Wednesday of the Third Week of Easter, May 7, 2025

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.”

Jesus said to the crowds, “I am the Bread of life.”  In verses 32-34 of his sixth chapter, John quotes the Lord as saying, “Amen, amen, I say to you; Moses gave you not bread from heaven, but 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.”  And then he quoted the crowd as responding, “Lord, give us always this bread.”  Jesus uses the phrase “Amen, amen” four times in this particular encounter.  Like “manna”, of which we spoke yesterday, this is a Hebrew word, and it is as difficult to satisfactorily translate.  “Amen” here means something like “truly” or “indeed”, but with greater force.  The word is repeated in the phrase because this was how one applied extra emphasis in the Hebrew language, such as the title “The Song of Songs” means “the greatest song”.  Jesus uses this phrase in order to pronounce sacred doctrine.  In the present case, he declares that it was the Father giving the manna to the people through Moses.  Jesus says, “Moses gave you not bread from heaven”, that is, the ancestors of the people to whom he was speaking (for to the ancient Semitic     Mind, you yourself are your ancestors and your your descendants); and then he says, “My Father gives you [note the change to the present tense] the true Bread from heaven.”  Jesus again puts himself in the place of the revered Moses, who mediated between God and the Hebrews.  Jesus then makes clear what this new Manna, which will come through this new Moses, will do: “For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”  As the first manna, given through the first Moses, provided nourishment for their ancestors in the otherwise barren wilderness, so this new Manna, given through Jesus, the new Moses, will confer eternal life.  The crowd sees what Jesus is doing and, with the recent miracle of power of the loaves and fishes in mind, they respond, “Lord, give us always this bread.”

It is at this point that the Lord says, “I am the Bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”  Jesus is claiming to be much more than a new Moses.  If Moses was the waiter, then Jesus is both the waiter and the meal besides!  And the meal he promises is more than that which will sustain life in the wilderness of this world, but will offer eternal life in heaven.  This evidently gave the road pause.  John does not record their words to what the Lord has just said, or whether a considerable silence ensued, in which the members of the crowd each considered if he had heard right.  We get the sense of their reactions from what the Lord says next: “But I told you that although you have seen me, you do not believe.”  This sounds a bit odd in the context, almost as if it is the answer to an objection someone makes that John does not write down.  But the gist is, “You have seen the many works I have performed, including how I fed you with a few fish and loaves, and so you should believe what I tell you for their sake, but you do not.  I have established my credentials for you with these signs, but you balk at accepting the teaching I give.  What more can I do?”

The Lord then speaks of how greatly the Father desires all people to be saved. “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me.”  This is not a  mere statement.  It is a heart-felt plea.  It is a plea that echoed through the ages, delivered by the Patriarchs, Moses, the Judges, and the Prophets, and finally by the Son.  It is a plea that rings out to us from the Tabernacle and the Altar: Come to me!  How do we do this? “That everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life.”  We see him vividly in our faith and believe in him with all of our heart, and carry out his loving commandments with gratitude for having them.   

Tuesday in the Third Week of Easter, May 6, 2025

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.”  

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, May 5, 2025

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.”

