Friday of the Second Week of Easter

My niece Kayla

One thing I ask of the Lord

this I seek:
To dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
That I may gaze on the loveliness of the Lord
and contemplate his temple.

Today’s gospel from the sixth chapter of Saint John leads into next week’s reflections on the Eucharist. We begin with an idyllic story of Jesus’ multiplying five donated barley loaves and two fish into a banquet for five thousand men. If, as General Eisenhower said, “An army travels on its stomach,” this gathering of Jews could conquer the world. In fact, they will! But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

To contemplate the Eucharist we must begin with the joy of this wilderness event. The crowd has followed Jesus into the desert because “they saw the signs he was performing on the sick.” There is something wild about the group, bordering on hysteria. Why have they brought no food? What were they expecting? If they can travel this far they’re not sick or disabled. They weren’t hungry to start with. But clearly they want and expect something even if that notion remains inchoate. Only after the food is distributed and they are satisfied do we discover what they want, to “carry him off and make him king.”

They suppose Jesus is the new Moses; he will lead his people into the desert and give them food, water, laws and freedom.  They’re right, of course, but his hour has not yet come; and they’re conception of him is sadly distorted.

History is filled with stories of mobs who found their demagogues and made them kings. Their leaders were just as mad as the crowds who chose them. But Jesus cannot obey the instincts of the mob, even when they are the chosen people of God. He must obey his Father. That was the essential lesson of the just-completed fifth chapter.

A woman recently chewed me out because I could not conduct a wedding for a man who is already married. She thought that if the state recognizes his divorce, the Church should also. She warned me that the Church will collapse if it fails to serve the demands of young people who want to get married. I feel her concern for the Church but I know that catering to consumers’ expectations is far more dangerous than obedience to the Lord. We might become a church of popular mores rather than a fellowship of Jesus’ disciples.

After Jesus fed the five thousand they were ready to rush over him and force the crown on his head. The Eucharist invites us to stay and rest awhile in this deserted place, to gaze on the loveliness of the Lord and contemplate his temple.

In quietness, with our hearts sated by his presence, we might come to understand how Jesus surpasses our greatest expectations, and is more beautiful than anything we can imagine.