Pope's Intentions
Universal: Creation:
That people may learn to respect creation and care for it as a gift of God.
Evangelization: Persecuted Christians:
That persecuted Christians may feel the consoling presence of the Risen Lord and the solidarity of all the Church
Friday of the Second week of Easter
Commentary of the day
Saint Augustine (354-430), Bishop of Hippo (North Africa) and Doctor of the Church
Homilies on Saint John’s gospel, 24, 1.6.7; CCL 36, 244 (©Friends of Henry Ashworth)
When the people saw the sign he had done, they said, "This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world."
Governing the entire universe is a greater miracle than feeding five thousand people with five loaves of bread, yet no one marvels marvel at it. People marvel at the feeding of the five thousand not because this miracle is greater, but because it is out of the ordinary. Who is even now providing nourishment for the whole world if not the God who creates a field of wheat from a few seeds? Christ did what God does. Just as God multiplies a few seeds into a whole field of wheat, so Christ multiplied the five loaves in his hands. For there was power in the hands of Christ. Those five loaves were like seeds, not because they were cast on the earth but because they were multiplied by the one who made the earth.
This miracle was presented to our senses in order to stimulate our minds… and so make us marvel at “the God we do not see because of his works, which we do see” (Rom 1,20). For then, when we have been raised to the level of faith and purified by faith, we shall long to behold, though not with our eyes, the invisible God whom we recognize through what is visible. This miracle was performed for the multitude to see; it was recorded for us to hear. Faith does for us what sight did for them. We behold with the mind what our eyes cannot see; and we are preferred to them because of us it was said: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe” (Jn 20,29).