He who believes in me will not be thirsty: Commentary by Fr. Jorge Miró

Fr. Jorge Miró shares with Exaudi readers his commentary on the Gospel of this Sunday, August 4, 2024, entitled “He who believes in me will not be thirsty”.
***

The Word of God that we proclaim today presents to us the people of Israel walking through the desert since their departure from Egypt towards the Promised Land. And this pilgrimage through the desert becomes a figure of what Christian life is: a pilgrimage, a journey through the desert of the world toward Eternal Life. Yes, we are not wanderers who walk aimlessly and without meaning, but pilgrims who know where we are going and why we are going.

On this path, God wants us to renounce the great temptation: human security, trusting in ourselves, believing that we are strong, and that we are self-sufficient. God wants us to discover that we are poor, small, and needy, to discover, in short, that only He is the Lord, that only He can save us, and that, consequently, faith is an adventure: the adventure of trusting in God and believing that the path He takes us on is always the best, even if it is not the most comfortable.

In the desert, Israel is hungry, yearns for its life in Egypt, and protests against Moses. And the Lord rains bread from heaven. Manna is God’s response to the complaints and murmurings of a hungry people; it is a sign of the presence of God, who does not abandon Israel.

In the Gospel we contemplate Jesus in Capernaum, where many people follow him, but who, deep down, are not disciples, they seek Jesus to solve their problems… And so they miss the best.

And this is a Word that calls us to conversion: Why and for what do you approach Jesus? What are your true motivations? Perhaps you too are looking for Jesus just to fix your problems…

And that is why the Lord also tells you today: Work, not for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life… The work that God wants is this: that you believe in the one he has sent.

Faith is a love story between God and us, a love story that God is doing with you.

The key to your life is not in not having problems (one or the other will accompany you until the last day), but in the midst of the problems Jesus Christ being alive and resurrected and that you welcome the gift of his Spirit, which makes everything new and transfigures the problems.

And all this comes down from heaven, that is to say: it is a gift, a present. Not something that you can get with your effort, but that you welcome it as grace.

And when we remain united to Jesus Christ and welcome the gift of his Spirit, our life begin to give results,, as St. Paul reminds us: the Spirit gives us the strength to abandon the former way of life, the old man corrupted by seductive desires, to renew ourselves in mind and spirit and to clothe ourselves in the new human condition, created in the image of God: justice and true holiness.

You will be able to live not in complaint and murmuring, but in blessing and praise, which is the new song, the song that springs from a heart filled with the Holy Spirit.

Come, Holy Spirit! Make me fall in love with Jesus Christ, alive and risen!