Monday of the Third Week of Easter

Lectionary: 273

“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.

"You don't know what's good for you!" I heard it often in my youth. I don't suppose I believed it at the time. I may be more ready to listen and learn today. 

Saint Mark tells us in his second chapter that Peter and the other disciples, rank novices in the Lord's ways, pursued him into the wilderness. He had spent the day healing everyone who came to him. Early the next morning, they tracked him down and found him praying in solitude. When they said, "Everyone is looking for you!" as if they knew what he should be doing, he told them they were moving on to other places to announce God's kingdom. They had been ready to create a shrine and build a hospital around him. The whole world could find him there! 

They didn't know what was good for them. Nor does the crowd in John 5-6 who followed Jesus into the wilderness and back to Capernaum. They certainly knew what they wanted -- any fool can tell you that! --  but they knew nothing of the food that endures for eternal life. Like the woman at the well, who could offer the Lord nothing more than water, they lived in a flat, two-dimensional world where a meal only sustains one until the next meal, and "everyone who drinks this water thirsts again."

Jesus offers us food and drink that endure for eternal life, namely his own flesh and blood. In this post-Easter season, with the songs of alleluia still ringing in our ears, we wonder how to remain close to the Lord who no longer walks with us as an ordinary man. He was with us in that form so briefly, and yet his presence remains powerful, instructive, and reassuring. We have his word, the Word of God, which we hear and ponder. We celebrate the Mass as often as possible; many people attend daily. We retain the Blessed Sacrament in our Churches. (Long before the first monstrance was invented for visible display, the tabernacle, proved his presence among us.)

Finally, there is the awareness we cultivate in our minds and hearts. A fellow once complained to me about his failure to think of God for many hours a day. He said he is often preoccupied with his responsibilities as an employer; and the good feelings he enjoys in prayer that morning dissipate too soon afterward. I asked him, "Do you ever forget that you're married as you work with women and girls?" 
"Of course not!" he said. 
"Nor do you forget the presence of God and yourself as a disciple of Jesus." 

Some people, of course, often forget their commitments as spouses, parents, children, and practicing Christians. We might forget ourselves in the ecstasy of anger, resentment, or fear. Practicing awareness of God in our lives comes with practice and maturity. We learn not to get carried away with our feelings. Even when speaking of the Lord we must practice a certain restraint lest we insult or belittle non-believers. (True faith can be controversial as the Gospels demonstrate, but it doesn't have to be in your face all the time.)

Our Gospels this week invite us to ponder the presence of God in the Blessed Sacrament. We remember the reassuring authority of Jesus as he fed a crowd in the wilderness, as he walked on water while his disciples watched, as he taught the crowd in Capernaum that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood if they would believe in him. 

Many left him when he said that. You and I will stay with him. We know what's good for us.