Daily Mass Gospel Reflection- The Undeniable Flesh of Christ

Word on Fire Ministry ^ | 05.07.22 | Aux. Bishop of L.A.

[MurphsLaw]

Third Week of Easter

John 6:60-69

Friends, in today’s Gospel,
we learn that many disciples left the Lord because he said they had no life
unless they were to eat his flesh and drink his blood.

Why has the gift of the Eucharist been, from the beginning,
a source of contention? Why have we, from Jesus’ time to the present day, been fighting over it?
Shouldn’t it be the source of our unity and deepest joy?
Well, yes. But we can’t overlook the fact that it has always divided—just as Jesus himself divided people:
"Whoever is not with me is against me,
and whoever does not gather with me scatters."

When they heard Jesus lay out the teaching in all of its power,
many of them left. In fact,
so many left that Jesus wondered aloud to his disciples,
"Do you also want to leave?"
You get the sense that the whole Church, the whole Christian project,
was hanging in the balance.

How wonderful that Peter responds, as he did in the synoptic Gospels to another of Jesus’ probing questions,
"Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."
That is the great Catholic answer, the hinge, the cardinal point.

[MurphsLaw]

+++Many of the disciples of Jesus
who were listening said,
“This saying is hard; who can accept it?”
Since Jesus knew that his disciples
were murmuring about this,
he said to them,
“Does this shock you?
What if you were to see the
Son of Man ascending to where he was before?
It is the Spirit that gives life,
while the flesh is of no avail.
The words I have spoken to you
are Spirit and life.
But there are some of you who do not believe.”
Jesus knew from the beginning the
ones who would not believe
and the one who would betray him.
And he said, “For this reason I have
told you that no one can come to me
unless it is granted him by my Father.”

As a result of this,
many of his disciples returned to
their former way of life
and no longer walked with him.
Jesus then said to the Twelve,
“Do you also want to leave?”
Simon Peter answered him,
“Master, to whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life.
We have come to believe
and are convinced that you are the
Holy One of God.”+++

[If You Want It Fixed - Fix It]

I can read for myself. I know what He said about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, but He must not have meant it, just pulling their collective fingers.

Same for lusting and divorce. He was a prankster. Pretending to die then popping up on the road to Emmaus.

You have to read between the lined sideways and squinting. Penumbra of the enumbra and all. That’s how you do it.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Peter, having confessed aloud that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, goes on and three time denies that he even kbows the man. Apart from the Holy Spirit convictions turn to soup. The Holy Spirit testifies of Christ and imparts what is His to all who believe, nameky the benefits obtained by His crucified, risen, and ascended DNA.

Zwingli and his followers myopically view “the flesh profits nothing” as indicative of a symbolic sacrament. St. John the Evangelist states explicitly that “the Word became flesh.” Meat, bones, reason, senses. No surpise since man is created in the image of God. The Sacrament of the Altar is the pinnacle whereby the crucified, risen, and ascended Christ dwells bodily among those who hear and believe what He says.

[MurphsLaw]

I've always liked the saying...
"We are not Saved by The Word of God, per se
But rather by The Word of God, Made Flesh.