Thursday of the Third Week of Easter
One of the gifts of being a teacher in a Montessori school is witnessing the students being drawn to their work by the things they instinctively know they need to learn. With interest as a guide, the children master appropriate skills when they are willingly and developmentally ready to do so. In other words, they are called forward by the truth. We see a similar theme in today’s readings. It is not we who find God, but God who finds us. In Acts, Christ beckons the Ethiopian eunuch through Philip the Deacon. But, we learn, that God was already preparing the eunuch through his reading of the prophet Isaiah, readying him for the encounter with Christ.
This makes me think of the wisdom of St. Ignatius of Loyola, who emphasized that God is to be found in all things. When you feel drawn to something good, it is God who is drawing you. Some people describe this feeling as a tug on the heart. Surely Philip felt a tug on his heart to “Go and join up” with the eunuch’s chariot (Acts 8:29). At the root of it all, God draws us to what is good. In today’s gospel, Jesus gradually invites his hearers to understand Him as the bread of life. First, he opens them up to awareness of their need. Then he offers himself, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
Do we recognize our own needs and hunger for the bread that Jesus speaks of? Let us pray today that we may allow God to draw us into a deeper relationship with Him. In opening ourselves to the word of God and the bread of life, we are graced with a love that lasts forever. Each time we receive the Eucharist we celebrate our union with Jesus so we can go out and be his disciples.
-Jessica Gabrielli