Christopher Campbell

What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you?

Beloved in the body of Christ,

One of the greatest accomplishments of the modern era has been the development of science, but throughout its development it has struggled with its original purpose. When the founders of modern science started to lay its foundations the purpose was to understand nature and, through this, to better understand God. As Galileo said: The laws of nature are written by the hand of God in the language of mathematics… To understand the Universe, you must understand the language in which it's written, the language of Mathematics.

However, in contemporary science, we have tried so hard to convince ourselves that we can be completely objective that we have lost sight of basic principles. We have done this to such an extent that we abandon reason in favor of mere sensory observation. But as Galileo also said: Where the senses fail us, reason must step in.

In today's Gospel Jesus is asked by a crowd what sign or work he is going to provide so that they may believe in Him. But His response is one that requires reason:

I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.

Our senses truly fail us here, for we do see death all around us, yet we eat of His flesh. So we must turn to our reason to attempt to understand.

...it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

How is it we live, that we come into being and are sustained? It is the loving sacrifice of our mothers that brings us into this world. And it is the love of one another that keeps us alive on this earth. Thus, it is by love that we are born and live.

God is this love and, as such, it is through Him that we both come into being and are sustained. But what of our observation of death? This is where Love is triumphant! For though we may perceive the death of those we love, they still live in this love. The being of those who we see die rests purely in love, their being exists purely in God.

Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

With this understanding, perhaps we can read the phrase "God became man so that Man might become God" as Love became flesh so that flesh might be given life in Love.

May you live in Truth, Peace, and Love,
—Chris Campbell