When God Feeds His Children — Silvio José Báez, ocd

Today, with gratitude and wonder, we celebrate the gift of the Risen Christ, present in the bread of the Eucharist to satisfy our hunger for life and love. Today’s first reading, from the book of Deuteronomy, recalls Israel’s experience as they journeyed through the desert toward the promised land. In that barren place, where there could be no harvest and no food, the book of Deuteronomy reminds Israel: “The Lord fed you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors knew” (Dt 8:3). Forty years without fertile land, without certainties, without a clear path forward. And yet, in that desert, God was present, feeding his people.

In the deserts of life, when our human securities collapse and we come face to face with our own insufficiency, God remains beside us like a father who lovingly provides for the needs of his children. Let’s think of the personal desert of loneliness and sadness, of discouragement and fear. Let’s think of the desert of our people, subjected for years to an irrational and aging power that deprives them of freedom and a future. Let’s think of the desert of uprooting and exile, which many of us have experienced. And yet, there’s no desert where God leaves us abandoned to our own strength, without sustaining us and feeding us with the power of his love.

But the manna in the desert held an even deeper lesson: “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Dt 8:3). The desert taught Israel that material bread isn’t enough. There’s a hunger no abundance can satisfy, a thirst no success can calm, a loneliness no noise can fill. The deepest longings and desires of the heart can be fulfilled only by God, who continually offers us the bread of his presence and love.

Using that same image of bread, Jesus speaks in the synagogue of Capernaum the boldest words ever heard: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven” (Jn 6:51). Jesus is bread. Bread is simple, but it’s effective: it satisfies the one who eats it, nourishes life, and sustains existence. That’s what Jesus was, and that’s what he remains: bread. He is the bread that came down from heaven, the one who offered his life to bring us into communion with the Father and make us his children. He is bread that strengthens and heals us, forgives us, and gives us life.

Jesus is the bread that can fill our life with meaning and constantly renew it with his love: “The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world” (Jn 6:51). The bread that gives us life is his life handed over, his merciful love, his words that enlighten and set us free, his tenderness toward the poor, his faithfulness unto death, his glorious life risen from the dead. All of this is Jesus, the bread that came down from heaven, who wants to be the daily bread of our fragile existence. Let’s not forget his words: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (Jn 6:53).

In a world full of broken promises and deceitful words that try to manipulate our conscience, Jesus is the bread that feeds us with light and truth. In the face of authoritarian regimes that subjugate people through fear and repression, Jesus is the bread that nourishes us with strength and hope. Before unhinged rulers who distort history, calling repression peace and slavery a blessing, Jesus is the bread that sustains our dreams of freedom and keeps us from being deceived. To feed on Jesus is to believe in him, to trust in his love, to be nourished by his words, by his way of living and loving, and to let ourselves be transformed by him.

This encounter of faith with Jesus, this feeding on him, reaches its fullest and most concrete expression in the Eucharist. In the broken and shared bread of the Lord’s Supper, Jesus truly comes to us: “My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink” (Jn 6:55). In the simplicity of the eucharistic bread, the real presence of Jesus becomes food that strengthens us and renews our hope. When we receive Jesus in the bread of the Eucharist, our life is born anew again and again. We know ourselves to be freely loved, and we’re impelled to love our brothers and sisters with the same intensity. We can’t receive Christ in the Eucharist and remain indifferent to the suffering of the poor, dismiss those who think differently, foster fruitless divisions, or close our eyes to injustice.

The eucharistic bread is like a fountain of living water that refreshes our withered life and waters our parched heart. As the Pope recalled today at the Corpus Christi Eucharist in Madrid, Saint John of the Cross, in a beautiful poem, imagined the Eucharist as bread from which there flows, in the middle of the night, the living fountain who is God:

“This eternal spring is hidden
in this living bread for our life’s sake,
although it is night.

It is here calling out to creatures;
and they satisfy their thirst,
although in darkness, because it is night.

This living spring that I long for,
I see in this bread of life,
although it is night” (Poetry 8, sts. 9–11).

Saint John of the Cross reminds us that Jesus is present in the eucharistic bread as he is present in the night: he can be recognized and welcomed only through the darkness of loving faith. There is Jesus, “in this living bread for our life’s sake, although it is night” (Poetry 8, st. 9). Jesus is truly present in the simplicity of this bread: humble, silent, and discreet. From this bread, he cries out his love, calls us, and waits for us:

“It is here calling out to creatures;
and they satisfy their thirst,
although in darkness, because it is night” (Poetry 8, st. 10).

Commenting on this poem by Saint John of the Cross, Pope Leo invited us today in Madrid to open ourselves to Jesus, who, by the grace of the Eucharist, “transforms us and makes us protagonists of the transformation of history, a sign of hope.” And he added:

“Let us return to him with sincere love. Let us open ourselves to the encounter with him, let us allow him to quench the thirst of our hearts, so that we may then go forth into the paths of life and history, bringing to the people this stream of fresh water, a stream of love, peace, justice and joy” (Leo XIV, Homily of the Holy Father, June 7, 2026).

Let’s draw near to the table of the Lord with the simple, trusting faith of Israel in the desert, knowing that what we need most isn’t something we make for ourselves, but something given to us by God. Let’s receive Jesus with gratitude. Let’s allow his love, “the fount that flows and runs, although it is night,” to nourish us and transform us into bread, broken and shared for the life of the world.

Bishop Silvio José Báez, o.c.d.

Auxiliary Bishop of Managua
Homily, 7 June 2026

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Leo XIV 2026, ‘Homily of the Holy Father: Holy Mass, Procession and Eucharistic Blessing in the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, Plaza de Cibeles, Madrid, Sunday, 7 June 2026’, The Holy See, 7 June, viewed 7 June 2026, https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/homilies/2026/documents/20260607-spagna-messa-madrid.html.

Translation from the Spanish text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.

Featured image: Adriaen van Ostade, Father Feeding his Child, 1610–85, etching. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Public Domain). Image adapted for 16:9 format with parchment background.

Quote of the day, 4 May: St. John of the Cross

The Virgin, weighed
with the Word of God,
comes down the road:
if only you’ll shelter her.

Saint John of the Cross

Poetry, 13, “Christmas Refrain”

Original Spanish text:

Del Verbo divino
la Virgen preñada
viene de camino:
¡si le dais posada!

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: AI-generated artwork in the style of Gari Melchers, created using Midjourney.

Quote of the day, 26 April: St. John of the Cross

1. A lone young shepherd lived in pain
withdrawn from pleasure and contentment,
his thoughts fixed on a shepherd-girl
his heart an open wound with love.

2. He weeps, but not from the wound of love,
there is no pain in such affliction,
even though the heart is pierced;
he weeps in knowing he’s been forgotten.

3. That one thought: his shining one
has forgotten him, is such great pain
that he bows to brutal handling in a foreign land,
his heart an open wound with love.

4. The shepherd says: I pity the one
who draws herself back from my love,
and does not seek the joy of my presence,
though my heart is an open wound with love for her.

5. After a long time, he climbed a tree,
and spread his shining arms,
and hung by them, and died,
his heart an open wound with love.

Saint John of the Cross

Poem 7, Stanzas applied spiritually to Christ and the soul

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: The Good Shepherd is an oil on canvas painting by American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner, dated 1902. This image comes from the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University. Image credit: Zimmerli Art Museum / Google Art Project (Public domain).

Quote of the day, 20 April: St. John of the Cross

Oh, then, spiritual soul, when you see your appetites darkened, your inclinations dry and constrained, your faculties incapacitated for any interior exercise, do not be afflicted; think of this as a grace, since God is freeing you from yourself and taking from you your own activity. However well your actions may have succeeded, you did not work so completely, perfectly, and securely—because of their impurity and awkwardness—as you do now that God takes you by the hand and guides you in darkness, as though you were blind, along a way and to a place you know not. You would never have succeeded in reaching this place no matter how good your eyes and your feet.

Another reason the soul not only advances securely when it walks in darkness but even gains and profits is that when in a new way it receives some betterment, it usually does so in a manner it least understands, and thus ordinarily thinks it is getting lost. Since it has never possessed this new experience, which makes it go out, blinds it, and leads it astray with respect to its first method of procedure, it thinks it is getting lost rather than advancing successfully and profitably. Indeed, it is getting lost to what it knew and tasted, and going by a way in which it neither tastes nor knows.

