ME
NU

OMELIE / Omelie EN

01 ago 2021
01/08/2021 18th Sunday in O. T. - B

01/08/2021 18th Sunday in O. T. - B

Reading 1 EX 16,2-4.12-15 * Psalm 77 * 2ª lettura EPH 4,17.20-24 * Gospel JN 6,24-35

What can we do to accomplish the works of God?”. This question was on the lips of the many who noticed how Jesus wasn't an ordinary man, but one who was speaking and acting with divine authority. He with only five loves had fed 5000 men, and then He had left, in order not to approve the intention of those who wanted to involve Him in their political plans to make Him king. He has been reached again by the crowd on the following day: here He is, then, answering their questions, quite superficial. First, He tries to help them understand the true meaning of the miracle they had benefited from the day before: “you are looking for me not because you saw signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled”. It is like He was saying: you are looking for me for selfish reasons, not because you have understood, from what has happened, who I really am. and He keeps going, saying that the true food of men is not the one which lets them live for long, but the one which gives them eternal life. Eternal life, so true life, fully filled with the joy which comes from God and unites to God forever, is He Himself, and therefore He is the one who feeds human existence with the most essential of the foods.

What Jesus says is not very easy to understand. Only he who has true love for God can understand it, he who has discovered that God is our Father and wants our true good, our true happiness. He who understands this wants to put in His hand his very life. She who knows that God is Father, confides completely in Him and tries to live His love.

Those who have asked Jesus the question: “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?”, look like that truly want to believe that He knows the Father and wants to bring us to Him. However, they think that God’s will for us is to do something in particular, in a way we can differentiate ourselves from whom does not do the same things. Jesus, instead, who really knows God, knows that “work of God” is not to win something, but being His children. This is possible and happens when we believe in Him truly, in the Son of God. Believing in the Son means confiding in Him, welcoming Him, loving Him while listening to Him, living of Him and in Him. This is work of God, so a complete job, which gives us life, fills us with joy and unites us. Whoever live of Jesus, for Jesus and in Him, can understand.

The Lord’s listeners did not understand and did not ask for signs, external proof in order to believe. There is no proof that can be given before making truly the experience of it. Not even the sign of the multiplying of the five loaves for 5000 men is proof, but only evidence. If with little bread Jesus feeds a huge crowd, this is a sign that the omnipotence of God is power of love, of the love which acts in the man’s life and it is not only observed from outside. This power of divine love acts in Him: therefore, I can live for Him too, with Him and of Him, giving Him not only some bread, but my very existence.

It is easier for us to keep complaining about our situation. The Jews were complaining about Moses as soon as they felt a little bit hungry or thirsty. They were not able to trust God, who had already pledged His love for them, and they were not able to trust the guidance of the man that God had send them and approved with many miracles. God was showing Himself present and acting for their own good, even though they, at every sign of difficulty, could only complain and make a fuss about it. They were doing as Jesus’ listeners did and as often we do. Now He is showing Himself in a way to help us trust Him, because He is the one who can satisfy how deepest desire for life, peace, joy: “Whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst”.

The apostle’s advice, “you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds”, is meant to change us deeply. Deep within we are selfish, prey of the passions of which are a symbol the Pagan divinities. Jesus instead is truth, true love, our change has been and will be this: we will let ourselves be taught by Him and guided by Him. The desire to offer ourselves to God will grow in us, and we will not complain anymore. Every cross we will encounter will become an occasion to offer ourselves concretely to the Father by becoming like the Son. We will clothe ourselves in the new self, we will be recognised as Jesus’ property, carriers of His justice and His holiness, so we will be pleasant to the Father, and we will be like Him.

God’s work we will accomplish will get to perfection when we will have fully given ourselves up to Jesus.