God the Father draws us to Jesus,

God the Father draws us to Jesus …

WHEN JESUS ​​announced in the Capernaum synagogue that he was the bread of life, those present asked with understandable human logic: “Isn’t this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?” So how does he say: I have come down from Heaven.” (Jn 6, 42). The Lord immediately responded and explained: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (Jn 6:44).

This passage introduces us “to the dynamics of faith, which is a relationship: a relationship between the human person and the person of Jesus, where the Father plays a decisive role and, naturally, the Holy Spirit, who is implicit. To believe in Jesus it is not enough just to meet him. It is not enough to just read the Bible. It is important, but it is not enough. It is not even enough to witness a miracle such as the multiplication of loaves. Many people were in close contact with Jesus and did not believe in him. They despised him and condemned him. Why? Wasn’t the Father attracted to them? It happened because their hearts were closed to the action of God’s Spirit. If we have a closed heart, faith will not enter it. God the Father always draws us to Jesus. It is we who open or close our hearts”.

The Father also draws us to his Son to learn from him and give him all the glory. This mission requires us always to try to be close to Jesus, shaped by him, and be his disciples. “Faith, which is like a seed deep in the heart, will blossom when we let the Father draw us to Jesus and we go to him with an open mind, with an open heart, without prejudices: then we recognize God’s face in his face and God’s word in his words. “Asking for the bread of life … 

SEEING GOD and meditating on him throughout the day is not an impossible goal. On the contrary, it is a promise we can achieve in different ways thanks to Jesus. The same God who put in our hearts the desire for eternity remained in the Eucharist to be always with us. Our passion for eternal love is best satisfied in Christ present in the Eucharist. We can dialogue with him in prayer, visit him in the Tabernacle, and listen to his words in the Gospel. Jesus gradually becomes our best friend, and we can ask the Father for anything in his name: “If we ask in the name of Jesus Christ, the Father will fulfill it for us; be sure of that. Prayer has always been a secret, a powerful weapon (…). Prayer is the basis of our peace”.

In this impulse of prayer, Jesus taught us to ask for this “bread of life” for this food of eternity. “Your fathers ate manna in the desert and died” (Jn 6:49), says Christ and compares himself to the food that God sent through the intercession of Moses. He points out that while the former was transitory, the Eucharist is the eternal bread; it is not an ordinary memory, but a memory, a present, as we pray in all the Eucharistic prayers and some hymns: O memoriale mortis Domini! Panis vivus, vitam praestans homini![4] “Oh, the memory of the death of Christ Jesus, our living bread, the highest sweetness of the world, grant that my spirit may always feed only on you!”. The Eucharist looks not only to the past but also to the present and the future. Our passage on earth is a pilgrimage from Eucharist to definitive participation in the heavenly banquet. “Every time the Church celebrates the Eucharist, she remembers this promise, and her gaze is directed towards the one who is to come (Revelation 1, 4)”.

“In days full of busyness and problems, but also in days of rest and relaxation, the Lord invites us not to forget that although it is necessary to take care of material bread and gain new strength, it is even more important to grow in our relationship with him, to strengthen our faith in of the one who is the bread of life, which fulfills our desire for truth and love.”The Eucharist fills us with hope…

JESUS ​​PROMISES US divine food that will always be available to us “so that no one who eats it dies” (John 6:50). Thanks to this travel document, we can believe that if we are faithful, our calling to eternal life will become a reality. Thus, God himself fills us with hope, that “theological virtue by which we long for eternal life as our happiness and expect it from God. In doing so, we place our trust in Christ’s promises and rely on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit to earn eternal life and persevere until the end of earthly life”.

Jesus concludes his sermon in the synagogue by repeating the central message of the entire speech: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” Whoever eats this bread will live forever. Moreover, the bread that I will give is my body for the life of the world” (Jn 6, 51). The Lord promises us the unimaginable: fellowship in his own life for all eternity. This hope, though it finds its fullness in Heaven, illuminates our steps here on earth. This hope “also tells us that our daily actions have a meaning that goes beyond what we immediately see: as St. Josemaría affirmed, they acquire the vibration of eternity if we do them out of love for God and others.”

All this fills us with optimism as we realize that God is always close to us. Christian joy is based on this divine promise that we will live with him forever. For this reason, tradition calls the Eucharist “the promise of future glory” because it strengthens us on the journey of our earthly life and awakens in us the desire for eternal life; it unites us with Christ, the Virgin Mary, and all the saints.