Hosea is the prophet who emphasized more than any other prophet God’s love for his people Israel.

Through him God says, “I will allure her now; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak persuasively to her” (Hos 2:16).

Elsewhere God says, referring to the Israelites: “I drew them with human cords, with bands of love” (Hos 11:4).

Today’s Gospel reading contains a hint as to how God proceeds in his efforts to bring about a conversion. He proceeds by an inward attraction or drawing of the sinner.

In the words of Jesus: “No one can come to me unless the Father… draw him” (v 44).

We can notice this action of the Father in the story of many conversions. Perhaps one of the most spectacular of these is that of St. Augustine as related in his Confessions.

There we observe how God attracts Augustine slowly but surely by bringing him to abandon his false notions about the divinity and gradually discover Christ and the truth.

As theologian Karl Rahner writes of conversion: “From the biblical and dogmatic point of view, man’s free turning to God has always to be seen as a response, made possible by grace, to a call from God.”

The angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, “Get up and head south on the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza, the desert route.” So he got up and set out.

Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, that is, the queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury, who had come to Jerusalem to worship, and was returning home.

Seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. The Spirit said to Philip, “Go and join up with that chariot.” Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

He replied, “How can I, unless someone instructs me?” So he invited Philip to get in and sit with him. This was the Scripture passage he was reading:

Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who will tell of his posterity? For his life is taken from the earth. Then the eunuch said to Philip in reply, “I beg you, about whom is the prophet saying this? About himself, or about someone else?”

Then Philip opened his mouth and, beginning with this Scripture passage, he proclaimed Jesus to him.

As they traveled along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “Look, there is water. What is to prevent my being baptized?”

Then he ordered the chariot to stop, and Philip and the eunuch both went down into the water, and he baptized him. When they came out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, but continued on his way rejoicing.

Philip came to Azotus, and went about proclaiming the good news to all the towns until he reached Caesarea.

“Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.” or “Alleluia.”

Jesus said to the crowds: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day. It is written in the prophets: They shall all be taught by God. Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.

Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die.

I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my Flesh for the life of the world.”

Source: “365 Days with the Lord 2026,” St. Paul’s, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 632-895-9701; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.