The answer Jesus gave to the crowd here is not what they could have anticipated.  “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?” is an ancient question.  People had crossed vast distances to ask this of the ancient oracles which spoke on behalf of the gods.  Among the ancient Jews, the Hebrews had gone to their Judges and Prophets, appointed by God, to know how to serve him in the particular circumstances of their lives.  With the coming of Moses and the Law, anyone could learn what it was that God required.  But when Jesus says to the crowd which he has taken possession of by feeding it, “Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life,” he is telling them that the law of Moses does not suffice or anything more than for living on “the earth”.  That is to say, it can only be a preparation for eternal life — important in this way, but still nothing more than that.  Jesus announces that the food “that endures for eternal life” is given by himself alone.  He is making a staggering statement.  He is declaring that he is greater than Moses, and the law he teaches surpasses the holy Mosaic law.  He has already done this in sign for them: Jesus took the woefully insufficient food available from the unnamed young man, and from this provided a superabundance of food, such that when the remnants were collected, even they greatly exceeded the original amount.  Jesus, in effect, took the old law which took care of the earthly needs of the Jewish people and transformed it, by his blessing and power, into a “quantity” so great that it could be shared with all others (the meaning of the collected remnants) and of a quality which filled not just the Hewish belly but indeed the human soul.  This is accomplished by Jesus alone, and distributed to the members of the crowd only by his Apostles.  When Jesus commands them now not to work for the food “that perishes” “but for the food that endures for eternal life”, he instructs the people that he will provide the work that leads to the food, and the work that he gives them is no more or less than this, “That you believe in the one he sent”, namely, in him.  In showing himself as the perfection, the fulfillment, of the old law he makes a staggering claim: that he is greater than Moses and the old law at least to the extent that the food he provided for five thousand men (and more besides) exceeded the original amount pointed out by Andrew his Apostle.  Jesus goes further than any pronouncement of Moses, for Moses had said of the law, “Do this and you will live,” but never said, Believe in me.  Jesus explicitly tells the people, Believe in me.  Believe in whom, though?  In the carpenter from Nazareth (not even from Judah, the home of the “real” Jews)?  Throughout the course of chapter six of St. John’s Gospel, Jesus insists on this and reveals that he is the Manna that came down out of heaven from the Father.  

The Lord puts his commandment in very simple terms and very few words, almost as though he is presenting a plain and simple meal of a few fish and loaves of bread.  But what he demands is momentous and would yield more than any of the folks assembled that day were able to imagine.  Jesus offers tremendous proofs of his claims, from raising a dead man to life, to raising himself to life after a most destructive death.  For many, no proof could ever be enough.  For others, leaving all behind — the Jewish law, their families, their livelihoods — it was and is the beginning of life without end.

The Third Sunday of Easter, May 4, 2025

John 21, 1–19

At that time, Jesus revealed himself again to his disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. He revealed himself in this way. Together were Simon Peter, Thomas called Didymus, Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, Zebedee’s sons, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We also will come with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. When it was already dawn, Jesus was standing on the shore; but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Children, have you caught anything to eat?” They answered him, “No.” So he said to them, “Cast the net over the right side of the boat and you will find something.” So they cast it, and were not able to pull it in because of the number of fish. So the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord.” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he tucked in his garment, for he was lightly clad, and jumped into the sea. The other disciples came in the boat, for they were not far from shore, only about a hundred yards, dragging the net with the fish. When they climbed out on shore, they saw a charcoal fire with fish on it and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you just caught.” So Simon Peter went over and dragged the net ashore full of one hundred fifty-three large fish. Even though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come, have breakfast.” And none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they realized it was the Lord. Jesus came over and took the bread and gave it to them, and in like manner the fish. This was now the third time Jesus was revealed to his disciples after being raised from the dead.  When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He then said to Simon Peter a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” Jesus said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was distressed that Jesus had said to him a third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” He said this signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when he had said this, he said to him, “Follow me.”

St. John’s recollections of the events after the Lord’s Resurrection very prominently feature St. Peter.  On Easter Sunday morning, probably while the Apostles were still asleep, Mary Magdalene came rushing to the house where they were staying and told them about the stone rolled back from the tomb.  It was Peter and John who ran to see for themselves, and they came away believing, though not understanding very well.  An implicit contrast is shown when the Lord appears to the Apostles the Sunday afterwards, when St. Thomas was present.  The Lord declared, “Blessed are they that have not seen and have believed” (John 20, 19).  That is, Peter’s faith is greater than his because he believed even before he saw the Lord again.  In the Gospel Reading for today’s Mass, Peter takes the initiative and goes fishing, once again in Galilee, in order to feed the Apostles.  Following his lead, the Apostles go with him.  Although failing to catch anything, Peter follows the direction of Jesus — unknown to him at the time — and takes in an enormous catch.  In these two accounts John emphasizes Peter’s faith.

After Jesus and the Apostles have eaten there on the shore, Jesus and Peter walked together and the Lord asks him three times if he loves him.  Three times Peter affirms that he does indeed love him, the third time with a certain exasperation.  And after each affirmation, the Lord tells him to feed his sheep.  Coming after the Lord providing food for the Apostles through Peter, it is clear that Jesus wants Peter to imitate him and That he wants to feed his flock through Peter.  He tells Peter quite openly how he will glorify God by his death, and Peter accepts this without protest.  To follow Jesus means to follow him all the way — through death into heaven.  Here, John emphasizes Peter’s love.  If you love me, follow me.

