John 6:24-35
Preparation for Heaven
by Rev. Joseph M. Rampino
Reprinted with permission of "The Arlington Catholic Herald"

Home Page
To Sunday Gospel Reflections Index

John wrote to show that Christ was
the Messiah, the Divine Son of God.

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."  So they said to "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 him, "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"

"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."

With these words, Christ rebukes the crowd following him from one side of the Sea of Galilee to another.  This rebuke, at the beginning of Christ's teaching on the holy Eucharist. is certainly a strange one from an earthly perspective, but one that we still need to hear and receive today.

It's a strange rebuke first and foremost because it seems, at least according to worldly logic, to undercut the success of the Lord's preaching.  Christ has just worked an incredible miracle, the multiplication of the loaves, and now has a crowd of thousands ready to make him king and follow him wherever he goes.  Were Christ a political leader, this would have been the moment to consolidate his support and use the growing strength of the movement to effect real change for the better.  But Christ does none of this.  Instead, he chides the crowd for following him, rejecting their motivation.  The crowd is looking for the fulfillment of their earthly needs and see this man who can make bread from nothing as the answer to their sufferings.  Yet Christ apparently has no desire to end hunger in a miraculous way.  He has a different mission in mind.

In fact, when pressed, Christ tells the crowd that he intends not to give them earthly bread, but to give them himself.  He promises them that if they come to him, they will never hunger or thirst, but the Lord refers to a different hunger and thirsting than that which the crowd has in mind.  They want the fulfillment of their earthly needs; Christ promises them spiritual healing.  They want a peaceful and pleasant earthly life; Christ promises his own eternal life.  They want the world; Christ offers heaven.  This difference of intention is so important that Christ will press the issue.  He does not, in the following passages, continue coaxing the crowd along step by step until they are finally ready to understand.  Rather, he gives his teaching on the Eucharist, the crowd misunderstands and rejects it, and he lets them all leave.  Christ is absolutely insistent that he came to bring us to paradise, not to make paradise here on earth.

We still need him to remind us this fact today.  Like the ancient crowds, we too face the temptation of finding in Christ an earthly savior.  We may not look to the Lord to provide miraculous bread to save us from famine, but how often do we look to the Lord as the one who will help us be the best version of ourselves here in this life?  How often do we look to the Lord as the one who can smooth out our difficulties for us, in our relationships, our families, our jobs, our worldly futures?  We all face the temptation that the crowd of the Gospel faced; to call Christ our king while simultaneously making him the servant of our needs in this life.  Of course, the Lord does provide for our needs and alleviate our sufferings even on earth; he is good and longs to do good for us.  But he calls us to something more, that is, to rise above this life and enter his own life with the Father.  Today's Gospel reminds us to get the order right.  We are called to receive Christ himself and love him above all things.  We offer him our earthly needs as an act of humble devotion, and we receive his earthly gifts as a preparation for receiving heaven.  Today let's ask for the grace then of meeting Christ on his own terms and let him led us where he wishes.