Homily for Monday, Week 3 of Easter

Homily for Monday
3d Week of Easter
Memorial of Bl. Edmund Rice

May 5, 2025
John 6: 22-29
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.

Friday’s gospel recounted how people came to Jesus because he healed the sick (John 6:2).  John tells us “he sat down with his disciples” (6:3), i.e., he assumed the position of a teacher.  The evangelist doesn’t tell us what he said until he realized that the “large crowd” (6:5) was hungry and began the dialog with the apostles about feeding them, and then provided all the bread and fish they could eat.  We heard how the crowd reacted, wanting to make Jesus their king.  A king, like a good shepherd, would make sure his flock was well tended.  But Jesus, knowing their mind, “withdrew to the mountain alone” (6:15).

If Saturday hadn’t been the feast of Sts. Philip and James—St. Philip is the patron of our Salesian province—we’d have heard how the apostles and then Jesus himself crossed the sea to arrive at Capernaum (6:16-21).

So today we find Jesus there; John will tell us eventually that the crowd catches up with him at the synagog (6:59).  1st, they ask him when he got there; they’re puzzled, not having seen him leave the opposite shore (6:22).  This is a little shadow of John’s teaching that people don’t really know where Jesus has come from or how he has come among us.

Jesus understands why they’ve come looking for him:  “not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled” (6:26).  They want someone who’ll feed them.

We’ve all heard about the missionary phenomenon of “rice Christians” (no pun intended on this memorial of your founder).  That’s who these people in the synagog are.  Jesus tells them they need a more substantial food, one “that endures for eternal life” (6:27).  This will follow if they “believe in the one God has sent” (6:29), viz., himself—not in his miracles but in his person.

Bl. Edmund Rice
(by Bro. Kenneth Champman, CFC)

We’re celebrating today Bl. Edmund, who (like our Don Bosco) worked, and founded a religious family to work, for the salvation of the young.  That salvation began with material assistance—food, shelter, and schooling.  But Edmund didn’t stop there.  It was necessary and it remains necessary that we feed the young with the more substantial “food that endures for eternal life,” with Jesus’ teaching, Jesus’ healing, Jesus’ person.  “This is the work of God” (6:29) that was Edmund’s mission and remains our mission as the sons of our respective founders.