Sunday Readings: Joshua 24.1-2, 15-17; 18 Ephesians 5.21-32; John 6.60-69
Many of Jesus’ disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?” Peter replied, “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” (John 6.66-69).
On this Sunday in Ordinary Time, Jesus’ disciples react to the jarring paradox in Jesus’ difficult and extraordinary teaching in last Sunday’s gospel—“Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life and I will raise them up on the last day.” Their reaction invites us into the dizzying experience of realizing that, like them, we have taken Jesus’ words too literally.
In this conflict we see the relationship between our old lives and the promise of new life, between ordinary and extraordinary. Jesus does not offer ordinary bread and wine, but rather the transforming experience of entering into new life with him.
I find myself standing in the company of the disciples, wondering how I can even begin to comprehend what this really means? Sunday’s gospel passage tells us that Jesus alone holds the power to work such an extraordinary transformation in us. Yet, standing fully in the world of the ordinary, the disciples cannot enter into this new reality. They stand in ordinary time and grumble.
- How do you understand the mystery of the Eucharist?