Jesus is the bread of life.  Those whose life is full of him have their fill.  To go to him and to believe in him is to hunger and thirst no more.

To fill their life with Jesus Christ is one of the things that missionaries are to remember (SV.EN:276). And all those, really, who believe in him and like to be and do as he. But such men and women have first to hide their life in him.

And today’s gospel shows that the first ones to hide and fill their life so are those who answer, “Rabbi, where do you stay?” For Jesus has asked these two disciples of John, “What are you looking for?” They then hear him say, “Come, and you will see,” and they go and see where he is staying, and they stay with him that day.

That is to say, the two withdraw to and hide where the Teacher stays. And it shows that they get their fill of one essential thing about the Lamb of God. For one of them, Andrew, has no sooner found his brother Simon than he assures him, “We have found the Messiah.”

Yes, we Christians are to go with Jesus by ourselves and stay with him in a quiet place. We have to do it, so that we get familiar with him and have a fill of him. And then, we can turn into true witnesses of his. He just looks at us, and he changes us and infects us with his love, justice and concern for the poor.

So then, to fill our life with Jesus Christ as we hide it in him means to be his missionaries. Andrew and Philip, too, make this known to us. They tell us that to be a disciple of Jesus is at the same time to be his sent one. He sends us to infect others, to invite them to know him and to live the joy of finding him.

To fill our life with Jesus Christ and to be his true witnesses means, in the end, to share in the supper of the Lamb of God.

John says that Jesus is the Lamb of God. The evangelist sends us back to the “sacrifice of the lambs in the temple for the Passover meal” (Comentarios al evangelio 1). In the fourth gospel, in fact, Jesus dies around the time the sacrifice of the lambs takes place.

And it seems that we are referred again to the time of the sacrifice of the lambs. For the account tells us that the Baptist’s disciples stay with Jesus at about four in the afternoon. They ask, in the first place, where he stays. So, it is odd that the account tells us when they stay with him, and not where he is staying. Does it suggest, then, that he stays on the cross?

Lord Jesus, make us learn from you, for you give your body up and shed your blood for us. We shall thus fill our life with you and, just like you, gain it by losing it, and give glory to God, too, through you and with our whole being.  

14 January 2024
2nd Sunday in O.T. (B)
1 Sam 3, 3b-10. 19; 1 Cor 6, 13c-15a. 17-20; Jn 1, 35-42