FROM FATHER CARLOS...
Dear Friends at Saint Mary’s Immaculate Conception and Saint Frances Cabrini Parishes:
For the past couple of Sundays at Mass, we have been listening to the Gospel of John chapter 6, also known as the Bread of Life discourse. This Sunday the Lord’s teaching reaches a pivotal point.
We have all listened to the Lord Jesus say to his disciples and to us, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you” (John 6:53.) The radical nature of this statement now demands a radical response: Do I believe in what the Lord just said or not? Towards the end of John 6, we find that some chose to abandon the Lord after they listened to this very same statement. The Gospel says that “many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him” (v. 66.)
To say that only the flesh and blood of Christ can give us life implies that nothing else can; there is a purifying process involved in John 6:53 that not everyone is willing to go through. This purifying process encompasses a re-ordering of priorities and a pruning of hopes and desires. Where was I hoping to find life before? In a particular friendship? In a particular workplace? In a particular career? In a particular investment? To say that only the flesh and blood of the Lord can give life entails that we also declare that other desires and expectations cannot, unless they are ordered towards the only source of life, Christ Jesus.
This re-ordering of priorities and pruning of desires leads to a necessary “poverty in spirit.” If Christ becomes our all then everything else gets put into perspective and we become freer to welcome the gifts from God and also to let them go. There is no need to develop attachments to certain people, places, expectations, jobs, or dreams. Christ has become our all and only He suffices.
One day I was conversing with one of my classmates. We were talking about the lessons we had learned in the past year, our first year in the Priesthood and, as the wise and holy man that he is, he said, “this year… I’ve learned that God is IT…” And he did not mean these words lightly. I could see in his face and the tone of his voice that it was something that he had learned through times of joy and also, perhaps, times of desolation and… what a truthful statement he said! Really, God is IT! Only God remains when people leave you for not fulfilling their expectations; only God remains when others shun you because they heard a gossip about you and chose to believe it. Only God gives life, only God remains… and he has chosen to remain as food.
As we continue our journey in the midst of a tumultuous world, let us direct our attention towards the Lord who offers us the remedy to have life within us, his flesh and his blood in the Eucharist. May he become our all so that we may never hunger or thirst again.