Daily Catholic Reflection: April 22, 2021, Thursday of the Third Week of Easter, Year B
Acts 8:26-40,
PSALM 65(66):8-9,16-17,20),
Being Drawn to Jesus.
Brethren, today Jesus explicitly says that nobody can come to Him, unless he is drawn by the Father who sent Him. This statement tells us that our communion with Jesus, our love for him and our meeting him in prayer, in scripture and in the most Holy Eucharist is not by our own making. It's only God who grants us that chance, who draws us to Jesus to be in communion with Him and at last as he promises in the Gospel, to raise us up with him.
Brethren, it is by Grace of God that we have known Jesus Christ, that we love him and rejoice in his saving mission for us. It is always God who takes initiative to draw us to Jesus his Son. Therefore, to have an authentic relationship with Christ, we have to let God take the first step in our relationship. This however, does not mean that we have to be passive, our role is to respond to that relationship, to God's voice which calls us daily through his Word, through his chosen ones and through any way he chooses, and this is a call to believe in his Son so that we may have eternal life. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him.” Our hunger and thirst for God are themselves gifts of God. Our very heart and nature is a divine longing and drawing! Feel that longing in your soul and give thanks for it.
Jesus today further emphasizes that he is the bread of life, the true bread. He is the true bread from heaven, a fulfillment of the manna that our forefathers ate in the desert. As our forefathers ate manna from heaven and were sustained and strengthened in the desert and on their journey to the promised Land, so it is to the bread that Jesus gives to us. it sustains us in the journey of this world especially in our spiritual journey.
Brethren, the only difference between the manna and the bread that Jesus gives (his body) is that those who are manna died but for us who eat the body of Christ and drink his blood shall never die, and so it not only sustains us in this life but also in the life to come. In a way we are luckier than our fore fathers and so let us use this gift to attain eternal life. It's our duty also to announce and bring this Good News to every one as Philip did in the first Reading by baptising the Ethiopian Eunuch, so that we all attain that everlasting life.
Reflect today on how you have let God take control in your life. How have you been able to listen to God's voice calling you to believe in his Son and respond to it appropriately? How deep is your love and devotion to the God's Word Eucharist which grants us eternal life? How have you been able to carry the Good News of eternal life in Jesus to others? Pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Let us pray.
Lord God, help me always to listen to the voice of God which invites me to believe in your Son and respond to it always. May my love for Jesus increase every day as I meet him in His Word and Eucharist. And may this communion with him sustain me here on earth and eternally in the life to come. Amen
Be blessed forever
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