Why did Jesus slip away when the crowd of people wanted to make Him a king? Jesus wanted to bring about the Kingdom of God. Wouldn’t a crowd of enthusiastic followers be the perfect beginning?

Last Sunday’s Gospel (John 6:1-15) told us that Jesus miraculously fed at least five thousand people when He blessed and broke five barley loaves. Why did He disappear into the hills when the people concluded that He was the prophet, promised by God.

His disciples didn’t know where He went. They took a boat to cross the Sea of Galilee to Capernaum (Jn 6:16). During the night, a storm stirred up the sea, Jesus walked across the water to join them (Jn 6:19).

Today’s Gospel (John 6:24-35) tells us that the people are still trying to find Jesus the next morning. They concluded that the only way He could have eluded them was by crossing the sea. They commandeer boats to go after Him.

St. Thomas Aquinas recognizes that, in itself, their search for Jesus was “praiseworthy.” Isaiah instructed: ““Search for the Lord while He can be found” (Is 55:6). Shouldn’t Jesus be moved at their eagerness?

When they actually come upon Jesus, He tells them to look at their motives. If Jesus could multiply the bread, He could provide security for all their needs. They should not work for “food that perishes” but for “food that endures to eternal life” (Jn 6:26).

Does that mean that we shouldn’t take care of our physical needs or of those who depend on us? Some people have thought so. When some of the Christians of Thessalonica stopped doing their daily work, Paul laid down a strict command: “If anyone will not work, neither let him eat” (2 Thes 3:10).

Thomas explains that our physical needs are important: “We should direct our work, i.e., our main interest and intention, to seeking the food that leads to eternal life, that is, spiritual goods. Temporal goods should not be our principal aim but a subordinate one, that is, they are to be acquired only because of our mortal body, which has to be nourished” (Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel pf John, 896).

The people’s reactions prove that Jesus has rightly detected their intentions. Now, they push Him for proofs, signs, similar to Moses who gave manna, the “bread from heaven,” in the desert.

Thomas attributes the people’s inconsistency to their relying on emotions rather than reason: “Things that we plan according to our emotions do not last; but matters that we arrange by our reason last longer” (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 891).

Some philosophers, such as the ancient Stoics, disregarded the emotions totally. For Thomas, emotions are good and helpful when they are appropriate for a situation and are directed by reason. Our emotions can submerge reason, and then allow emotions override faith.

The people grow irritated, pressing Jesus to tell them what they are supposed to do. Jesus answers that the “work” that is needed is not an exterior work but an interior work, which is “to believe in the one whom He [the Father] has sent” (Jn 6:28).  

While there are exterior “works,” our “interior works” are more fundamental. These works are known, Thomas affirms, by “the wise and those converted in heart” (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 901).

The comparison with physical bread allows Jesus to compare “food which perishes” with the “food that endures.”

Thomas reflects that just as the body is sustained by food, so the soul is also sustained by spiritual food. The food that sustains the body becomes the body: “… but the food that sustains the spirit is not perishable because it is not converted into one’s spirit; rather one’s spirit is converted into its food” (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 895). Physical food becomes us. When we eat spiritual food, we become what we eat.

Thomas explains that spiritual things, such as truth, goodness, and especially God Himself endure: “This food is God Himself, insofar as He is the Truth, which is to be contemplated and the Goodness which is to be loved, which nourish the spirit. Bodily things perish, while spiritual things, especially God, are eternal” (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 895).

When we contemplate the Truth of God, we take truth into ourselves. When we love the goodness of God, we take goodness into ourselves.

Jesus declares that the “work of God” is to “believe in Him whom He has sent” (Jn 6:28). Thomas points out that Jesus hasn’t just told us to believe Him. We may believe a person is trustworthy or believe the truth of what a person says but Jesus calls us to “believe in Him.” We might intellectually accept that Jesus is trustworthy or that what Jesus says is true but the further act of faith is to surrender ourselves to Him.

According to Thomas, God is not only good but goodness itself (Summa Contra Gentiles, 1. 36). We believe in Him and the One whom He sent, by entrusting ourselves to His goodness. As we believe in Him, we are led to love His goodness. Thomas explains: “Only God can be the end of faith, for our mind is directed to God alone as its end. Now the end, since it has the character of a good, is the object of love. Thus, to believe in God (in Deum)as in an end is proper to faith living through the love of charity. Faith, living in this way, is the principle of all our good works; and in this sense to believe is said to be a work of God” (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 901).

Believing in God and the one whom He has sent is “faith living through the love of charity.” Faith which is formed by love becomes the source of our own good actions.

Jesus describes our believing as “the work of God.” Whose work is it, our work or God’s work? Thomas affirms that our believing is the effect of God working within us. He recalls the words of Isaiah: “You have accomplished all our works for us” (Isaiah 26:12).

Thomas reflects: “… that we believe, and any good we do, is from God. As Paul says, ‘It is God working in us, both to will and to accomplish’ (Phil 2:13). Thus Jesus explicitly says that to believe is a work of God to show us that faith is a gift of God, as Ephesians maintains ‘For by grace you have been saved by faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God,’ Eph 2:8” (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 902).

The “bread” that Moses gave symbolically came from “heaven,” in that it was provided by God. Christ is “the true bread… which descends from heaven because … Christ, who is the true bread, gives life to whom He wills: ‘I came that they may have life’ (Jn 10:10). He also descended from heaven: ‘No one has gone up to heaven except the One who came down from heaven’” (Jn 3:13) (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 910).

 According to Thomas, Jesus is bread both in His divinity and in His humanity: “Christ, the true bread, gives life to the world by reason of His divinity; and He descends from heaven by reason of His human nature… He came down from heaven by assuming human nature: ‘He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant’ (Phil 2:7)” (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 910).

Thomas notices the contrast between physical bread that sustains a person, who already has life for a period of time compared to “spiritual bread”: “Spiritual bread actually gives life, for the soul begins to live because it adheres to the word of God: ‘For with You is the fountain of life’ (Ps. 35:10)” (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 914).

In one way, Jesus feeds us this life-giving bread through His words of wisdom: “Since every word of wisdom is derived from the Only Begotten Word of God… this word of God is especially called the bread of life. Thus Christ says, ‘I am the bread of life’” (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 914).

In addition to nourishing our minds with intellectual understanding, Jesus actually feeds us Himself: “And because the flesh of Christ is united to the Word of God, it is also life-giving” (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 914).

As we continue this sixth chapter of John during the next three Sundays, we will see Jesus’ declaration that we consume not just His teachings but His very “flesh.” This statement will shock His listeners.

The reception of Christ’s flesh takes place in the sacrament: “His body, sacramentally received, is life-giving: for Christ gives life to the world through the mysteries which He accomplished in His flesh” (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 914). The “mysteries” of Christ are principally His Passion, death, Resurrection and Ascension but all of Christ’s human actions are also grace-giving “mysteries.”

Jesus links our eternal life with eating His “flesh.” Thomas comments: “The flesh of Christ, because of the Word of the Lord, is not the bread of ordinary life, but of that life which does not die…” (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 914).

Jesus affirms: “Whoever comes to Me shall not hunger and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst” (Jn 6:35). Thomas agrees with Augustine that “to come” to Jesus and “to believe” in Jesus is the same:  “… for we do not come to God with bodily steps, but with those of the mind, the first of which is faith” (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 915).

Denis Vincent Wiseman, O.P.

St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, Part I, trans. James A. Weisheipl, O.P. and Fabian Larcher, O.P. (Albany, NY: Magi Books, Inc., 1980).