John throws the spotlight off himself in writing about Peter in this way so that he can keep himself as offstage, as it were, as possible.  It is Peter who is the leader of the Apostles, the head of the Church.  We are reassured of the certainty of the Faith which has been passed down to us through the Apostles from the Lord Jesus himself so that we may rededicate ourselves to helping to spread it through our prayers, words, and actions.

As a side-note: Some folks will make a fuss about the Greek words John uses in this Reading when Jesus asks Peter if he loves him, as though these alternating words showed some nuance in what the Lord was asking and what Peter was willing to give.  The fact is that in the proper Greek of the day, authors avoided repetition.  It was poor style to repeat the same word over and over.  John makes great efforts to write in a good Greek style and so he too avoids repetition as much as possible.  Besides this, Jesus would have been speaking privately to Peter either in Hebrew or in Aramaic where the nuances possible in Greek are simply not possible.  Thus, when Jesus asks Peter if he loves him, it is all he is asking.  And he asks us this as well, every day.

The Feast of Saints Philip and James, May 3, 2025

John 14, 6-14

Jesus said to Thomas, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, then you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” Philip said to him, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works themselves. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father. And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.”

Philip of Bethsaida is said to have introduced his friend Nathanael, whom Jesus subsequently chose to be an Apostle, to the Lord during the Lord’s early days of ministry: “Philip found Nathanael and said to him: We have found him of whom Moses, in the law and the prophets did write, Jesus the son of Joseph of Nazareth.”  So overwhelmed was Philip by the impression Jesus made on him that when his friend wondered if anything good could come from Nazareth, all he could answer was a breathless, “Come and see!”   Many of the first followers of Jesus like Andrew and John, had been followers of John the Baptist, and Philip may also have been one of these.  He evidently spoke Greek well, since Greeks who wished to see the Lord came to him for aid (cf. John 12, 21).  Later writers confuse the Apostle Philip with the Deacon Philip, whose exploits are recounted in the Acts of the Apostles.  St. James was the son of either Alphaeus or Cleophas, and his wife, Mary, who both followed the Lord.  James became known as one of the “Pillars” of the Church, especially in Jerusalem (cf. Galatians 2, 9).  He was the first bishop of Jerusalem and reigned there until his martyrdom at the hands of the Jewish leaders in the years leading up to the revolt against the Romans in 70 A.D.  The early Christian historian Hegesippus wrote that James did not drink wine or strong drink, did not eat meat, did not bathe, and did not cut his hair.  He lived as an ascetic, very much as John the Baptist had lived.  He was well-loved by the Jewish Christians whom he led, and even the Jews of the city called him “James the Just”.  His Epistle reveals him as well-versed in the Scriptures, with an earnest desire to help the poor.  He styles himself “the brother of the Lord”, which may indicate a close family tie to Jesus.

In the Gospel Reading for the Mass of this Feast, Philip urges the Lord Jesus, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Philip’s words must have dropped the jaws of the other Apostles, reclining with Jesus during the Last Supper: no one can see God and live.  This revealed a certain naivety on Philip’s part, but the Lord does not crush his desire.  He uses his request to teach about his own relation to the Father: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”  Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God (cf. Colossians 1, 15).

Every day we encounter people who want to see the Father, most of whom cannot put their longing into clear words.  Often their lives are lonely, twisted, and torn, and their bodies and expressions bear witness to that.  They are helpless but for us.  As members of the Body of Christ we can also be visible images of the invisible God, to the degree that we live holy lives.  It is the saint who can say, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” Thus, the words and deeds which are done through the saint by the Father, are the meat and drink the people of the world hunger and thirst for.

Friday in the Second Week of Easter, May 2, 2025

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.

The feeding of the five thousand poignantly reveals to us the superabundance of God’s love and care for us, and it so impressed the Evangelists that all four of them provide an account of it.  

