Saturday in the Fourth Week of Easter, May 17, 2025

John 14, 7-14

Jesus said to his disciples: “If you know me, then you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” Philip said to Jesus, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works themselves. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father. And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.”

Philip’s request, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us”, startles us in its presumption.  No human — not even Moses —  had ever seen the Father (cf. John 6, 46).  It was said of Moses that the Lord knew him “face to face” (Deuteronomy 37, 10), but when the Lord showed himself to Moses, he only allowed him to see his “back parts”, for, as God said to Moses, “You  cannot see my face: for man shall not see me, and live” (Exodus 33, 20). Moses, the man closest to God in the Old Testament, only saw the least part of God’s glory.  However, Philip’s saying  does shows a certain level of faith in that he believed that  Jesus had the power to reveal the Father to them.  

What he fails at, the presumption aside, is to recognize his (and every mortal human person’s) incapacity to “see” the Father: a blind man can tilt his head towards the sun but he will not see it.  He lacks the capacity to do so.  Jesus rebukes Philip: “How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?”  Back when he had healed the man born blind, Jesus had proclaimed, “The Father and I are one” (John 10, 20), and more than once he had used the sacred name of God to refer to himself (cf. John 8, 58).  Still, this was not “enough” for Philip, and so the Lord Jesus points him to the unprecedented miracles that only God could do: “Believe because of the works themselves.” Jesus is asking Philip, Would the Father permit me to raise the dead if I were claiming to be his Son and I were not?  The works that I do are the Father’s confirmation and seal on all that I have declared to you.

Every day we encounter people who want to see the Father, most of whom cannot put their longing into clear words.  Often their lives are lonely, twisted, and torn, and their bodies and expressions bear witness to that.  They are helpless but for us.  As members of the Body of Christ we can also be visible images of the invisible God, to the degree that we live holy lives.  It is the saint who can say, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” Thus, the words and deeds which are done through the saint by the Father, are the meat and drink the people of the world hunger and thirst for.

Friday in the Fourth Week of Easter, May 16, 2025

John 14, 1-6

Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be. Where I am going you know the way.” Thomas said to him, “Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Nearly half of St. John’s Gospel (chapters 13-21) is of events that take place from the time of the Last Supper through the days after the Resurrection.  This makes it very different from the other three Gospels.  By way of comparison, in St. Matthew’s Gospel, the account of the Last Supper until the Death of the Lord occupies only the last two thirds of chapter 26 through chapter 27, with chapter 28 recounting the Resurrection and the Lord’s appearances.  The first three Gospel writers seem to point their Gospels directly to the Lord’s Passion, whereas John seems to point his towards the teachings Jesus presents the night before his Death.  This gives these teachings greater emphasis and greater importance.  Here, Jesus gives his last will and testament, as it were.  

Perhaps the words for today’s reading are the best known of these final teachings.  Jesus is consoling his Apostles.  Just before these words, Jesus had foretold his betrayal and dismissed Judas Iscariot.  Then Jesus began to speak of his going to a place where his Apostles could not go.  Peter, greatly alarmed, declared that he would follow him wherever he should go.  The Lord then foretells Peter’s denials.  The Apostles are shaken and confused.  Jesus reassures them, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  You have faith in God; have faith also in me.”  What he is asking of them is as great as what God asked of Abraham almost two thousand years before.  God had told Abraham, then known as Abram, to move his family away from his clan and into a new land, which he would give to him and his heirs.  Throughout Abraham’s lifetime, God promised him that he would have a son by his wife Sarah, until this came true in their old age.  And not long afterwards, God had demanded the child back as a sacrifice, and Abraham prepared to carry out God’s will when, at the last moment, God prevented him from slaying him.  God had put Abraham in numerous impossible positions and delivered him.  Even at the time of his death, far from possessing the land in which he lived, he owned only the cave in which his wife Sarah was buried.  In spite of everything, when there seemed no rational reason to do so, Abraham persisted in his faith.  Jesus tells the Apostles that he will be betrayed by one of their number, that he will suffer Death and be buried, but that they are to persist in their faith in him nonetheless.  And this is what faith really is, to believe in God and his Providence even when there seems no reason to do so.  Otherwise, what we have is what Jesus describes in the Parable of the Sower: “And he that received the seed upon stony ground, is he that hears the word, and immediately receives it with joy. Yet it has no root in him, but is only for a time: and when there arises tribulation and persecution because of the word, he is presently scandalized” (Matthew 13, 20-21).  

