DAILY REFLECTION

Liturgical readings are available here.

Chapter 20 of John contains the so-called first conclusion of the gospel:

Jesus did many other signs in the presence of [his] disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may [come to] believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name

John 20:30-31

Yet, the gospel continues: chapter 21 describes a miraculous fishing and Jesus appearing to his disciples at the Sea of Tiberias in Galilee. The disciples had returned to their original home-place, occupations, and ordinary life and this is where Jesus calls them again. Place where we live is place where God calls people to follow him.

The new life they are to start with him must be based on their faith in him as the Lord. They have doubts and difficulties to grasp the identity of Jesus and do not recognize him first. He evades their full comprehension, but also allows communion through physical and tangible means of eating and talking.

Communion with Jesus must be based on our real experience with him, his life, his body: we receive it the Holy Communion and we live as members of his body that is the Church. Both of these realities take a lot of faith for passing from the physical and material to the substantial. It does not mean ignoring the material, but rather seeing the spiritual reality underneath the material: the Host we receive and the Church we live in. Both are the Body of Christ and both challenge our faith.