To reach a new and unknown land and journey along unknown roads, travelers cannot be guided by their own knowledge; instead, they have doubts about their own knowledge and seek the guidance of others. Obviously, they cannot reach new territory or attain this added knowledge if they do not take these new and unknown roads and abandon those familiar ones. Similarly, people learning new details about their art or trade must work in darkness and not with what they already know. If they refuse to lay aside their former knowledge, they will never make any further progress. The soul, too, when it advances, walks in darkness and unknowing.

Since God, as we said, is the master and guide of the soul, this blind one can truly rejoice now that it has come to understand as it has here, and say: in darkness, and secure.

Saint John of the Cross

The Dark Night, II.16.7

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: A woman walks along a foggy mountain road in the Andean highlands near Cajamarca, Peru. Photo credit: Jordi Tambillo / Unsplash.

Quote of the day, 9 April: St. John of the Cross

Lest his disciples go without merit by having sensible proof of his resurrection, he did many things to further their belief before they saw him.

Mary Magdalene was first shown the empty sepulcher, and afterward, the angels told her about the resurrection so she would, by hearing, believe before seeing. As St. Paul says: Faith comes through hearing (Romans 10:17). And though she beheld him, he seemed only an ordinary man, so by the warmth of his presence, he could finish instructing her in the belief she was lacking (Matthew 28:1–6; Luke 24:4–10; John 20:11–18).

And the women were sent to tell the disciples first; then these disciples set out to see the sepulcher (Matthew 28:7–8).

And journeying incognito to Emmaus with two of his followers, he inflamed their hearts in faith before allowing them to see (Luke 24:15–32).

Finally, he reproved all his disciples for refusing to believe those who had told them of his resurrection (Mark 16:14).

And announcing to St. Thomas that they are blessed who believe without seeing, he reprimanded him for desiring to experience the sight and touch of his wounds (John 20:25, 29).

Thus, God is not inclined to work miracles. When he works them, he does so, as they say, out of necessity.

Saint John of the Cross

The Ascent of Mount Carmel, III.31.8–9

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Op weg naar Emmaüs (Journey to Emmaus) is an ink and chalk drawing on paper by Harmen ter Borch, after Gerard ter Borch the Elder, his father. Harmen Ter Borch executed this drawing in Zwolle, Netherlands on 10 November 1650. Scholars at the Rijksmuseum explain that “despite Gerard the Elder’s inscription that Harmen is author of this drawing, Harmen may still have been inspired by one of his father’s Biblical drawings.” Image credit: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (Public domain).

Quote of the day, 6 April: St. John of the Cross

Where signs and testimonies abound, there is less merit in believing.

God never works these marvels except when they are a necessity for believing. Lest his disciples go without merit by having sensible proof of his resurrection, he did many things to further their belief before they saw him.

Mary Magdalene was first shown the empty sepulcher, and afterward the angels told her about the resurrection so she would, by hearing, believe before seeing. As St. Paul says: Faith comes through hearing [Rom. 10:17]. And though she beheld him, he seemed only an ordinary man, so by the warmth of his presence, he could finish instructing her in the belief she was lacking [Mt. 28:1-6; Lk. 24:4-10; Jn. 20:11-18].

And the women were sent to tell the disciples first; then these disciples set out to see the sepulcher [Mt. 28:7-8]. And journeying incognito to Emmaus with two of his followers, he inflamed their hearts in faith before allowing them to see [Lk. 24:15-32].

Finally, he reproved all his disciples for refusing to believe those who had told them of his resurrection [Mk. 16:14]. And announcing to St. Thomas that they are blessed who believe without seeing, he reprimanded him for desiring to experience the sight and touch of his wounds [Jn. 20:25, 29].

Thus, God is not inclined to work miracles. When he works them, he does so, as they say, out of necessity. He consequently reprimanded the Pharisees because they would not give assent without signs: If you do not see signs and wonders, you do not believe [Jn. 4:48]. Those, then, who love to rejoice in these supernatural works suffer a great loss in faith.