In the case of the Apostles, there faith will be shaken at his arrest when they flee, but it is not broken.  They still believe in Jesus, but their faith has not matured — it has not been confirmed by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost — and they hide.  

We who truly believe that Jesus is the only Way and Truth and Life must pray constantly for the increase of our Faith so that it not be as much as shaken by the trials and persecutions of the present world, but may instead grow because of them.  

Thursday in the Fourth Week of Easter, May 15, 2025

John 13, 16-20

When Jesus had washed the disciples’ feet, he said to them: “Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it. I am not speaking of all of you. I know those whom I have chosen. But so that the Scripture might be fulfilled, The one who ate my food has raised his heel against me. From now on I am telling you before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe that I AM. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”

“When Jesus had washed the disciples’ feet.”  The Lord Jesus, who came to fulfill the prophecies about him, here acts as a prophet himself by engaging in what scholars call a “prophetic action”.  His act of washing of the feet of the Apostles consisted of a humiliation, since only slaves performed such services, and this is in line with similar actions which God commanded the Prophets to do: Jeremiah, who was told not to marry; Hosea, who was told to marry a prostitute; and Ezekiel, who was told not to mourn when his wife died.  These frightening, humiliating actions taught some truth to the Israelites in a visceral way.  The Lord Jesus shows his Apostles more forcefully than with speech, that they must serve not just one another but all people, no matter what the cost.

“Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him.”  Jesus compares the Apostles to slaves and messengers in order to teach the enormous distance between himself, the Son of God, and them, his creatures.  If God stoops to humble service of those whom he created and who owe their existence to him, then how much more the creatures ought to serve one another.  “If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it.”  This is not so easy to understand in our daily lives.  It means meditating regularly on our lowliness so that we come to instinctively know it, and this means not shying away from the truth, which insults our pride.  The fact is that there is more distance between God and ourselves than between the most powerful person on earth and an insect.  The Son of God dying for us can be compared to a human dying for the sake of a single bacterium.  Yet he did this out of his overwhelming love for us.  “I am not speaking of all of you.”  The Lord Jesus died even for Judas, who rejected his grace and preferred to hang himself.  We see the Lord’s love for Judas in the number of opportunities he gives him to change his mind about betraying him and even repenting after he has followed through with the betrayal.  And he shows his love for his Apostles by warning them that he is to be betrayed.  His telling them that he knows this will happen confirms his divinity for them and will console them when it happens: “I am telling you before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe that I AM.”  

“Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”  It is a continual teaching of the Lord Jesus that “whoever has seen me has seen the Father” and that “the Father and I are one”.  Here he teaches that the person who “receives” his messenger “receives” him, the Son, and thus also the Father.  The Greek word translated here as “receive” has many other meanings, including: “to take” or “to grasp” (in the physical sense), “to understand”, and “to keep”.  Substituting these for “receive” in the quotation helps us to gain the full sense of what the Lord meant.  But having explained to the Apostles their position as servants — indeed, their need to render service — the Lord Jesus reminds them of the magnitude of the service they form in spreading the Gospel.  

Sometimes the service we provide as believers in Christ and members of his Body may seem slight: a kind word or gesture delivered in a moment.  But Christ is in our words and gestures when they offer them for his sake and so they can produce an effect out of proportion to the effort we put into them, even that of the conversion of souls.

Wednesday in the Fourth Week of Easter, May 14, 2025

The Feast of St. Matthias

Acts 1:15-17, 20-26

Peter stood up in the midst of the brothers and sisters (there was a group of about one hundred and twenty persons in the one place). He said, “My brothers and sisters, the Scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand through the mouth of David, concerning Judas, who was the guide for those who arrested Jesus. Judas was numbered among us and was allotted a share in this ministry. For it is written in the Book of Psalms: “Let his encampment become desolate, and may no one dwell in it.” and: “May another take his office.”  Therefore, it is necessary that one of the men who accompanied us the whole time the Lord Jesus came and went among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day on which he was taken up from us, become with us a witness to his resurrection.” So they proposed two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus, and Matthias. Then they prayed, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this apostolic ministry from which Judas turned away to go to his own place.” Then they gave lots to them, and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was counted with the Eleven Apostles.

