Spiritual vs. Material!

Monday, May 5, 2025

Acts 6:8-15; Jn 6:22-29

Today’s Gospel invites us to examine if our priority lies with material gain or spiritual wellness. 

Though impressive, the extensive effort of the crowd to find Jesus comes to nothing when it becomes clear as Jesus claims that ‘You are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled.’ 

What did Jesus intend by his miracle of multiplication of loaves? Though the immediate need was to fulfill the crowd’s hunger, the remote intention was that they would be able to see beyond the material sign to grasp the spiritual truth. In other words, the crowd sought Jesus only for the food and not for what Jesus meant through the miracle of multiplication. 

As a result, the crowd’s search for Jesus was lost in the material gains and lacked any intent to discern the spiritual meaning it symbolized. 

Thus, the crowd lost on virtues like sharing, sacrificing, and communion that the miracle of multiplication embodied. 

This is what disappoints Jesus, and he reorients the crowd to focus on spiritual upliftment and not stop with mere material concerns. 

Let us pray that we may go after the spiritual and discover a method to live it. 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar