Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever. 
Both Jesus and St. Stephen tried to lead Jews to saving faith, and both found their message rejected.
Both worked miracles.
In today's Gospel and last Friday's, the miracle that particularly got the attention of the Jews was the multiplication of loaves.
Earlier that day, Jesus had worked many other miracles to heal the sick.
This and his teaching were what might be expected from a prophet.
But when he gave them miraculous bread in a deserted place, they realized he wasn't just any prophet.
They remembered that Moses had miraculously given bread in the desert.
They remembered that Moses had said that a unique prophet like him would one day come.
So they said, this is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.
It seems they rightly equated the prophet like Moses with the Messiah, because Jesus knew they were about to take him by force to make him king.
To avoid this, he withdrew to pray alone on a mountain, as Moses had been with God praying on a mountain for the people.
He is Jesus the Messiah and the prophet like Moses, but the crowd understands these titles in a way that is too material and carnal.
They seek in him a political liberator and a source of material bread.
He needs to lead them to a more spiritual perspective, and that means that they have to grow in faith.
Doubtless, one of the things he prayed for that night was that they would have the grace to be able to accept this message.
And if he prayed for them, they surely received that grace.
But would they cooperate with it?
The next day, the crowd found Jesus and his disciples back in Capernaum.
They were surprised to find Jesus there, because he did not leave in the boat with the apostles, and he didn't pass them on dry land either.
In fact, he walked on the water.
But he doesn't explain that to them, because their mentality is too worldly to understand the meaning of this miracle.
Instead he tries to get them to understand the meaning of the more important miracle of the multiplication of loaves.
Jesus is speaking in the synagogue, as we learn at the end of the chapter.
This means that it is the Sabbath, Saturday, so the day on which he multiplied the bread was Friday.
He gave them bread on a Friday, because it would be on a Friday that he would give his body.
So he says later while speaking in the synagogue, the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.
Let the last supper you all take bread and say, this is my flesh which is given for you.
Jesus preached on many Sabbaths, but this synagogue instruction is decisive.
Jesus asks and indeed demands that they take a step forward in their understanding of his mission and in their spiritual lives.
Although most will fail to take this step, he cannot wait any longer.
Time is short.
The Passover is at hand, and therefore Christ has only a little over a year before his crucifixion.
People who seek only material benefits cannot fathom a crucified Messiah.
He begins almost with a rebuke.
If you have trouble finding me and I flee from you, it is because you do not seek me but miracles.
Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.
The fundamental problem is that they are so engrossed in material things, in things that they can understand with their senses, that they forget about spiritual realities.
Jesus wants to give them a sublime bread from heaven, that is himself, the Eucharist.
But how can they desire him and receive him worthily if they seek only to fill their bellies?
What he wants to give them and us is the mystery of faith.
The Eucharist can only be known for what it is by faith, and it is not optional.
At the climax of his words in the synagogue, Jesus will say, Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
The Eucharist is necessary for salvation, and faith is necessary to receive the Eucharist.
This is why Jesus insists so much on the necessity of faith, and begins to speak of the Eucharist.
He begins talking to them with a reason for faith.
Speaking of himself in the third person, he calls himself the Son of Man, a title in the book of Daniel, and says, On him the Father, God, has set his seal.
Setting his seal signifies his approval.
He set his seal on Jesus when he said at the baptism in the Jordan, This is my beloved Son.
He set his seal on him every time Christ performed a miracle.
And as Jesus said in the previous chapter of St. John's Gospel, The very works that I am doing bear witness about me that the Father has sent me.
Thus the Father testifies that he has set his seal on Jesus in another and deeper sense, namely, in that the Son is the exact imprint of his nature.
As a seal leaves an imprint like itself, so he gave Christ his divinity, divinity equal to his own.
So if the Father has set his seal on the Son of Man, he is entirely worthy of faith.
To refuse him, to refuse to believe him, is a rejection of the Father.
So when the Jews ask Christ what works they are to do, he rightly tells them to begin with the most fundamental one.
This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.
In the coming days we'll hear more of what Jesus said in the synagogue at Capernaum.
He will increasingly insist on the need to have faith, even as opposition to his teaching increases.
In St. Stephen's case, the opposition quickly became violent.
Since he was a Greek-speaking Jew, he tried to evangelize other Greek-speaking Jews.
Some of them came from Cyrene in Alexandria in North Africa.
Others came from Silesia and other parts of Asia Minor.
There are many parallels between this first Christian martyr and Christ.
Stephen was filled with grace and power.
Christ was full of grace and truth.
Because St. Stephen, like Christ, received wisdom from God, he couldn't be beaten in debate either.
So the only way to shut him up was to kill him.
And since, like Jesus, he hadn't done anything wrong, his enemies resorted to calumnies.
Like Jesus, he was brought before the Sanhedrin.
There, the Jewish leaders looked intently at him and saw that his face was like the face of an angel.
An angel is a messenger of God.
So God was bearing witness by this sign that St. Stephen was speaking for him.
St. John Chrysostom comments that, Gracious did God make him, now that he was about to speak, so that immediately by his very look he might strike them with amazement.
For indeed there are faces full of spiritual grace, lovely to behold for those who desire them, and commanding respect from enemies who hate them.
Thanks to this they listened to a long speech from him, a courtesy they had not granted our Lord.
By his words he tried to lead them to faith in Jesus, showing how all of salvation history pointed to him, because we must believe to be saved.
Christ and his saints thus call us to have faith and to grow in faith, so that we might have eternal life.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.