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Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, "This is a hard saying; who can understand it?" When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, "Does this offend you? What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him. And He said, "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father."
From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. Then Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you also want to go away?" But Simon Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus answered them, "Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?" He spoke of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, for it was he who would betray Him, being one of the twelve.
- John 6:60-71
Yesterday, we read that the leadership in the temple at Capernaum quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?" Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from heaven -- not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever." These things He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum.
Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, "This is a hard saying; who can understand it?" When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, "Does this offend you? What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him. And He said, "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father." My study bible points out that even Jesus' disciples took His teaching on His Body and Blood as a hard saying. Verse 66 tells us that many of His disciples, when they heard this saying, walked with Him no more. It is a great mystery, not easily to be explained, says my study bible, by precise rational detail or as mere symbolic metaphor. It is a sacramental teaching, just as the divine infuses the flesh of Jesus Christ, and that mystery can't be contained by our limited understanding. The witness of Scripture and the teaching of the Church throughout history tell us about sacrament. Here, Jesus' words are so powerful as to teach that those who cannot accept His saying are not those given to Him by the Father.
From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. Then Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you also want to go away?" But Simon Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus answered them, "Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?" He spoke of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, for it was he who would betray Him, being one of the twelve. Here is Peter's confession of Christ as written in John's gospel. There is a falling away, and there is also a deepening of faith, a confession and an allegiance in others. Peter's faith isn't a rational declaration with debated principles, it is a product of His experience with Christ: "You have the words of eternal life." Those who remain with Him "have come to know and believe that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God." At the same time that we read of this conviction on behalf of all of the disciples who remain with Him, there is another strong flavor of what is to come: betrayal and death. Jesus is preparing them even now for the future.
Accepting Christ's words can happen on many levels. Understanding may dawn slowly, or it may simply reveal a deeper faith through testing, through experience, and through the energies of God, the work of the Holy Spirit. Christ's mysteries revealed particularly through this Gospel exist as things to be grasped through faith, through time, through prayer. It seems to me that faith deepens and grows by following the glimmers do that we have, and trusting from there. The faith that works in the heart is a strong leading and teaching, even as Jesus tells us and the apostles that no one can come to Him except as granted by the Father. In Saturday's reading He taught, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God.'" The depth of the reality of Incarnation reveals itself to us through our faith and its working in our lives, through Scripture, through the whole history of the Church. It would seem to me that the very understanding of the word "sacrament" teaches us about the life Jesus keeps teaching us about. It is a life in the Father, and in Christ, and at work in the Holy Spirit. It infuses all that is in our world, and what we consider to be "worldly" can become sacrament. For baptism, water is infused with this life so that it becomes conferred on us. Through the Eucharist, bread and wine are mystically body and blood. St. Paul teaches that we must understand ourselves to be temples of God. What God has given us is meant also to be glorified by God, by this energy of Christ, the bread of heaven, given to us for an everlasting life, till the age to come in which all our world is to be transfigured in this spirit shown us in the image of the Burning Bush which was given to Moses. Our entire world, all our lives and every aspect of them, are meant to be infused with this life, just as Jesus' body was also the body of Christ, God become flesh. And this is sacrament; this is the mystery of what our world -- God's creation -- is meant for. It's what we are meant for. But it happens via the faith in our hearts placed there by God, and when we start to follow that, we come on a long journey of understanding and experience, each through our own capacity and with the help of our friends, the great cloud of witnesses, all who live in Christ. Let us remember how faith works and needs nurturing. Let us remember what we are meant for, what the whole understanding of God as human is meant to do for us. It is a sacramental life we are to know; our faith returning us to the God who gave us life from the first.
