Monday, May 5, 2014
3rd Week of Easter
1st Reading: Acts 6:8–15
Gospel: Jn 6:22–29
After Jesus has fed the five thousand, his disciples saw him walking on the water. Next day the people who had stayed on the other side realized that only one boat had been there and that Jesus had not entered it with his disciples; rather, the disciples had gone away alone. Bigger boats from Tiberias came near the place where all these people had eaten the bread. When they saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.
When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Master, when did you come here?”
Jesus answered, “Truly, I say to you, you look for me, not because you have seen through the signs, but because you ate bread and were satisfied. Work then, not for perishable food, but for the lasting food which gives eternal life. The Son of Man will give it to you, for he is the one the Father has marked.”
Then the Jews asked him, “What shall we do? What are the works that God wants us to do?” And Jesus answered them, “The work God wants is this: that you believe in the One whom God has sent.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
Dogs are nice companions because they are always there for their masters even when these masters won’t give them anything. Human beings are not always as loyal. Many of them calibrate their kindness to others on the basis of reciprocity. This is what Jesus bewailed in today’s Gospel reading when the people looked for him after they had eaten of the loaves he multiplied at the desert. How demeaning that they only worked for bread. Jesus called their attention to their higher calling of working not for perishable food but for that which gives eternal life.
So of all the animals condemned to the basic need for food, only human beings can rise above to fulfill the higher calling of love. The call to love is two pronged and consists in loving God and loving the neighbor. After this lifetime, we shall no longer be seeing God through our neighbor because we shall see Him face to face. But for as long as we are alive, our love for God must be coursed through our fellows.
How one loves others reflect affects the way he loves God. Those who love others for the return that they could get will also love God for inferior motives. When they repent, they do so out of “fear for the loss of heaven and the pains of hell” and not because God deserves all human love.
Let us be proud that we are not condemned to a lifetime of working for perishable food but called to love – a calling never given to lower forms of animals. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: [email protected]. Website: www.frdan.org.
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