Looking for Jesus

Sunday, 2 August 2009 Homily by Dom Raymond
A reading from
the holy Gospel according to John 6: 24-35
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I suggest the title of “MOTIVATIONS” for the little homily below.

After they had been miraculously fed by Jesus the crowd noticed that he had gone away and they went looking for him in Capernaum.

We might consider a lesson for us all in the fact that they noticed that Jesus wasn’t with them any longer. What a wonderful description that is of that moment of grace when we realise that Jesus is no longer in our lives the way he used to be; whether it be because of sin or because of negligence or indifference, we suddenly wake up to the fact that there is something wrong with our relationship with Jesus; a certain distance has come about between us and him, and that distance is very much our own fault. Such a moment is a moment of great grace. To realise the absence of Jesus is, in its own way, as real a grace as to realise his presence.

The Jews set off for his home town of Capernaum. This was a logical place to look for him; it was where he lived. We too should make our way to our own Capernaum, the Church and its Sacraments. That is where he lives; that is where he is to be found. But note how surprised they were when they actually did find him! So it is with us, once we start to look for Jesus in earnest we will be surprised at how quickly we find him and in what surprising places and persons and situations we find him. It is, of course, he who is seeking us out rather than we who are seeking him.

But when the Jews find him he is hardly welcoming! “You are seeking me for the wrong reasons”, he tells them. “You are seeking me because you got free bread to fill your bellies.” Again the same can so often be said of us. We seek out Jesus when we need something: a job; a healing; an exam; a thousand and one other things of our own personal earthly needs. Certainly it is good to pray for our earthly needs, our “daily bread”, but Jesus wants us above all to seek him for his own sake; for who he is to us; for what we are to him. This is the kind of seeking that Jesus wishes to stir up in our hearts.

Now Jesus has built into the life of his people a wonderful means of ensuring that his people seek him in this very best of ways. This wonderful means is, of course, the Sacrament of Holy Communion. Not only does this wonderful Sacrament ensure that our motives are of the very best when we approach him but it also deepens and strengthens and purifies these motives; the motives of faith, of love, and of wonder.

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