Fr. Michael Williams

Jesus says, ‘no one could come to me unless the Father allows him’. The Father had allowed many people come to Jesus in Our Lord’s time. Huge crowds were drawn to Jesus to listen to Him, and to witness His mighty works. The Father allowed many souls to draw close to His only-begotten Son.

Drawing close to Christ is the natural thing to do. It is a bit like the point of a compass, which always points to the north. When we are in tune with the deepest yearnings of our hearts we will turn to face Christ, the Lord, the Son of God. By turning towards the Lord we are doing the natural, or rather, the supernatural thing. Looking toward Christ is to look toward our origin and our source. Ultimately it is God the Father who allows us to come to Christ by His grace. We are here today because God’s grace has allowed us and drawn us here.

God often uses ingenious techniques in allowing people to draw close to His Son. I remember helping out in a prison prayer group many years ago, where there was a prisoner who said that he only started coming to the prayer group to get out of his cell to make some contacts for getting drugs. But after a while he began to enjoy his weekly encounter with God in prayer and ultimately changed his lifestyle by becoming drug free and a committed Catholic. In the hospital I have seen very often that through an illness God draws people close to His Son, who becomes their only hope. Just recently there was a lady who had been far from God and the Church, but in the crisis of failing health had reached out to Christ. She did this because the Father’s Spirit had been prompting her to reach out to Christ and she had responded. Less dramatically we are here today because the Father has drawn us to the Son and we have responded.

In Our Lord’s day many people had listened to His doctrine on the Bread of Life given at the synagogue in Capernaum and drew close to Christ, but ‘after hearing His doctrine many of the followers of Jesus said, “This is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it?”’ They used their free will in a negative way to turn away from the Lord, who was their hope and salvation. Many people use their free will today to say of God and His Church, ‘This is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it?’ They can use their free will in a negative fashion to turn against God. I’ve seen this to! I remember one man in the Royal who was on my list to visit; he held up his newspaper and tried to ignore me. I had to tell him he wouldn’t be able to hide behind a newspaper when he goes to meet God!

At the end of today’s gospel Jesus says to Peter and the other Apostles, ‘What about you, do you want to go away too?’ He puts that question to us also, as He never wants to force us to follow Him. But let us respond like Peter, ‘Lord to whom shall we go? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; we know that you are the Holy One of God’. We are here today because ‘we believe; we know that Jesus is the Holy One of God’, who has the message of eternal life for us.