For the past four Sundays, we have been hearing the Bread of Life stories or discourses from the Gospel of John. I mentioned before in one of my homilies that every three years, when we use Evangelist Mark as the Gospel, it is interrupted for five straight Sundays by the Gospel of John, where Jesus is presented to us as the Bread of Life. Let’s recap the gospels for the last four Sundays: On July 26th, the gospel was about the multiplication of the bread; then on August 2nd, we heard about the story of the same crowd who were present in the multiplication of the bread, who were asking Jesus for more miracles and bread, and Jesus clarified to them that they should not work and aspire for the bread that easily perishes. On August 9th’s Gospel, since the people were having a hard time understanding what that bread, which does not perish is, Jesus reveals himself to them as the Bread of Life. He said in the Gospel two Sundays ago: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” Then in last Sunday’s Gospel (August 16th), Jesus pushes it a little bit more when he said “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.” We see in here a progression of revelation of who Jesus is. This Sunday’s Gospel, we will see that people could not take and accept that revelation, so they deserted him. As what is described in John’s Gospel this Sunday: “Many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.”
Reflecting on the gospel this Sunday, one may realize that the struggles and difficulties of the early followers of Christ, the disciples of Jesus, are still the same struggles that a lot of people face nowadays. Even at times, no matter how faithful and sincere one can be in his/her journey of faith, there are still questions that arise or pop up that challenge what we believe — whether this or that particular teaching makes sense or not. This is part of having an active faith. To have faith does not necessarily mean having everything figured out already. It does not also mean that we do not have the right to question or even challenge what we believe at times so that we can have a better understanding of it. To keep the faith is to wrestle in finding and understanding the truth.
Because, if we believe deep within our hearts that what we believe and assent to is the truth, then there is nothing to fear because the truth will always triumph/win in the end.
And, if there are times when things do not make sense, if there are particular teachings of the Church that we have a hard time understanding, one should not lose heart or just walk away like the disciples in the gospel today, but rather find meaningful ways in order for us to have a better grasp or understanding of the issue. There will always be a way to enlighten our minds because the truth cannot be hidden. To walk away from God is to walk away from our real selves. Let us make the words of Peter as our own, “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.” – Fr. Cary