Monday May 2, 2022

Monday of 3rd Week in Easter

 

ATHANASIUS, Bishop, Church doctor

St. Athanasius (295-273), patriarch of Alexandria, was a bishop living in a time of great crisis for the Church just after the Roman persecutions. He defended the divinity of Christ against Arianism, which said that Christ was no more than a man. He suffered much for his faith. “The future of the Church will depend entirely on those who live with deep convictions the pure fullness of their faith. The future does not come from those who accommodate themselves to the circumstances of the moment. It does not come from those who criticize others but promote themselves as the infallible norm. The future of the Church will be determined also this time by the saints. By people who can see more than others can because there is a greater dimension to their lives… To the extent a person lives and has suffered, to that extent he also can see.”

(Ratzinger, The Future of Faith)

 

First Reading: Acts 6:8-15

Stephen, brimming with God’s grace and energy, was doing wonderful things among the people, unmistakable signs that God was among them. But then some men from the meeting place whose membership was made up of freed slaves, Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and some others from Cilicia and Asia, went up against him trying to argue him down. But they were no match for his wisdom and spirit when he spoke.

So in secret they bribed men to lie: “We heard him cursing Moses and God.”

That stirred up the people, the religious leaders, and religion scholars. They grabbed Stephen and took him before the High Council. They put forward their bribed witnesses to testify: “This man talks nonstop against this Holy Place and God’s Law. We even heard him say that Jesus of Nazareth would tear this place down and throw out all the customs Moses gave us.”

As all those who sat on the High Council looked at Stephen, they found they couldn’t take their eyes off him—his face was like the face of an angel!

 

Gospel: John 6:22-29 

The next day the crowd that was left behind realized that there had been only one boat, and that Jesus had not gotten into it with his disciples. They had seen them go off without him. By now boats from Tiberias had pulled up near where they had eaten the bread blessed by the Master. So when the crowd realized he was gone and wasn’t coming back, they piled into the Tiberias boats and headed for Capernaum, looking for Jesus.

 When they found him back across the sea, they said, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”

 Jesus answered, “You’ve come looking for me not because you saw God in my actions but because I fed you, filled your stomachs—and for free.

The Bread of Life

 “Don’t waste your energy striving for perishable food like that. Work for the food that sticks with you, food that nourishes your lasting life, food the Son of Man provides. He and what he does are guaranteed by God the Father to last.”

 To that they said, “Well, what do we do then to get in on God’s works?”

 Jesus said, “Throw your lot in with the One that God has sent. That kind of a commitment gets you in on God’s works.”

 

Prayer

God of truth and wisdom,
you entrusted St. Athanasius with the task
of defending the divinity of Christ.
Help us to see in Jesus, one of us,
more than a man, as your own Son.
And give your Church leaders
of great faith, insight and wisdom
who will never deny Christ
even in the face of persistent persecution
and who help their people to remain faithful to him.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

Reflection:

Believe in the Word – the bread of life

The author of the Gospel is not reporting an actual conversation of Jesus and the crowd. Today’s passage is a theological reflection addressing matters of dispute between the Christian community and their Jewish contemporaries of his time.

Jesus had fed 5000 people with five loaves ‘on the other side of the lake’ and now he is back in Capernaum. The crowd who witnessed the miracle and ate the bread- come in search of him. Jesus understands their reasons for coming after him. “You look for me… because you ate bread and were satisfied.” If they could get the bread from Jesus, they do not have to struggle for their daily bread! This is a literary style of John. He had used this writing technique while narrating the story of the Samaritan Woman, who tells Jesus: “Sir give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

By telling the story of the crowd who runs for bread from Jesus, John points out to his community the shallowness of their faith. They believed in Jesus to obtain some favours… for a miraculous cure, for success in business, enough food and a comfortable living. Even today many people believe in Jesus, hoping to obtain favours from the Lord; obtain some miraculous healings or favours. Jesus reminded the crowd and now reminds us – to ask oneself of the motive of taking refuge in Jesus and praying and practicing religion.

John teaches such members of his community: “Work then, not for perishable food, but for the lasting food which gives eternal life” (vv. 26-27). It is love and sharing that produce bread in abundance.

Today, decoding the symbolisms of John, many scripture scholars would say, The five loaves are the five books of Moses – the Torah. And the two fish represented the Prophets and the other scriptures that were used in Israel to complement the Torah. Jesus fed his listeners with the Word of God. It is here, we should remember the words of Jesus: “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every Word that comes from the mouth of God.”

On another occasion when Jesus and the disciples were on the boat and Jesus was warning them “beware of the yeast of the Pharisees.” The disciples thought it was because they “had only one loaf with them” (Mk 8:14). In fact, that single loaf of bread is Jesus, whose Word is all the food that God has given to his people.

How do we nourish ourselves with this bread? “What must we do?”—the crowd in Capernaum asked Jesus. The answer is the last verse of today’s Gospel:

Not many works, but only one, to believe in him – the Word of God – whom the Father sent. No other thing is required.

 

Video available on Youtube: Believe in the Word – the bread of life