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.

Thursday in the Third Week of Easter, May 8, 2025

John 6, 44-51

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.”

So we have a new pope, Leo XIV.  No one seems to know much about his views on the critical issues of the day but the priests I know are cautiously optimistic that he will govern the Church well.

Previously, Jesus spoke of the desire of the Father for the salvation of the human race, and of the Jews in particular.  In saying that, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him”, Jesus asserts that a person receives this salvation as a personal call from God.  We might rewrite this verse in this way: Everyone who comes to me is drawn by the Father.  First Jesus arouses the crowd’s hunger for the Bread that “comes down from heaven” and “gives life to the world”, and then he says that the person who comes to this Bread, to Jesus, is drawn to It by the Father.  The “hunger”, then, comes from the Father, just as the satisfaction for that hunger, Jesus, comes from heaven, from the Father.  Jesus is not offering himself as a mere teacher in the way the Pharisees did or even as John the Baptist had.  The crowd knows this, and many become restless.  To show them how much more he is, the Lord adds, “And I will raise him on the last day.”

Jesus would have paused here before continuing, letting the people absorb what he has told them.  When he resumes, he elaborates on what he has already told them about those who come to him.  John tells us that he said, “It is written in the prophets: They shall all be taught by God.”  Evidently Jesus is quoting Isaiah 54, 13, in which the Prophet says, literally, as I translate it, “All your sons the taught of the Lord”.  There is no verb in the verse, as is often the case in Hebrew sentences.  Since the prophet is speaking of a future time in the context, the verb to-be in the future tense could be understood here.  It isn’t merely that the sons will be taught but that they will have been educated — they would have accepted the teaching and would then be “disciples”.  It would be worthwhile at this point to read Isaiah 54.  The Lord may have quoted the whole of it to the crowd, and John gives us the shorthand version, assuming his first readers knew the reference.  Isaiah 54 is in the last part of the book and it describes the time of the Messiah and the time of the judgment of the nations.  What Jesus is saying here in quoting these words, is that the time of the Messiah has indeed come, and that those who follow him are the “taught of God”.  He reiterates with, “Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.”  We might rewrite this sentence as, “He who does not come to me does not listen to my Father.”  Jesus speaks of the Father as his own, not as “our” Father, but as “my” Father.  To show what he means when he says this, he explains, “Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father.”  God is his Father in a significantly distinct way than he is their Father.  Later, at the time of the Resurrection, he will tell Mary Magdalene, “Go to my brethren and say to them: I ascend to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God” (John 20, 17).  God is our Father as our Creator, and by adoption, in baptism; but Jesus is his natural Son, co-eternal from all the ages.

Because he is the Son of God who has seen the Father, he is able to solemnly declare to the crowd, “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes [in me] has eternal life.  Knowing that the people before him are struggling with the immensity of what he is telling them and demanding from them, the Lord reminds them of the miracle of the loaves and fishes in which they participated and he goes back over what he has already explained about the manna of Moses: “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 have always imagined that at the point where Jesus says, “This is the Bread of heaven” that he pounded his chest or grabbed his arm in order to ensure that the people knew that the “this” was himself.  

He says, as a sort of summary, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven”, which he had already said before.  But then he adds this: “Whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my Flesh for the life of the world.”  Now, he had said a little earlier that, “I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall not hunger.”  But there was no mention of “eating”, let alone of him giving this flesh of his for the life of the world.  The people had listened to him, had tried to follow him, had tried to reconcile his claims and miracles with his ordinary human appearance.  We see this in their earlier words, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How then does he say: I came down from heaven?” (John 6, 42, inexplicably left out of this reading). This, however, is too much, and they will object, argue, ridicule, and many will walk away.  The Lord could not be more clear in what he was telling them, and the crowd knew very well what he was saying.  If they thought he was speaking symbolically or in parables, or even in the prophetic mode, they would not have been outraged as they were.

 “The Bread that I will give is my Flesh for the life of the world.”  He has said that the manna preserved the Hebrews in the wilderness; he has said that his Flesh will confer eternal life; now he says that his Flesh will be offered up as a Sacrifice.  His Flesh will be eaten in the way that the sacrifices in the temple were eaten, once they were offered to God.  It was this sacrificed Flesh that would be eaten.  What is said would certainly be outrageous if the One who said it had not shown that he was God himself.