Homily on John 6: 60-69 Twenty-first Sunday
After a few weeks of reading the Bread of Life discourse, today, we read the final verses of the 6th chapter of St. John’s Gospel. This is the final reaction to all of what we have read and heard; it is the final reaction of hearts and minds to the revelation of the Greatest Mystery of Our Faith—Mysterium Fidei…The Mystery of our Faith. And we have heard that this Mystery of our Faith, is that Jesus is the bread of life; and this bread is His real flesh and blood for the life of the world. Jesus actually instructs us to eat his true body and to drink his true blood in faith if we are to have life. And He backs up these words by swearing an oath, twice—Amen! Amen! I swear an Oath! I swear an Oath! These teachings were and are shocking, and Jesus recognizes them as such by saying, “does this shock you?”
It is our faith alone that will help us to ascent to The Mystery of Faith Regarding this mystery, St. Thomas famously wrote, “et si sensus deficit, ad firmandum cor sincerum sola fides sufficit.” Our senses are not able to know the mystery; only the gift of faith will help. It looks like bread, it taste like bread, it feels like bread, but it is not bread…it is Jesus in the flesh, in the body he took from the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Mass may look like a normal “service”, but it is not…it is the re-presentation, the very act of Jesus’ Sacrifice on Calvary now made truly present in space and time on this altar…While at the same time, it is literally heaven on earth with all of the angels and saints, our family in heaven, present with us as we adore God. Heaven is the Eucharist unveiled for all eternity…O” Mystery of mysteries.”
We see today in our reading, a great profession of faith- when Peter affirms his faith in Jesus’ divinity, in the light of all of those who rejected it. It is interesting to note that in the Gospel of St. John, Peter’s confession of faith comes here at the end of the disclosure of the Holy Eucharist, which is the pivotal moment of the life of the apostles. Simon was named Peter in the first meeting of Jesus in the Gospel of St. John, but today in John, Peter as chief of the apostles and as the head of the Church, professes His faith in Jesus’ divinity by professing His faith in the Eucharist—which is really one and the same act of faith. But its important to note that Peter did so, struggling and weak. This is great hope for us, who struggle as well in the face of such a “hard saying”. But even in his weakness, Peter through the power of the gift of faith, professes, “Master, to whom shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.” So, even though Peter struggles, He believes, because Jesus who is God, says the Eucharist is truly His whole self, in the fullness of His Divinity and Humanity—and Jesus as God can neither deceive nor be deceived! We believe because Jesus as said it; and we believe that Jesus is God.
I think it’s also important to note, that the first mention of Judas’ betrayal comes here in John 6 as well, at this pivotal teaching of Jesus. We didn’t read it today, but it comes immediately after the act of faith of Peter. In contrast to Peter’s act, Judas refuses to believe in Jesus’ words and thus refuses to make an act of faith. As a result, it is very clear that Judas’ heart was filled with betrayal as a direct result of his failure to believe and to make an act of faith in the Holy Eucharist. Later in John, during the last supper, we are told that the devil enter into Judas because Judas receives the Eucharist without believing and as result makes a sacrilegious communion. Judas failed to ask God to help in his weakness of faith, he fail to ask God to increase his faith and profess that faith in action, and so falls prey to the snares of the devil, who always entices us all to deny the truth of the Holy Eucharist.
Back to the profession of Peter’s faith in the Holy Eucharist. We also have to realize that while this profession of Peter is a deeply personal act between Christ and Peter, it is also an act of the entire Church and as such it is a communal act…In other words, when it comes to faith in the Eucharist, its not just about Jesus and me…it is about that, yes, but not only that. When any person says, “I believe in the Holy Eucharist”, he or she can only say that in faith with, in and through the faith of the entire Church. That’s why in the Mass we say, look not on our sins, but on the faith of your church, which is another way of saying, “look not on the weakness of my own faith, but on the faith of the church and then strengthen my faith through the Church’s faith.
This reminds us that the church is a family and we all depend on that family for our personal faith. We cannot believe and cannot not love God in isolation, we depend on the prayers and the support of all…and I mean all of the members of the family—This is one of the reasons why we must attend Mass every Sunday--the entire family literally depends on us, each and every week.
We are all in this together and we need each other, we need each other in order to be able to believe, to make an act faith and to be able to live that faith out. We all need each others’ prayers, each others’ acts of adoration—when you adore Jesus at the Mass or Holy Hour, you help the whole Church. We need each member from the youngest to the oldest, we need them not only to believe but to live that belief out in action. We truly are a body- We are all vital organs! We have to be here for each other, if we are not, it is a failure in charity and in love on our part, and we end up separating ourselves from the entire body, who desperately needs us.
I remember one person coming to me lamenting that one of her friends left her parish because she was mad at the priest. This person said to me sadly, I am so hurt she left, what happens if I need her prayers…I need her prayers.” Now of course this friend can still pray for this lady, but its not the same as it is when families pray together—there is strength in unity. And to struggle to maintain unity is to fail in charity, to fail in love.
We need each other, we need each other in order to believe in Jesus, to believe that Jesus is the Eucharist; and we definitely need each other to live out this faith in our daily lives. Again, nobody believes in God in isolation and nobody loves God in isolation. We can’t be here just for ourselves but for others before ourselves.
So this brings up another point, when we love God in the Eucharist, then we must love God in our neighbor. We can’t love God and not love our neighbor. Don’t misunderstand me, we must love and adore God first and foremost, over and above all else, because we can’t love our neighbor the way we are commandment with out loving God and loving Him through adoring Him in the Eucharist, but then we must show this love of ours for God, by loving and yes, even serving our neighbor, especially the ones we don’t like; and most especially those in our parish family we struggle to love.
In the end, we must have two responses when we receive Holy Communion. First, like Peter, we must ascent in faith that it is truly “the Lord we are dealing with” in order to receive worthily the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus and receive Him in a way and manner that shows we really believe. But this act of faith must not end with just “Jesus and me” because Holy Communion extends to the love of neighbor. This is not an abstract kind of concept; it is real and practical. It is carried out in deeds, such as: forgiving the member of the Church family, both the lay members and the members of the clergy and religious; doing penance for those who wrong us, and forgetting ourselves and making sacrifices of our time, talent and treasure for the sake of the family of God, our parish family.
As we end this beautiful Bread of Life Discourse in the Holy Eucharist, hopefully in our prayerful hearing and meditation on the words of Jesus in the Sixth Chapter of St. John, we have discovered more fully that our deepest need is Jesus in the Eucharist. And hopefully, now we have discovered more deeply that this union with Jesus in the Eucharist is only as deep as our union with the Church which produces the Eucharist. This is why one of the Church’s great sorrows is to have her members leave this Communion with the Body of Christ, both His physical body in the Eucharist and His mystical body in the pews---we heard this happen in the Gospel, “Many of the disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.” How sad it is to hear someone say they have left the Church to “find” Jesus…How could you leave to “find Jesus” when He is right here, bodily and personally, really and truly at every Mass and in every tabernacle of every Catholic Church…And how could you leave your family--the Church, which is the family of God, both those members of heaven and of earth, who are able to come together as one at the Holy Mass to adore the Trinity in unity and in love.
Let us never leave Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, let us instead believe and at the same time cry out, “Lord help my unbelief!” The Eucharist is truly Jesus, God still among us, O Mystery of mysteries, Praestet fides supplementum Sensuum defectui…Faith will supply for all defects when our feeble senses fail us before such a great mystery as this.…Our Lady, Queen of the family of God on both heaven and earth, Queen of our hearts, Queen of the Most Holy Eucharist, pray for us…
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