Being Drawn to Jesus

Homily for Thursday of the Third Week of Easter

Jesus says in the Gospel, “No one can come to me unless the Father draws him.” That’s not a restriction—it’s a reassurance. It means faith is not something we manufacture. It begins with God’s initiative, God’s quiet tug on the heart, God’s desire for us long before we desire Him. And Jesus completes that invitation by offering Himself as the Bread of Life, the food that sustains us not just for a day but for eternity.

We see that same divine initiative in the story of Philip and the Ethiopian official in Acts. The Spirit sends Philip to a stranger on a desert road. The Ethiopian is already being drawn—he’s reading Scripture, searching, longing. Philip simply steps into the moment God has prepared. The man hears the Good News, receives baptism, and goes on his way rejoicing. God draws, God feeds with the Word, and a life is changed.

Psalm 66 gives us the natural response: “Bless our God… He has kept us among the living.” When we recognize how God has pursued us, protected us, and nourished us, praise becomes the only fitting response. The psalmist doesn’t speak of a distant God but of a God who listens, who hears, who acts.

So the pattern is clear: God draws us—sometimes quietly, sometimes dramatically. God feeds us—with His Word, with His presence, with the Bread of Life. God sends us—like Philip, to be instruments of His invitation for someone else.

Where is God drawing you right now, and to whom might God be sending you?

Because the God who began this work in you is still at it—still calling, still feeding, still sending—so that others, too, may “go on their way rejoicing.”

The Father stirs the heart, awakens desire, opens the door of faith. The Son is the path, the bridge, the way that leads us home. The Spirit is the one who moves us along that path.