Monday 24 April, 2023 | Monday of the Third Week of Easter |Readings: Acts 6:8-15; Psalm 118(119):23-24,26-27,29-30; John 6:22-29 (You can find these in full on the Universalis website – Click here)
Richard Dawkins, the British evolutionary biologist and author of the book, ‘The Selfish Gene ‘is a well-known and vocal atheist. In 2006, he published The God Delusion, contending that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion. He wrote, “In a way, I think religion is to be admired for asking the right questions. I just think it’s got the wrong answers.”
In the gospel reading today, the people are searching for Jesus, and they are armed with questions. They have had their fill of the bread he gave them on the hillside and have now pushed out in boats and crossed to Capernaum on the other side of the lake to look for him. When they find him, they ask, ‘Rabbi, when did you come here?’ Jesus, in often characteristic style, does not answer the question they think they are asking. He suggests that their motives for wanting to know such a thing come not from a deep and profound seeking for truth but because they have been well fed by him. Their stomachs are full but they have missed the point. Jesus turns the conversation from food to eternity. “This is working for God: you must believe in the one he has sent.”
For thousands of years, human beings seem to have been asking the same questions about life. Who are we? How did we come to be here? What is our purpose? What is our hope? And we remain divided by the answers at which we arrive. Some people may indeed think we are deluded for believing in God. Part of the journey of faith is asking questions, doubting at times, challenging and being challenged, and grappling with new and developing ways of looking at the world and of life. We do not do this alone but as part of a community of faith which has grown over many years, and which looks for signs of God in the world, and what he is trying to say to us. For us, Jesus is God’s revelation in the flesh. Like those who sought him out across the lake, sometimes, we may be asking the wrong questions, and be surprised by the answers we are given.
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Mass today (Monday 24 April, 2023) is celebrated at S Mary’s Church, Butetown at 6pm and Ss Dyfrig and |Samson at 7pm If you would like to send a prayer request then click on the ‘REQUEST PRAYER’ Button
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