“Show us a sign that we may see and believe in you.” (18th Sunday of Ordinary Time 8/4/24)

The crowds challenged Jesus to show them a sign the day after he fed them and many others with five loaves and two fish.  What a difference a day makes!  But I won’t criticize them because I sometimes forget the Lord’s blessings and seek more miraculous signs every day to affirm my faith.  Thankfully, Jesus anticipated this weakness by giving Himself to us in the Eucharist.  “Do this in memory of me,” He said.  So we remember Him every week, even every day.  While doing so we savor His words: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst” (John 6:35).

For what do we hunger or thirst?  Physical nutrition or hydration; clothing, shelter or comfort; freedom, peace, purpose, adventure, companionship, love or faith.  For what do we hunger regarding faith?  Is it not for a sign, a sign that God is there, and that He cares?   Sometimes we are like the members of that crowd that followed Jesus saying, “Show us a sign that we may see and believe in you” (John 6:30).

It is normal to think that we need signs to stimulate our faith.  But some wise person once remarked: “For those who have no faith, no sign is sufficient.  And for those who have faith, no sign is necessary.”  In other words, those without faith tend to be skeptical of any sign of God’s presence.  While those with faith tend to see signs of God’s presence nearly everywhere.  So, rather than depending on signs to stimulate our faith, we can take the leap of faith and choose to believe that God is with us.  When we do so, we tend to notice signs of His presence all around us.

When the crowd asked Jesus to give them a sign, He compared Himself to the mana which the Father sent from heaven to feed their ancestors in the desert.  “My Father gives you true bread from heaven,” He said.   “For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”  At that they prayed, “Sir, give us this bread always.”  To which He replied, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst” (John 6: 32-35).

God placed within everyone, even atheists, a hunger and thirst for Himself.  André Frossard was such an atheist and a journalist in Paris who encountered God in an unexpected way.  While he waiting for a friend who walked into a church, he grew impatient and entered the church.  There he saw something he did not recognize: a monstrance with the Blessed Sacrament.  In that moment, he says, he became Catholic.  Later, he wrote a wonderful account of his conversion: “God existed and was present... one thing only surprised me: The Eucharist!  Not that it seemed incredible, but it amazed me that Divine Charity would have come upon this silent way to communicate Himself, and above all that He would choose to become bread, which is the staple of the poor, and the food preferred by children... O Divine Love, eternity will be too short to speak of You.”

The Lord has given us a sign that we might believe in Him, the greatest sign which we celebrate every week, even every day!  Let us believe that He is the Bread of Life, whose Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity are truly present in the Eucharist.  Then let us be amazed that Divine Charity comes again and again to feed us as children.