Dai­ly Reflec­tion
May 8, 2025

I entered the Soci­ety of Jesus in 1997 – – over 28 years ago.  Of the many years a major­i­ty of the min­istry and for­ma­tion I was graced to be a part of focused on the Jesuit mis­sion, spir­i­tu­al retreat lead­er­ship, pas­toral coun­sel­ing, indi­vid­ual spir­i­tu­al direc­tion, and fac­ul­ty, stu­dent and now health care lead­er­ship for­ma­tion.  Out of those expe­ri­ences some of the most graced moments for me have been in the spir­i­tu­al jour­ney­ing with oth­ers, encoun­ters with the oth­er holy souls God placed on my path. 

Always in the mutu­al shar­ing and giv­ing of sto­ries, for me, much less some spir­i­tu­al guru, than a fel­low trav­eller on the same Spir­it quest, I am always amazed, how in the encoun­ters with oth­ers, and our life experience’s God’s love pierces through the hard­est of hearts.  I am always amazed by how God’s love is ever present and shines through no mat­ter how hard we may resist it.  I am always hum­bled when God reminds me that divine love actu­al­ly is all around us, and for us. 

I guess that is why I, and I think we, on our own spir­i­tu­al quest can relate well with our Ethiopi­an Eunuch’s own spir­it quest from today’s first read­ing.  We only get this one snip­pet of his life, of a chance expe­ri­ence of the Eunuch’s read­ing the Book of Isa­iah while on ‘the road’ on offi­cial Ethiopi­an court busi­ness.  And then this chance encounter where, the Apos­tle Philip, at the Lord’s prompt­ing spoke and taught the Eunuch of God’s love, not only for the Eunuch but for all of cre­ation in Jesus Christ.  The Eunuch, heart trans­formed with the light of the truth of that love so true, asked Philip to Bap­tize him. 

Our spir­i­tu­al jour­ney is our own.  God relates to us, how­ev­er, in every encounter and expe­ri­ence through­out the course of our lives, an unfold­ing jour­ney of love that, if we let God, if we believe that that love is for us, and NOT against us, is and can be life trans­form­ing.  I know of where I speak, for there was a time in my angst rid­den youth, over 50 years ago now, that more often than not I would tell peo­ple I was, if not athe­ist, well I was at least agnos­tic.  And, yet, well, here I am.

In our Gospel today, we find words that were not only I am sure, a reas­sur­ance for the Johan­nine com­mu­ni­ty, but for us 2,000 plus years into an equal­ly uncer­tain world, that Jesus is the only bread of love that will feed us, save us, love us, heal us, for­give us, and raise us always up.  For Jesus is, ‘the liv­ing bread that came down from heav­en; who­ev­er eats this bread will live for­ev­er; and the bread that Jesus gives is his ‘flesh for the life of the world’ (John 6:51).  Every day, with every encounter and expe­ri­ence on our spir­it quest God’s love awaits to feed us with love divine, our only task is to keep look­ing for, let that love feed our heart and soul and nour­ish us, and to always and for­ev­er let God’s love every sec­ond of every day sur­prise us anew.