Monday of the Third Week of Easter
Believing in Jesus is our job
The next day … 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.” Jn 6,22-29
A Proverb of Eastern origin says: “When a finger point at the moon, the fool looks at the finger, the wise man looks at the moon”. Every miracle performed by Jesus is a finger pointing at His Lordship, but it would be foolish if we stopped at the amazement for the very event, be it healing a disease or the daily bread which every day we can share around our table. This is what Jesus reproaches the crowd for, who has chased and reached him on the other shore of Lake Tiberias after eating the bread that he has multiplied: “You are looking for me not because you saw signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled”. It is the risk we run every morning when, around this table, we pray for our intentions: work, health, our friends and acquaintances’ problems, Providence. It is true that, before we pray for these things, we thank the Lord for all He gave us the day before, but it is not sufficient: we run the risk to turn it into a habit. Each grace that God gives us should be returned by an act of conversion, as Peter did, who, in front of the prodigy of the miraculous catch, leaves the fish, the net and the boat on the beach and he kneels, saying, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man”(Lk 5,8). Grant us, O Lord, that, before the magnificence of the miracles and graces that come to us every day, we can understand our unworthiness and start again in your discipleship with renewed spirit. Help us, Lord, to be there, where we must go, good workers of the Gospel.