From the Scriptures we know that St. Matthias followed Jesus from the time of St. John the Baptist’s baptism, which may indicate that both he and Joseph Barsabbas initially were disciples of John.  These two men, of all the disciples besides the Apostles, spent the full three years of the Lord’s public ministry with him, and they saw all his miracles and heard all his teachings.  Their knowledge, sanctity of life, and perseverance led them to be considered to fill the place among the Apostles left void by the defection of Judas.  This need to fill the place shows the care of the Apostles in the earliest days of the Church to preserve the order, one might say “hierarchy”, established by Jesus.  They use lots to determine God’s choice.  It is not clear what form this took.  Whatever the form, it is the equivalent of our “drawing straws”, but it is not actually random, since they pray first to God.  And this would not have been a hasty prayer rattled off, like we often do with Grace Before Meals.  This would probably have been somewhat lengthy, due to the solemnity with which they treated the occasion.  There is no dispute afterwards: both Matthias and Joseph Barsabbas accept the result.  Eusebius preserves a tradition that Matthias was celibate his whole life, and a few of the Church Fathers hand on words which they say he spoke about the need for self denial in order to grow in one’s faith. Barsabbas is said to have preached the Gospel in Judea and was made the bishop of a town southwest of Jerusalem.  He was later martyred there. 

This reading from the Acts of the Apostles raises the question of how to determine the will of God.  Are we to discern, pray and to cast lots as well?  In a real sense, yes we are.  Only God can fully know his own will.  We humans can look back at an event and suppose that it turned out according to God’s will, but we will only know for certain on the last day when everything is revealed.  Since we cannot directly access his will, we do very well in imitating the Apostles.  First, we recognize the need for a decision.  Next, we commit ourselves to conforming ourselves to carrying out God’s will as best as we can, with the help of his grace.  After this, we pray earnestly and humbly for divine guidance.  Then we carefully discern our options.  In this, we look for that which is just, that which is desirable, that which seems best to answer the question or solve the problem, and that which is most prudent or practical.  The option that we select may be difficult, but it must not be morally or physically impossible.  We make our decision with the understanding that we might discover that we have chosen wrongly and that we need to reconsider what we are doing or how we are doing it.  This is how we “cast lots”: by trying different actions, by taking chances, based on the best decision we can make, and by being willing to go a different way if we find out we have erred.  It is not a sin to make an error in the good faith pursuit of God’s will.  It is only a sin to ignore his will or the need to follow it and to make it our own, or, worse, to act purposely against it.

Tuesday in the Fourth Week of Easter, May 13, 2025

John 10, 22-30

The feast of the Dedication was taking place in Jerusalem. It was winter. And Jesus walked about in the temple area on the Portico of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you and you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify to me. But you do not believe, because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”

St. John is gratifyingly exact in providing details of the setting of our Lord’s preaching and miracles.  The precise knowledge of Jerusalem and its Temple argue for his Gospel being written for the Jewish Christian community in the years before the fall of the city to the Romans in 70 A.D.  For instance,  in the Gospel Reading for today’s Mass, he mentions the Portico of Solomon.  There would have been no need for mentioning the portico if John was writing long after it had been destroyed, especially if his audience had never seen it.  But John writes of it in such a way that the curious reader could have gone to the site and seen it for himself.  

“The feast of the Dedication.”  That is, Hanukkah, which usually is celebrated in December.  This feast celebrates the reconsecration of the Temple after it was recaptured by Jewish forces from the Greeks in 164 B.C.  “Jesus walked about in the temple area on the Portico of Solomon.”  The Portico was a covered walkway, supported by stone columns, on the east side of the Temple wall.  According to 1 Kings 6, 3, the original portico built under Solomon was 45 feet long and 15 feet wide.  “The Jews gathered around him.”  A crowd already surrounded Jesus and presently members of the Sanhedrin joined them and began to shout: “How long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”  They do this either in order to draw him out so that they might find something to accuse him of, or because they genuinely wanted to believe — or, at least, to know — who he thought himself to be.  The Lord Jesus had carefully avoided the term Christ / Messiah (“the Anointed One”) because of its political and military implications, though he was indeed the Anointed of the Lord.  Instead, he called himself “the Son of Man” or “the Son of God”.  The authorities, though, were waiting for the exact word “Messiah”.

“I told you and you do not believe.”  That is, I told you who I am and you do not believe me.  “The works I do in my Father’s name testify to me.”  The Lord pointed to his miracles on several occasions as proof that he had come from God, and that he was in union with the Father.  As Nicodemus had admitted earlier, “Rabbi, we know that you are come a teacher from God; for no man can do these signs which you do, unless God be with him” (John 3, 2).  “But you do not believe, because you are not among my sheep.”  Because of their open hostility from the beginning, their repeated coming to him in bad faith, and their plotting to kill him, they had hardened themselves against any grace God might have sent them and so they did not believe in him and they did not belong to him.

