Blog & Pastor Letters

“This saying is hard; who can accept it?” A hard saying of Jesus is one that his own disciples find difficult to believe or accept. Not everything he taught is “hard,” yet any believer who finds everything Jesus says pleasing and agreeable has not truly heard the Jesus revealed in the Gospels. A man rejected by his own people who in the end clamored for his crucifixion was not one who simply told people what they wanted to hear. More than once they took offense at what Jesus said, whether it was the townspeople of Nazareth saying, “Where did this man get all this?” (Mark 6:2-3); or the Pharisees affronted by Jesus’ indictment that they nullify the law with their traditions (Matt 15:12).

Today’s Gospel contains one of the most disputed passages in Christianity. The question, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” continues to be raised by his followers. Jesus’ teaching divided his initial audience and has not ceased doing so among the generations of believers since. What Jesus says is controversial and scandalous, yet because Jesus speaks quite clearly, repeating three distinct times the provocative phrase of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, the reason for the quarreling over what he meant lies with his followers, not with him.

We continue a month-long hearing from the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, which began with Jesus multiplying the loaves and fishes to feed a multitude in a deserted place. When the crowd recognized the miracle as a sign that God’s Messiah would reenact the wonders of Exodus and again feed them heavenly bread, Jesus quite simply disappeared. He fled from their adulation, their plans to make him their king. He went deeper into the wilderness, higher up the mountain, to pray to his heavenly Father in secret.

When hunger overtakes you, the importance of what you were doing fades until you find the satisfaction of a filled stomach. Whatever you were doing, that day’s pursuit, succumbs to the simple need for sustenance. A life spent primarily on the pleasures of food and drink is meanly lived, yet no one can go without eating. Wisely, we often combine caloric intake with the good of eating together, changing the meal into a communal repast of joyful conversation. We do well when the replenishing of the body is joined with true communion with others, the one thing really worth living for.

“This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.” For a moment the crowd in today’s reading from the Gospel of John seem to have experienced an epiphany of faith: an insight into Jesus’ identity like Andrew and Philip in John chapter 1 (John 1:41, 45) or the Samaritan woman at the well in chapter 4 (John 4:29). But then Jesus is obliged to withdraw from them — to not entrust himself to them, just like he has before with shallow followers who believed in him only because “they saw the signs which he did” (John 2:23). Jesus “knew what was in” people like that; he knew their faith was in signs, not in Jesus himself.

Have you ever felt like a sheep without a shepherd?

Have you ever felt lost or alone in your faith? Abandoned, even? Do you know the feeling of going to Mass, perhaps at an unfamiliar parish — or perhaps not — and bracing yourself for what you might experience? Ever had a particularly bad experience with a priest, or looked at problems in the Church, or our nation, or the world, and wondered, “Why don’t the bishops do or say something?”

“A plan for the fullness of times, to sum up all things in Christ, in heaven and on earth.” This amazing sentence in the second reading, from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, is the climax to a magnificent passage that comes up in the Sunday Mass readings just once every three years — today being that day — though this passage is prayed by priests, deacons, and religious typically every week in the Divine Office, during Monday Evening Prayer! So it’s a key passage in the heart and mind of the Church, even though we hear it so seldom at Sunday Mass.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in the section on the First Commandment, lists atheism as “a sin against the virtue of religion” — not just a false belief or an error, but a sin. Now, the Catechism is quick to acknowledge that culpability in particular atheists “can be significantly diminished in virtue of the intentions and the circumstances.” In praying for “those who do not acknowledge God” in the Solemn Intercessions on Good Friday, the Church asks that, in “following what is right in sincerity of heart, they may find the way to God himself.” So disbelieving in God’s existence doesn’t automatically mean that someone isn’t sincere in seeking to follow what is right and true.

Today, as we reflect on the intertwining paths of philosophy and faith, we are reminded that wisdom, the pursuit of profound understanding, takes different forms. The Ancient Greeks embarked on an autonomous quest for wisdom, seeking answers to fundamental questions about freedom, the soul, and the nature of a person. On the other hand, the Hebrew perspective illuminates that true wisdom is a gift from God, revealed and received, not merely grasped at through human endeavors.

Today, our reflections turn to the profound wisdom contained in the book of Job, a literary masterpiece that stands unique within the sacred canon of Scripture. Job’s narrative takes a dramatic approach to the fundamental questions of our existence, unraveling the mysteries of the relationship between God and humanity, good and evil, reward and punishment.

On this Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, we reflect on the profound messages of hope and resilience that scripture offers us, drawing particularly from the insights of the prophet Ezekiel and the teachings of St. Paul.

In today’s readings, we are reminded of the profound consequences of the first disobedience in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve, lured by the serpent’s cunning, freely chose to eat from the tree that God had forbidden. Their excuses and evasion of responsibility reveal the human tendency to shirk accountability, yet both ultimately admit, “So I ate it.”

As we gather today to celebrate the solemnity of Corpus Christi, the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, the readings offer a profound backdrop to the significance of this liturgical feast. The primitive scene from the Book of Exodus paints a vivid picture of a rough-hewn altar, twelve stone pillars, and young men from the tribes of Israel sacrificing young bulls. The sacrificial scene becomes a tangible prefiguration of the Eucharist.