Fr. Michael Williams

Our Lord’s words often challenge those who hear them. His teaching on the Bread of Life, at the synagogue in Capernaum, which we have heard over the last couple of Sundays, was a great challenge to His followers. St John’s gospel reveals today, “After hearing this doctrine many of the followers of Jesus said, ‘This is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it’”? Notice it is the followers of Jesus who say, “This is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it”?

There is the danger with the followers of Jesus, that we think we know better than the Lord. Many Catholics say of certain Church teachings today, ‘This is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it’”? Ultimately, we can only accept the doctrines of Jesus, through faith in Him who is the way, the truth and the life. The Church, as the Bride of Christ, must be faithful to what He taught and did. As St Paul reveals in his letter to the Ephesians, “The Church submits to Christ [because] Christ loved the Church and sacrificed Himself for her to make her holy”.

Christ not only challenges His followers, He also challenges those with no faith or belief, “those who did not believe”. In Judaism there was a group known as the Sadducees. They didn’t believe in the Resurrection, or in angels, or in the spiritual realm generally. Maybe it is these who Jesus is targeting when He says, “It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh has nothing to offer”. Failure to believe or accept spiritual realities has always been present in our fallen world. The twentieth century, in particular, saw lack of belief, or atheism, rise in an unprecedented way. This lack of belief is still very prevalent in the twenty-first century. Although many people are now noticing that there is a re-awakening taking place. People are becoming interested in spiritual things once again: “It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh has nothing to offer”.

Peter knew that there was something more to life, than what was on the surface, the fleshy side of God’s creation. And in the person of Jesus, Peter found the ultimate meaning to life. Peter knew that to leave the Lord like the other followers, would be to return to “the flesh [which] has nothing to offer”. Peter didn’t want only to live on the material surface of life, only satisfying the earthly appetites. He wanted to go deeper; he yearned for “the message of eternal life”. And he firmly believed, he knew, that Jesus had that message.

Ultimately we have a choice. After hearing Our Lord’s challenging doctrines “many of the followers of Jesus said, ‘This is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it’”? But others, like Peter the fisherman, chose to follow Jesus because they looked beyond the surface. The words of Jesus were “spirit” and “life” to the likes of Peter, and hopefully to us. Many people today see the doctrines of Jesus and the Church as “intolerable language”, but the words of Christ, and His Body the Church, give life in the deepest sense.

Let’s pray that people who only live on the surface of life, only according to the flesh, may go deeper and come to realise that Jesus is “the Holy One of God [who has] the message of eternal life”. And let’s pray that we will continue to follow the Lord faithfully, despite the challenges that this presents.