杏MAP导航

By Linda Bordoni

杏MAP导航 Francis introduced morning Mass on Monday of the Third Week of Easter, with special thoughts for artists.

鈥淟et us pray today for artists, for those who have this great capacity for creativity,鈥� and for showing us the way to beauty. He continued: 鈥淢ay the Lord give us all the grace of creativity at this time.鈥�

He then reflected on the Gospel reading of the day (Jn 6:22-29) in which Jesus redirects the crowd for seeking Him after the multiplication of the loaves and fishes only because their stomachs had been filled by exhorting them 鈥渘ot to work for food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life.鈥�

Being good people, the 杏MAP导航 said, they asked him how to accomplish this and Jesus replied: 鈥淭his is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.鈥�

杏MAP导航 Francis explained that the crowd listened to Jesus 鈥渨ithout getting tired." Once sated, they thought they would make Him king, 鈥渂ut they had forgotten their first enthusiasm for His Word.鈥�

Remembering the first encounter with Jesus

So, he continued, the Lord reminded the crowd of their first encounter with the Word, and 鈥淗e corrected the path of the people who had taken a more worldly, rather than evangelical path.鈥�

This happens to us too, the 杏MAP导航 warned, when we move away from the path of the Gospel and we lose the memory of our first enthusiasm for the Word of the Lord.

But Jesus, he said, asks us to go back to that first encounter: 鈥淭his is a grace when faced with temptations.鈥�

And the 杏MAP导航 highlighted the grace of 鈥渁lways returning to that first call, when Jesus looked at us with love.鈥� 鈥淓ach of us has the experience of that first encounter in which Jesus said: follow me鈥�, he said.

Along the way, he continued, we move away, 鈥渨e forget鈥�, and we lose the freshness of that first call.

Returning to Galilee

杏MAP导航 Francis invited the faithful to pray that the Lord might give us the grace to return to the moment in which we had our first experience of encounter with Jesus. He recalled how Jesus told the women who went to the tomb early on Easter morning to go and tell his disciples 鈥渢o go to Galilee and there, they will find me鈥� (see Matthew 28:10).

Galilee, he said, was the place of their first meeting with Jesus.

鈥淓ach one of us has our own Galilee within us鈥�, the 杏MAP导航 concluded, 鈥渢hat specific moment in which Jesus drew close鈥�looked on me with love, and said to me: 鈥榝ollow me.鈥� 鈥