“My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”  These are the ones who  have received the gift of faith, which they show through their following of him.  “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.”  These Greek verb is in the present tense, which expresses continuity: I am giving them eternal life.  He gives them eternal life through the revelation of his teachings and through grace.  All who follow Christ are in a continual state of receiving eternal life from him until they depart from those world, at which time it is given to them definitively.  They are receiving it in this world through the grace of the Sacraments and through graces received in prayer and from studying the Gospels.

“No one can take them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand.”  No one can take them from my hand because the Almighty Father has given them to me, and I am in union with the Father.  The Lord clarifies this declaration by saying, “The Father and I are one.”  This union with the Father is shown to us through an image from the Book of Revelation: 

God the Father is described as sitting upon a throne, with “the Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne” (Revelation 7, 17).  The Father and the Son are portrayed as sitting on the same throne, equal in power and majesty.  This was a stupendous claim for anyone to make, but the works testified to the divine approbation of the Son’s teachings.

Monday in the Fourth Week of Easter, May 12, 2025

John 10, 1-10

Jesus said:“Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever does not enter a sheepfold through the gate but climbs over elsewhere is a thief and a robber. But whoever enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice, as he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has driven out all his own, he walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him, because they recognize his voice. But they will not follow a stranger; they will run away from him, because they do not recognize the voice of strangers.” Although Jesus used this figure of speech, they did not realize what he was trying to tell them. So Jesus said again, “Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” 

Pope Leo XIV will be consecrated tomorrow, Tuesday, May 13, on the feast day of Our Lady of Fatima.

“Although Jesus used this figure of speech, they did not realize what he was trying to tell them.”  It is no wonder that the people had a hard time understanding the Lord’s meaning.  In a world of lies, propaganda, opaque myths, and duplicity, he was speaking to them simply, in easily understood terms.  Nothing complex blurred the teaching he presented.  No attempt was made on their money.  When the Lord announced, “I am the Good Shepherd”, he meant precisely that.  He does not, however, declare that they, his audience, were his sheep.  The Lord Jesus does not say, I am your Shepherd, you are my sheep.  The fact that he did not appeal to them to be his sheep, his followers, perhaps baffled them as well.  What sort of Messiah was this who did not recruit for his army?  He left it entirely up to them if they would be his sheep.

 “The gatekeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice, as he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”  Now, the Shepherd here is driving his sheep out of the enclosure where they had spent the night.  This is as the Lord driving us out of this world of darkness, calling us by name, into a world of light, pasture, and fresh water.  How does he know our names? Because he gives them to us and calls us by them time after time until we recognize them.  The Lord names us at our baptism through the mouth of the priest.  “But they will not follow a stranger; they will run away from him, because they do not recognize the voice of strangers.”  Even if a stranger should learn our name and call it, we would not recognize the caller and ignore him.  Through long experience and grace, we know that the voice of the stranger is one that leads to darkness and death.  It would not even occur to the faithful, catechized Catholic to join the religion of a stranger.

“I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.”. The Lord Jesus is not only the Gatekeeper; he is also the Gate, the one through whom we have salvation.  He is our Teacher and our Savior, too.  He ratified this, saying, “I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”  The Lord’s abundance: the wine at the Wedding of Cana; the multiplication of the bread and fish; the catch of fish directed by the Lord after the Resurrection, so heavy that it tore the nets.  What does this “abundant life” actually look like?  If we follow him faithfully, he will lead us into it.

The Fourth Sunday of Easter, May 11, 2025

Revelation 7, 9; 14–17

I, John, had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.  Then one of the elders said to me, “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.  For this reason they stand before God’s throne and worship him day and night in his temple. The one who sits on the throne will shelter them. They will not hunger or thirst anymore, nor will the sun or any heat strike them. For the Lamb who is in the center of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to springs of life-giving water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

The second reading for today’s Mass is taken from the second vision collected in the Book of Revelation.  This vision runs from chapter four through the first verse of chapter eight.  It shows the history of the Church from the time of the Birth of Christ until the final judgment.  Near the end of the vision, St. John sees “a great multitude” standing within the heavenly Temple, worshipping God and basking in his love.  He is told that, “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress.”  That is, of temptation and even persecution but also of the distress that results when we closely examine our lives, discover the need for repentance, and then proceed to do penance and to amend our lives, casting out our vices and growing in virtue and faith.  We do this for the sake of the Lamb, who gave himself up to be slain so that we might be saved.  

