Saturday in the Third Week of Easter, April 20, 2024

John 6, 60-69

Many of the disciples of Jesus who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, “Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him. And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.”  As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer walked with him. Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?” Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

“This saying is hard; who can accept it?”  More literally, the Greek translates as, “This saying is harsh; who can hear it?”  Jesus had made it abundantly clear that if they were to enter eternal life, they must eat his Body and drink his Blood.  What he was saying was not just shocking, but impossible, as they understood it.  No Jew had ever said anything like this.  No human had ever said anything like Jesus had just said.  And they understood what he was saying: his Flesh was true food, and his Blood, true Drink, meaning that earthly food and drink in some ways resembled his Body and Blood, but these were the real thing and all other food and drink was as a shadow.  The reaction of the crowd  does not seem extreme when we see what Jesus was teaching them, but they did not get beyond the “what” to the “how”.  When the Angel Gabriel announced to the Blessed Virgin that she would bear the Son of God, she accepted the “what” right away — for an Angel of God was speaking — and she then proceeded to the “how”, what she needed to know.  But this crowd, which had seen his powerful deeds, especially his recent, miraculous feeding of them, would not go to the “how”, which, indeed, they did need to know.  They reject the “what” — eating the Lord’s Body and drinking his Blood — out of hand.  We might condone them if it were not for the miracles they had seen, which could only be done by divine power.

“It is the Spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail.”  The Lord is telling them that they are rejecting the gift of faith brought to them by the Holy Spirit.  If they would only ask the question, “How, Lord?”  But they do not.  They refuse the gift of faith which would enable them to fully embrace what he has taught and to one day eat his Body and drink his Blood, when it was time.  Instead, they cling to their earthly understanding and turn away from eternal life.  “No one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.”  All are called by God to his Son, but not all will accept the invitation: “How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leads to life: and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7, 14).  Our pride puffs us up so much that many find the gate to heaven to narrow to squeeze through, if our eyes were not so clogged with it that we could find it.  And this is ultimately the failing of these people.  They could not accept that they were wrong about him as their earthly Messiah and would not accept him on any terms other than theirs.

“Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”  The Lord was speaking in the synagogue at Capernaum where he had cast out demons, cured the sick, and where he had taught on many Sabbaths.  The defections of his followers may have begun them, with people leaving the synagogue to return to their old way of life, and then continued over time.  At some point Jesus drew the attention of the Apostles to these losses and asked them this question.  Peter’s answer shows how his faith has grown over the the period he has spent with the Lord, and he also speaks in the name of the other Apostles, who frequently discussed the Lord and his teachings among themselves: “We have come to believe,” he says, “and are convinced” that he is the Holy One of God.  Peter identifies Jesus as the “Holy One”, which is not yet “the Son”, as he will declare later, but the Son of man.  We should note that Peter does not call Jesus “the Messiah”, a title the Lord did not claim for himself.  It is a grace answer.  It is the answer of one who has accepted the Father’s invitation and the Holy Spirit’s gift.  May we persevere in the faith that we have received and accepted, and treasure it.

The eleventh article in our continuing series on the Holy Mass: The Preface

The preface to the Eucharistic Prayer begins with the third greeting of the priest to the people in the Mass.  The purpose of the greeting is to establish between the priest and the congregation that it is “right and just” for Almighty God to be thanked and praised.  Following the greeting, the priest expands on the particular reason why, this day, God is to be rendered thanks and praise.  Having done this, he exhorts the congregation to join their thanks and praise to God with the eternal worship of the angels in heaven, and this introduces the Sanctus, the “Holy, Holy, Holy”, the hymn of the angels recorded by the Prophet in Isaiah 6, 3.  Since the reform of the Mass in 1970 a large number of prefaces are to be found in the Missal as opposed to the handful from the preceding centuries.  There are prefaces for each season of the Church year as well as for the various feast days.  These can be used with the first three Eucharistic Prayers, but not with the fourth, which has its own preface.  The preface is a very old part of the Holy Mass.  It marks the entrance of the priest and the people into the holiest part of the Mass in which the bread and wine are made the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ and these are offered in Sacrifice to God the Father.  Because the preface, like the opening prayer, the offertory prayer, and the prayer after Holy Communion contain fairly complex theological statements and even use theological terms unfamiliar to most people, the preface should be spoken slowly by the priest.  There is much richness contained by these prefaces which are denied to the faithful when the words to them are breathlessly rushed through.

Next: The Sanctus