11 May 2019
Saturday of the Third Week of Easter
“The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.”
Do you believe? If Jesus were to ask you, right now, what He asked Peter on Sunday—“Do you love me?”—what would your answer be, knowing that He can hear the thoughts of your heart (Luke 5:22)? Would you join the crowd in their mass exodus away from Jesus, would you return to your “…former way of life and no longer…”walk with Him, or would you, like Peter and the apostles, confess that you “…have come to believe and are convinced…” that Jesus is who He says He is?
We may scoff at the idea of leaving Jesus altogether like that, but sadly there are many even within the Church who have done so in their hearts, if not with their bodies, be they clergy or lay. “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me…” (Matthew 15:8). When Jesus, or when in His name the Church, teaches something difficult, our pride sometimes stands in the little pulpit of our hearts and preaches to itself “Well I respectfully disagree.” How many times have you heard someone say, “I am a good Catholic, but…”? Yet the words Jesus has spoken to you—and the words the Church continues to speak on His behalf—are Spirit and life! Which of them can be refused, and which can be accepted, such that we gain all and lose nothing?
If Jesus is the Way, how many steps can we skip, how many side trails can we explore, and yet reach our destination in Him? If He is the Truth, how much of the Truth can we ignore, reject, resist, or toss out: how much of the Truth needs to be present for Jesus to be wholly before us? Is the Truth a matter of bare essentials: did Jesus teach only the bare minimum? “I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father,” (John 15:15). If He is the Life, how much of what He offers us in His Word and in His Church can we pick and choose without forfeiting life itself, without finding ourselves malnourished: is Jesus a buffet, a cafeteria, such that we may pick and choose among all He says and offers, or is He a complete morsel in and of Himself? Take a complete Host and you hold in your hand, or upon your tongue, the complete Christ: break that Host in half and in each hand you hold the complete Christ. Crumble that Host—if you dare be so savage to Him—into a myriad of crumbs and in each you will find the complete Christ: He cannot be reduced to a part. Jesus is all or nothing.
“This saying is hard; who can accept it?” To reject what Jesus says is to reject Jesus: to reject Jesus is to reject God, and to reject God…is to reject life. “He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him. But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name…” (John 1:11-12). Peter and the Apostles accepted His Word and thus accepted Him: “You have the words of eternal life.” Did they understand Jesus? No. But they trusted Him: “We have come to believe…” Have you?