The hard labor involved in this work is not to be underestimated.  As it is written in Proverbs 16, 32: “The patient man is greater than the valiant: and he that rules his spirit, than he that seizes cities.”  The work may cause us to lose friendships and all the things in this life we once esteemed as desirable.  We must turn ourselves inside-out, as it were, or, as it was explained to St. John, “They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”  How can we do this seemingly impossible work?  Through the grace God gives us: “With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19, 26).

What is the state of the blessed, then? “They stand before God’s throne and worship him day and night in his temple.”  Psalm 134, 1-2: “Come, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who stand by night in the house of the Lord! Lift up your hands to the holy place, and bless the Lord!”  Before the face of God, the face of pure light and love, there is no awareness of time.  Those who loved and served God on earth experience the fullness of his beauty and love without distraction.  “The one who sits on the throne will shelter them.”  The Almighty Father shelters the just in his embrace.  Psalm 91, 4-5: “He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler. You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day.”  The saints in heaven dwell in complete security, forever free from the devil’s snare and from their own earthly weaknesses.  “They will not hunger or thirst anymore, nor will the sun or any heat strike them.”  Jesus, the Bread of Life, satisfies the hunger our souls have on earth for fulfillment and true happiness which can come only from him.  Nor does any feelings of regret or guilt afflict them, for all has been expiated, all has been perfected.

“The Lamb who is in the center of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to springs of life-giving water.”  We see how God’s ways are not our ways in this image:  it is the Lamb who shepherds, the one who leads.  So many on earth try to control God, to make him into something he is not, who try to contort his laws in order to justify our pursuit of wicked things.  But once we clear our delusions out of our eyes — the muck of sin — we see that the only way to true and eternal happiness is to follow the Lamb, to let him change us through his grace.  “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”  The only tears allowed in heaven will be tears of joy as we behold our Redeemer.

Saturday in the Third Week of Easter, May 10, 2025

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.”

The priests whom I know express cautious optimism about the new pope and his reign.  We pray for him to uphold the Catholic Faith in its entirety, to teach it with clarity, and to live it with integrity. 

“This saying is hard; who can accept it?”  The Greek word translated as “hard” can also mean “violent”, “harsh”, and “stern”.  It is the basis for our word “sclerosis”.  They are saying that the Lord’s teaching about his Body and Blood is much more than “difficult”.  It seems to go against nature.  Therefore, “Who can accept it?”  The word translated here as “accept” has as its first meaning “to hear”, and a secondary meaning of “to obey”.  It is much stronger even than to “believe”, since believing may not involve a cost, but obeying always will.  All the same, the crowd had been prepared to hear and also to obey by the tremendous miracle of the loaves and fishes.  

“Does this shock you?”  The word translated here as “shock” is the basis for our word “scandal” and properly means “to stumble”.  Jesus is asking the people, Does this cause you to stumble?, or, Are you stumbling?  That is, Is your faith faltering?  He then makes a further revelation: “What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?”  This comes across as a promise, as a reward for their faith.  If they believe in his teaching about his Body and Blood, they will merit to see him ascending into heaven.  For some, whose faith was already weak, this may have sounded like a warning: If you cannot believe my teaching about my Body and Blood, how can you believe in my Resurrection and Ascension?  He then offers them aid in their effort to believe: “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.”  That is, you cannot believe this on your own, but the Holy Spirit will help you.  Protestants who reject the Lord’s teaching cite this verse in support of their belief that the Lord was speaking symbolically of his Body and Blood, as though it said, The words I have spoken are symbolic and life.  But what the Lord actually says only strengthens the argument that he was speaking quite literally of his Flesh and Blood.

“For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.”  Without grace, we cannot go to the Lord.  We cannot know who he is or understand his teachings, or obey his commandments.  There is no faith unless through a specific grant of it to us by God.  And there are those who have been granted grace who then reject it: “Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him.”

“As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer walked with him.”  As a result of their refusal to even ask for help to believe, as the father of the possessed boy did: “I do believe!  Help my unbelief!” (Mark 9, 24), they left the Lord.  They went back to their former — sinful — lives.  They had been so close to eternal life.  Enough of the crowd departed that the Lord turned to his Apostles and challenged them: “Do you also wish to leave?”  Perhaps there was a pause as the Twelve gathered their thoughts.  This had not been an easy teaching for them, either.  Then Peter spoke up, and he spoke for all of them: “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.”  Peter reveals here and on subsequent occasions the extent to which these men had sold out for Jesus.  There was nothing really to go back to.  Jesus was the one they had waited for, looked for, hoped for.  There was no one else, no place else for them to go.  This did not make the teaching they had heard any easier for them, but they wanted to understand, they wanted to believe and to obey.  They were in love with Jesus, and understanding would follow with time and persistence.

