grown dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea was stirred up because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they began to be afraid. But he said to them, “It is I. Do not be afraid.” They wanted to take him into the boat, but the boat immediately arrived at the shore to which they were heading.

“When it was evening, the disciples of Jesus went down to the sea.”  This episode takes place after Jesus fed the five thousand and then hid on the mountain so that the people could not seize him and carry him off to make him king.  The Apostles must have found Jesus on the mountain or perhaps the crowd began to break up and he was able to show himself to them in order to instruct them to cross over the sea to Capernaum in their boat.  They would have assumed that he would rejoin them later, crossing the sea in one of the other boats which members of the crowd had used to come to him.  

“It had already grown dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them.”  This is a verse to which all of us can relate: some darkness has come into our lives and we have prayed and were awaiting a response from the Lord but it has not come and it feels like it will not come in time: “The sea was stirred up because a strong wind was blowing.”  “When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they began to be afraid.”  The location where the Lord had fed the crowd to Capernaum, through the Sea of Galilee, comes to about seven miles, so they had traveled halfway.  In other words, miles separated them from the safety of the coast as the winds blew hard and the sea swelled.  But what caused them fear was the sight of Jesus walking on the water.  They must have seen him in the moonlight as it peeked out through breaks in the clouds.  He came near enough to them so that they could make out the figure of a man walking on the water but not so near that they knew who it was.  In Matthew 14, 26, the Evangelist recalls that they thought he was a ghost.  For the Apostles, the stormy conditions and the appearance of a ghost meant their doom and we can excuse them if they began to panic.  We should try to imagine the scene: the wind howling, the darkness, the heaving water, the bounding boat, the scattered moonlight, the figure of a man walking nearby on the water.  He would have appeared to him as very darkened with his clothes whipping about.  He does not struggle to walk, however, but comes across the water as though traversing an open field.  His calmness clashed with the desperation the Apostles were starting to feel.  He must have seemed like an executioner, axe in hand, approaching them, trapped in their jail cell; or as a harbinger of their imminent extinction.

“It is I. Do not be afraid.”  The Lord called out to them in a loud voice, and they knew at once that it was his.  They would have called back to him to come into their boat and they would have tried to row to him, but then another miracle occurred and “the boat immediately arrived at the shore to which they were heading.”  In an instant they were transported from danger in the middle of the sea to the shore, where they could tie up their boat and rest.  The Lord answers our prayers and his good time and when it is best for us for him to do so.  And his answer is better than what we could have imagined praying for.

Friday in the Second Week of Easter, April 17, 2026

John 6, 1-15

Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee. A large crowd followed him, because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick. Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. The Jewish feast of Passover was near. When Jesus raised his eyes and saw that a large crowd was coming to him, he said to Philip, “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?” He said this to test him, because he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?” Jesus said, “Have the people recline.” Now there was a great deal of grass in that place. So the men reclined, about five thousand in number. Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were reclining, and also as much of the fish as they wanted. When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples, “Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.” So they collected them, and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat. When the people saw the sign he had done, they said, “This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.” Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain alone.

“Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee.”  Previous to writing about the feeding of the five thousand, John the Apostle had written of the Lord disputing with the Jews in Jerusalem, so his appearance now in Galilee comes abruptly.  “Across the sea” may indicate its eastern side, south of Bethsaida, a little fishing town on the coast.  Here John calls the freshwater lake of the region “the Sea of Galilee”, although he will call it “the Sea of Tiberias” at another time.

“A large crowd followed him, because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick.”  The crowd followed him across or around the sea “because they saw the signs he was performing”, and not to be cured themselves.  They wanted to see more signs, or learn more about the man who had performed them.  Some may have connected the miracles with the possibility that this man was the Messiah.  “Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples.”  He may have gone up the mountain soon after arriving “across the Sea of Galilee” in order to pray or to teach his disciples.  The crowd would have come not all at once but in small groups.  They saw him leave on the boat and knew what direction it was heading so they could estimate it’s destination.  Then some of the people who had gathered to hear him got into boats and followed him, and some went the long way around the coast.

“The Jewish feast of Passover was near.”  John has a reason for word he writes.  He gives the time of the feeding of the five thousand in order to connect it to the Passover on which the Lord would feed his Apostles the Bread of Life.  

“He said this to test him, because he himself knew what he was going to do.”  The Lord often tested the Apostles in their understanding of his teaching and in their faith.  He prepared them for the testing they would undergo after they went out to the world to preach the Gospel.  “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.”  Philip does some quick math here.  He is a practical, literal minded man and does not see what could be done for the crowd.  He also does not ask Jesus what he proposes to do, since it is his idea that something should be done.  He does not connect the people in the wilderness with Moses and the people in the wilderness with Jesus.  God fed the people with manna and there was enough for everyone to eat as much as they wanted.  He does not wonder what Jesus will do.  “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?”  likewise, Andrew fails to make the connection that as God fed the people with manna, so Jesus would feed the people now.  

“Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were reclining, and also as much of the fish as they wanted.”  He distributed them through the Apostles, employing them as “ministers”, from the Latin word originally meaning “attendants” or “waiters”.  Jesus makes the abundance, the Apostles serve it.  “Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.”  The Greek word translated here as “wasted” means “lost” or “destroyed”.  The Lord did not want the leftover pieces of bread and fish to be lost.  He had given thanks to the Father for them and so they must be saved and put to good use.  Perhaps they were brought to the nearby town of Bethsaida for the poor there to eat.  Certainly Jesus did not cause them to be collected in baskets simply to be left there in the wilderness.  The amount of food leftover, which everyone in the crowd could see in the baskets, far exceeded what there had been to begin with.  It was an astounding miracle.  In fact, it impressed the Evangelists so much that all four of them include the story of this miraculous feeding in their Gospels.  It is the only one of the Lord’s miracles found in all the Gospels.

“This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.”  The people here recognize Jesus as the successor of Moses, who had asked God to feed the people, and who promised them a Prophet: “The Lord your God will raise up to you a Prophet of your nation and of your brethren like unto me [Moses]: him you shall hear . . . And the Lord said to me: I will raise them up a Prophet out of the midst of their brethren like to you: and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him” (Deuteronomy 18, 15; 17-18).  “Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain alone.”  The crowd equated the Prophet promised by God as the Messiah who would restore Israel, and so they were determined to make him their king, possibly swearing their loyalty to him and marching with him on to Jerusalem.  The Lord does not attempt to argue with the crowd but goes to the upper reaches of the mountain by himself.  It was enough for now that they understood him to be greater than Moses.  He would teach them again, soon, and reveal to him exactly who he was.