Lectio Divina: 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time (2025)
Jn 6:37-40→ Our gospel reading is part of the long Eucharistic passage in John 6. Our extract begins with the words, “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away. The word everything, or all, includes both creation and people. It hints at predestination, i.e., some are destined to be called, while others are not. Much the same notion is implicit in Rm 8:29 which reads, “those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” Catholic theology does not interpret John 6:37 or Rm 8:29 as teaching a Calvinist-style predestination. Calvinist predestination teaches that God sovereignly and eternally chooses who will be saved and who will be damned, independent of human merit or action. Instead, it affirms both the divine initiative and human freedom, emphasizing that God's grace invites but does not override free will.
Jesus went on to say, “I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.” Jesus said on a number of occasions that he was heaven sent (cf. Jn 6:33, 38, 41, 50, 51, 58) just as God’s word and the law were also gifts from heaven (cf. Ex 19:11, 20). The Jews would have found this hard to believe as they knew that Joseph was his human father.
He also repeatedly affirmed that he had come to do his Father's will. In Heb 10:7 we read, “Then I said, 'Behold, I have come (in the scroll of the book it is written of me) to do your will, O God.’ In John’s Gospel Jesus testified, “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” In Jn 12:49 he said, “I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken.”
Jesus went on to say in our Gospel reading, “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me but raise it up on the last day.” We sometimes wonder, how many people will be saved. Jesus never gave a clear answer. But in this verse, he makes it clear that God the Father wants all those who come to Jesus and believe in him, to be saved and to be raised to eternal life with God on the last day. However, in the period before the last day, all people experience death and there are three places they can go, heaven, hell or purgatory.
On 2nd of Nov we remember the dead, especially those who may be in purgatory the place of painful purification. In pars 45-47 of Spe Salvi (The hope of salvation) Pope Benedict XVI presented purgatory as a hopeful, transformative encounter with Christ’s love—not a place of punishment, but a process of purification through divine mercy and justice. He described purgatory as the soul’s encounter with Christ’s gaze—a gaze that is “the fire that burns us, transforms us, and frees us”. This fire is not external torment but the inner experience of being purified by love. Purgatory is not a physical place but a state of being where the soul is made ready for heaven. It’s the final stage of sanctification, where imperfections are burned away so that the soul can fully enter into communion with the all holy God. The Church recommends that those of us who are living on earth should pray for the souls in purgatory in the belief that our intercessions can shorten and lessen the temporal punishment due to sin.
Our gospel concludes with Jesus saying, “This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day.” This verse expresses the heart of the Gospel: salvation is offered to all who truly perceive and trust in Christ. Catholic commentators emphasize that this verse reveals both divine initiative and human response, culminating in resurrection and eternal life. In the broader context of John 6, this verse is part of the Bread of Life discourse. Catholic tradition links this to the Eucharist, where believers “see” and “receive” Christ sacramentally. Eternal life begins now through communion with Christ and is fulfilled in resurrection. While the verse assures eternal life to believers, Catholic teaching stresses that faith must be lived out in love and perseverance. Salvation is not automatic but involves ongoing cooperation with grace.