Gospel: John 6: 60-69
Year B
Many of His disciples ….
Those around You, Lord, are Your disciples, people who followed You for a long time, who listened to You to the point of forgetting about providing for their body. Among them there is neither scribe, nor Pharisee ever ready to criticise You; it’s a long way from the crowd at Nazareth who wanted to be rid of You. There are only disciples, men and women who trust You and follow You, like every one of us. So You can speak in all simplicity. That’s what You do in announcing the Eucharist to them. But what a reaction! What a sudden turnabout!
This is intolerable language!
It’s crisis amongst Your friends, amongst those who follow You. It is true that Your language is rather shocking. What are You going to do? You do not retract, you do not adjust the meaning of the words you use. But You invite them to surmount the objections of the flesh, of human reason, to welcome Your message in spirit, in faith: It is the Spirit Who gives life, the flesh cannot do anything.
We are often faced with the same dilemma: to follow You in faith …. or to stick with our human reasoning. Your word is insistent, Lord. Increase our love and our faith so as to remain faithful to You.
Many went away and stopped going with Him.
You do not hold on to them …. You give the same freedom to the twelve, to everyone …. What You want is not the quantity of disciples, but the quality of the faith and the total gift of self of those who set out with You.
Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the message of eternal life.