Saint John of the Cross

The Ascent of Mount Carmel, III, ch. 31, nos. 8–9

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Ushered in a Tearful Joy, Vasily Polenov (Russian, 1844–1927). Oil on canvas, c. 1900. Polenov captures the moment when Resurrection light breaks into the house of mourning. A woman—probably Mary Magdalene—stands in the doorway, clothed in blue, announcing news that will change everything. Seated in the shadows, one veiled figure turns to listen; another sits with head in hands, still bowed in grief. The painting evokes the Easter Monday Gospel (Matthew 28:8–10), in which the women, “fearful yet overjoyed,” run from the tomb to tell the disciples—and meet the Risen Lord along the way.

Quote of the day, 27 March: José Vicente Rodríguez, ocd

Among the laypeople who followed John of the Cross, one stands out in a particular way: Doña Ana de Mercado y Peñalosa. She left Granada and returned to her native city of Segovia, where she took up residence in small houses purchased and made ready beside the convent of the Discalced Carmelite friars, so as to remain close to her spiritual father, Fray John of the Cross, and to the monastery whose foundation she was helping to support.

This was not the construction of a new house, as some historians have supposed, but the purchase of two small dwellings. Gaspar de Herrera—a priest and administrator of the Mercy Hospital in Segovia—sold, with the permission of the city’s provisor, “to the prior, friars, and convent of the monastery of Our Lady of Mount Carmel of the Discalced, outside the city walls […] two houses and an enclosed plot with poplars and a well fed by a natural spring, which the said Hospital owned in the parish of Saint Mark.” The agreed price was “180 ducats, amounting to 67,500 maravedís,” to be paid in three installments.

The deed of sale was carried out with particular solemnity, since all the members of the Consulta and four chapter members of the Segovia convent took part in it. All the members of the Consulta signed, including John of the Cross himself. The purchase is dated August 11, 1589. A few days later, Doña Ana de Peñalosa paid the agreed sum. Shortly afterward, the two small houses were joined into a single dwelling where she could live for the rest of her life.

She still retained her palace in the city, however, and John of the Cross would often go there as well. One of the household servants, Leonor de Vitoria—who saw Fray John many times and went to confession to him—recalls how, when he came to the house, he would speak with Doña Ana and her niece, Inés de Mercado y Peñalosa. She saw him “in the presence of all the servants, speaking and conversing about holy and spiritual things, about heaven, and about how they might become saints. His words were always of this kind. At times, while speaking of these things, he would read them certain devout texts; at other times, he would leave them books in which such things were written, so that they might attend to them and serve our Lord.”

It is not clear whether Ana de Jesús was already among Doña Ana’s household servants; in her Testament, Doña Ana refers to her as “my servant… now in my service.”

Leonor also notes that Doña Ana would always invite Fray John “to sit down and not remain seated on the floor; but the saint would not agree, always seeking the humblest place in which to sit.” She adds, speaking of his modesty and bearing, that “simply by seeing him and hearing him, one was recollected and seemed moved to desire to serve our Lord. His words were holy and good, never idle. Everything that could be seen in him, whether in his words or his actions, was entirely holy, and he appeared to be very full of God and of virtues.”

Another witness, Lucas de San José, says that Fray John taught Doña Ana and her niece Doña Inés “the way of perfection,” and that “when the saint would go out to speak with them at the confessional, it was a common saying among the friars: ‘Now Saint Jerome, Saint Paula, and Eustochium are together.’”

Luis de Mercado y Peñalosa, Doña Ana’s nephew, also had much contact with John of the Cross. What he says about the saint’s virtues comes both from his own experience and from what he heard—especially about his humility and modesty—from his wife, Doña Inés de Mercado, “who for many years was in close contact with the holy father Fray John of the Cross, together with her aunt, Doña Ana de Mercado y Peñalosa.” He also recounts in detail the transfer of the saint’s remains from Úbeda and the veneration he received in Segovia.

José Vicente Rodríguez, o.c.d.

San Juan de la Cruz, ch. 27

Rodríguez, J.V. 2015, San Juan de la Cruz: la biografía, 2nd edn, San Pablo, Madrid.

Translation from the Spanish text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.