Friday in the Third Week of Easter, May 9, 2025

John 6, 52-59

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his Flesh to eat?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my Flesh is true food, and my Blood is true drink. Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.” These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

A new pope was elected on Thursday, May 8.  We should pray for him and for the Holy Church.  And we should keep in mind that Almighty God carries out his purposes and achieves his ends either through or around the popes, and that no matter who steers Peter’s boat, it will bring all aboard to the safe shores of heaven.

The Gospel reading for today’s Mass carries on from the readings of the last few days.  The Lord is speaking to the crowd in Capernaum about himself as the Bread of Life, and the necessity of eating this Bread for eternal life.

“The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his Flesh to eat?’ ”  While this is a perfectly legitimate question, the Jews go about answering it only by asking it of themselves.  This is a way of avoiding the answer that the Lord would give them.  Here, we see the terrible predicament of fallen man: unable to help himself to rise above his state, he turns to his fellow, who, in the same situation, cannot provide any but illusory aid.  This is shown graphically in the attempt to build the Tower of Babel: unable to look beyond the physical world, people attempt to attain a spiritual heaven through physical means.  Only God can help us, and yet we ignore him or fear to ask him or our pride forbids us to ask him.

The Lord watches them and listens to them struggle with each other as he also watches the struggle going on in their hearts.  He would help, but he is not asked.  After a time, he speaks again very loudly so that the crowd might hear him above their bickering.  “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood, you do not have life within you.”  Notice what he says here: “Unless you eat . . . you do not have.”  He does not say, You will not have.  He speaks in the present tense.  While he makes it clear that eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood will lead them to eternal life, there is no life within them in the present without this.  He is speaking of grace.  Grace makes us truly alive, especially in regards to the soul.  The person who has received grace is a very different kind of person from one who has not.  This person can think, understand, and act and live in ways an ungraced person cannot.  

“For my Flesh is true food, and my Blood is true drink.”  The Lord insists on what he has already taught them, but he still does not answer their question because they have not asked him.  These words, then, are for those whose faith is already strong enough that they will accept them as true even though they do not fully understand what they mean.  They do this on the basis of their own experience of the Lord’s works.  Now, when the Lord says that his Flesh is “true food” and his Blood is “true drink”, he is not saying, My Flesh is truly food, and my Blood truly drink.  The latter statement simply means that his Flesh is edible and his Blood drinkable.  In fact, what he is saying is that his Flesh is the Food, that is, the model  or form for any other kind of food.  An apple, say, shares in some of the properties of the Lord’s Flesh: it is edible, it provides a certain nourishment, it leads to a certain level of health, and so on.  To the extent that it shares in the properties of the True Food of the Flesh of the Lord, we can call it food.  But it is not True Food because it only provides temporary benefits to the human body.  The True Food of the Fresh of Jesus Christ provides eternal benefits to both the human body and soul.  Nourished with this Bread from heaven, the human body becomes capable of rising on the last day, and of becoming spiritualized — capable of heaven.  In creating things that could be used as food by humans, God used the Flesh and Blood he knew his Son would possess as his model.  Everything that we eat and drink is in some way like this divine reality.  Just as the Father is the Father and all other fatherhood is based upon him, and all those who are fathers are to a certain degree like him, so the Flesh and Blood of the Lord is the Food and Drink, and all other foods and drinks are merely like them to some degree.

“Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood remains in me and I in him.”  We consume him so that we might be consumed by him.  We receive him so that we might be received by him.  “Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.”  All life, human and divine, originates from the Father.  By consuming the Flesh and Blood of the Lord, we become like him and so we receive a share in the divine life the Father gives his Son.  “Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this Bread will live forever.”  Now, in speaking in this way, the Lord minimizes the death that all in this world must undergo.  For the one who has eaten his Flesh and drunk his Blood, the death of the body is merely a means to an end, that end being eternal life in the ecstatic bliss of heaven.  The knowledge of this is what provides strength of will to those suffering martyrdom, it is what fuels the zeal of the missionary, what fires the love of priests and religious, and what makes life in a fracturing world within a bitter and despairing society possible for all who believe.