Returning to the initial encounter with the Lord

 The people who had been listening to Jesus all day received the grace of the multiplied loaves. Seeing Jesus’ power, they wanted to proclaim him king. They had first followed Jesus to hear him speak and had also asked him to heal the sick. They stayed all day, listening to Jesus without getting bored or tired. They were happy there. However, when Jesus gave them food, which they had not expected, they thought: ‘This would be a good ruler for us! He will surely free us from the Romans and make our country flourish.’ They were excited at the prospect of making Him king. But their intention changed after they saw it, and they said to themselves: ‘Indeed! Anyone who performs such a miracle, providing food for the people, could be a good ruler.’ But at that moment, they forgot the enthusiasm that Jesus’ words had aroused in their hearts. Jesus withdrew and went away to pray. The people stayed where they were, and the next day they looked for him. They thought he must still be there because they had noticed that there was only one boat, and that Jesus had not entered it with his disciples. They did not know that Jesus had overtaken the disciples by walking on water. They decided to go to the other side of the Sea of Tiberias to look for him. When they saw him, they asked: ‘Master, when did you get here?’ It was as if they were saying: ‘We don’t understand this. This is strange.’ Jesus took them back to the initial feeling they had experienced before the multiplication of the loaves, when they had listened to the word of God. ‘Amen, amen, I tell you, you are looking for me not because you saw the initial signs — the words and healings — but because you ate the loaves and were filled.’ Jesus reveals their intentions and says, ‘You have changed.’ They defend themselves: “No, Lord, no…” They were humble, and Jesus continued: ‘Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. God the Father has set his seal on him”. They ask in good faith: ‘What must we do to do the works of God?’ ‘Believe in the Son of God’ (cf. Jn 6:28-29). Here, Jesus corrects the people because, halfway through, they have moved away from their initial spiritual consolation and set out on the wrong, worldly path. 
It leads us to reflect on the fact that in life we ​​often begin by following Jesus with evangelical values, but halfway through, something else comes to mind; we see another signal, we move away and adapt to something temporal, material, or mundane, and perhaps we forget our initial enthusiasm that we felt when we listened to Jesus. The Lord always returns to this first encounter, to the first moment when he looked at us, spoke to us, and aroused in us the desire to follow him. This is the grace that we should ask the Lord for, because in life we ​​are always tempted to move away when we glimpse something else. “That would be good, that is a good idea…” We move away. [Ask for] the grace of constantly returning to the initial vocation, to the first moment: not to forget, not to forget my history, when Jesus looked at me with love and said to me: “This is your path”; when, through many people, he allowed me to understand the path of the Gospel, unlike those other paths, somewhat worldly, which have other values. Let’s go back to that first encounter.