The feeding itself looms so large in these accounts that we often miss what preceded it.  Here, St. John tells us very specifically that the Lord Jesus first approached his Apostle Philip: “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?”  Now, the Lord asks him this upon seeing the crowd “coming to him”.  Philip does not protest and ask the Lord why he was asking him; nor does he ask why they should buy bread for the people at all; nor does he criticize the question.  He simply puts forward the quite rational observation that, “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.”  He makes the observation with the obvious intent of working to a logical conclusion.  John states that “[Jesus] said this to test him, because he himself knew what he was going to do.”  The Lord wanted the Apostles to think this problem through.  But it was a problem only because the Lord made it so, for he chose to present the coming of the people to him as of guests coming to a banquet, meaning that he, the Master of the Banquet, had the responsibility for feeding them.  Now, Philip had seen the Lord provide wine at the Wedding at Cana and he might have proposed that the Lord do something along those lines.  At this point in time, though, Philip and the other Apostles were still looking at the situation with earthly eyes, not heavenly ones.  They still had much growing to do.

Andrew points the way out, though unwittingly: “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?”  The Lord proceeds to use what-there-is to make an overabundance of food for the people to eat.  He need not have done that.  He could have caused food to float down from heaven, much like the old manna of which he will speak in the coming verses.  Or, he could have made food to appear, ready to eat, in an adjacent field.  The fact that he took the food that was available and increased it signifies how he works in those who believe in him.  Philip, for instance, believed in the Lord enough to try and answer his question without throwing up his hands and saying that he was asking the impossible.  The Lord employed Philip, just so, in the settling of the crowd and the feeding of the people.  The Lord made him a participant in the miracle.  He played the part of one of the servers at the Wedding at Cana.  The bread and the fish multiplied in his hands just as the water had become wine under the hands of the servants at the wedding.  Philip, then, was quite aware of the insufficiency of what he had and so could not doubt that the Lord was working through him to feed these people.  

The Lord works in the same way in accomplishing his will in us and in answering our prayers.  He answers our prayers in his time and in his way so as to draw us nearer to him, to refine our faith, as it were.  He makes us excruciatingly aware of our insufficiency to help ourselves or others, and then provides his help so that we know that it could only be his help.  He teaches us not to rely on ourselves and on our false estimates of what we are capable of accomplishing, and to rely on him.  This is particularly true of our salvation.  On our own we can no more reach heaven and eternal happiness than we can stretch a few fish and loaves to feed five thousand people.  The Lord will make this possible if we rely on him.  First, we must look our insufficiency squarely and then turn humbly to our God.

The Solemnity of St. Joseph the Worker, Thursday, May 1, 2025

Matthew 13, 54-58

Jesus came to his native place and taught the people in their synagogue. They were astonished and said, “Where did this man get such wisdom and mighty deeds? Is he not the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother named Mary and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? Are not his sisters all with us? Where did this man get all this?” And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and in his own house.” And he did not work many mighty deeds there because of their lack of faith.

“Is he not the carpenter’s son?”  The people of Nazareth, amazed at his teaching and by the reports they have heard of his miracles, look at Jesus, so familiar to them, and shake their heads.   Isaiah 53, 2: “There was no beauty in him, nor comeliness: and we have seen him, and there was no sightliness, that we should be desirous of him.”  How ordinary he seemed, just another child of the village.  And then he grew to manhood and the only thing noticeable about him was that he had not married.  He stayed quiet in the synagogue and did not speak up.  He seemed a little slow at times.  

His parents seemed strange, now that people thought about it.  The Mother kept out of the public eye but was always there when someone needed help.  She stayed very much in the background, but from choice not from shyness, for she possessed a strong personality.  And the father always seemed to be carrying around a secret, like a hidden weight.  He was very protective of his family.  He was an intelligent man, clever with his powerful hands.  He had no time for gossip or laughing at the misfortunes of others.  He was a righteous Jew who looked forward to the deliverance of Israel.  He was a man who worked with his hands for a living, fashioning or repairing plows or door frames just like his father before him.

And from this man and this woman, oddly detached from the people around them even while tied to them through their relations, came this wonder-worker who now opened his mouth and unexpected wisdom flowed out about God and his kingdom, at whose hands the lame walked and the blind saw, and at whose commands demons fled.