Featured image: This detail from an image of St. John of the Cross was engraved in 1788 by Gilles Antoine Demarteau. The technique used—of which Demarteau was a master—was crayon-manner in red and black, based on a drawing by Taillasson. The Art Institute of Chicago has a marvelous image of the tools used in crayon-manner engraving, with detailed figures of the process. Image credit: Rijksmuseum, Antwerp (Public domain)

Quote of the day, 4 March: St. John of the Cross

These stanzas, Reverend Mother [Anne of Jesus], were obviously composed with a certain burning love of God. The wisdom and charity of God is so vast, as the Book of Wisdom states, that it reaches from end to end, and the soul informed and moved by it bears in some way this very abundance and impulsiveness in her words. As a result, I do not plan to expound these stanzas in all its breadth and fullness that the fruitful spirit of love conveys to them. It would be foolish to think that expressions of love arising from mystical understanding, like these stanzas, are fully explainable.

Since these stanzas, then, were composed in a love flowing from abundant mystical understanding, I cannot explain them adequately, nor is it my intention to do so. I only wish to shed some general light on them, since Your Reverence has desired this of me. I believe such an explanation will be more suitable. It is better to explain the utterances of love in their broadest sense so that each one may derive profit from them according to the mode and capacity of one’s own spirit, rather than narrow them down to a meaning unadaptable to every palate.

As a result, though we give some explanation of these stanzas, there is no reason to be bound to this explanation. For mystical wisdom, which comes through love and is the subject of these stanzas, need not be understood distinctly in order to cause love and affection in the soul, for it is given according to the mode of faith through which we love God without understanding him.

Saint John of the Cross

Prologue to the Spiritual Canticle

Note: Anna Lobera Torres was born at Medina Del Campo (Valladolid, Spain) on 25 November 1545. She was received in 1570 into the first monastery of the Discalced Carmelites at Avila by St. Teresa herself, and later accompanied her to Salamanca and Beas. It was in returning to Granada to found a monastery, that she obtained from St. John of the Cross a commentary on the Spiritual Canticle, which he dedicated to her. After several migrations and misfortunes, in 1604, together with Blessed Anne of St. Bartholomew, she founded monasteries in France and Belgium. She died in Brussels after a few years of great interior and physical suffering, on 4 March 1621. She was beatified by Pope Francis on 29 September 2024.

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Detail of a portrait of Anne of Jesus after Hieronymus Wierix. Image credit: Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (Public domain)

Quote of the day, 15 February: St. John of the Cross

The soul at the beginning of this song has grown aware of her obligations and observed that life is short, the path leading to eternal life constricted, the just one scarcely saved, the things of the world vain and deceitful, that all comes to an end and fails like falling water, and that the time is uncertain, the accounting strict, perdition very easy, and salvation very difficult.

She knows on the other hand of her immense indebtedness to God for having created her solely for himself, and that for this she owes him the service of her whole life; and because he redeemed her solely for himself she owes him every response of love.

She knows, too, of the thousand other benefits by which she has been obligated to God from before the time of her birth, and that a good part of her life has vanished, that she must render an account of everything — of the beginning of her life as well as the later part — unto the last penny, when God will search Jerusalem with lighted candles, and that it is already late — and the day far spent — to remedy so much evil and harm.

She feels on the other hand that God is angry and hidden because she desired to forget him so in the midst of creatures. Touched with dread and interior sorrow of heart over so much loss and danger, renouncing all things, leaving aside all business, and not delaying a day or an hour, with desires and sighs pouring from her heart, wounded now with love for God, she begins to call her Beloved and say:

Where have you hidden,
Beloved, and left me moaning?
you fled like the stag
after wounding me;
I went out calling you, but you were gone.

Saint John of the Cross

The Spiritual Canticle: St. 1, no. 1

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Saint John of the Cross (detail), Abel de Jesús (21st c. Spanish), digital illustration with Photoshop. Image credit: © Abel de Jesús (All rights reserved, used by permission).

today we're diving into a topic that feels both ancient and surprisingly fresh: 'Velvet Darkness, Embracing Mystery in Christian Spirituality.'

#faithinuncertainty, #divineunknowing, #StJohnoftheCross

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