Words of Eternal Life: 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time (Cycle B)

    As I was reflecting on today’s Gospel it occurred to me that  there is a lot of truth on that old saying “The more things change the more they stay the same”....  For the last 4 weeks we have followed the Lord as he presented to his disciples the teaching, we all know today as “The Real Presence”. The belief that when we receive the Eucharist we are been fed with the true resurrected body, blood, soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. During this time, I’m sure, you have heard either Deacon Cliff, Fr. Mike, Fr. Kurt or myself preaching about this great mystery of our faith. So today I decided to do something different, I decided not to focus as much on what Jesus said but on the reaction His teachings had on the people who were listening.

   The reading says that: “Many of Jesus’ disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?”  and that “as a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him”
   To me these passages are of great importance, because they show that from the beginnings the teachings of The Church have been found challenging and difficult to accept. Like I said at the beginning things have not changed much. Even after 2000  years of reflection and divine inspiration from the Holy Spirit I would venture to say that the majority of Catholics  still find some of the teachings of our church hard.
   Now I want to make something clear: I'm not talking about things like “Why do I have to confess my sins to a priest?” or “Why do I have to hold fast at least one hour before receiving communion?”...these are the easy ones!
    Where I want to focus today is in the teachings which are as challenging to us as the words “Eat my flesh and drink my blood blood” were to the people listening to the Lord. If you think about it this is the nature of all religious truth. Religious truth should challenge us and force us into a decision of what kind of person, what kind of disciple we are going to be.
     For some, the teaching that life is sacred and that unborn children should be protected even in the most difficult and heart wrenching cases, is a hard teaching! For others, the teaching that Marriage is an institution not defined or created by the state but by God and that it belongs to the order of nature which is one man and one woman is a hard teaching. For some others ,the teaching that illegal immigrants in our communities should be allowed access to basic social help and that we are called to treat them as if they were our own brothers and sisters is also a hard teaching. Even others, find that the teaching that in our country there is no social justification for the death penalty and that we should work towards eradication this law from all 50 states is a hard teaching! I can go on but I think you might be getting the picture by now. These teachings are not republican, or democrat, they are not conservative or liberal, they are the truth, and it is up to us to surrender our conscience and will to them or to abandon the truth of the Gospel.
    For some people been a Christian might seem easy, all you have to do is love God, love your neighbor like yourself. But this is not what Christianity is all about! Been a true believer requires an act of the will, and a complete surrender to a truth which does not come from any civil state or any sociological study or laboratory but out of the Word Made Flesh, and the Church He gave His authority to teach and guide His disciples.
   There is another part of today’s gospel I would like to share with you. Let me read it: “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.”
  Here we see an example to follow: complete religious surrender when confronted with the Truth. Notice that Peter doesn’t say “Master don’t worry because we agree and understand everything you are saying” but “ Master, we are convinced you are the Holy One from God, Your words are words of eternal life”. We might not agree or even understand why you are saying what you are saying, but we believe that when it comes to decide between what you are saying and what my mind is telling me...you have the words of eternal life”.  I would like to finish today with a piece of advice I give all my CCD and RCIA students: it is OK to struggle with some of the teachings of the Church, this is a sign of a healthy faith, but when it comes to make a decision, when it comes to making a stand and surrendering our will to what is true, we should always side with Jesus and his Church or we might run the danger of ending up like the other disciples in today’s gospel, the ones who abandoned the company of the Lord and returned to their old way of life. God bless you all my brothers and sisters.