Only the Spirit Gives Life

Gospel Reflection for August 25, 2024 - John 6:60-70

He said all this while he was teaching in the synagogue, at Capharnaum. And there were many of his disciples who said, when they heard it, This is strange talk, who can be expected to listen to it? But Jesus, inwardly aware that his disciples were complaining over it, said to them, Does this try your faith? What will you make of it, if you see the Son of Man ascending to the place where he was before? Only the spirit gives life; the flesh is of no avail; and the words I have been speaking to you are spirit, and life. But there are some, even among you, who do not believe. Jesus knew from the first which were those who did not believe, and which of them was to betray him. And he went on to say, That is what I meant when I told you that nobody can come to me unless he has received the gift from my Father. After this, many of his disciples went back to their old ways, and walked no more in his company. Whereupon Jesus said to the twelve, Would you, too, go away? Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom should we go? Thy words are the words of eternal life; we have learned to believe, and are assured that thou art the Christ, the Son of God. (John 6:60-70 Knox Translation)

The first reading from the Old Testament provides an interesting contrast to the Gospel passage for this Sunday which concludes Our Lord's Bread of Life discourse. Like those whom Christ and the apostles fed with the loaves and fishes earlier in this chapter, the Israelites following Joshua profess their loyalty to God primarily due to His sustenance and protection of them during their exodus from Egypt. In a sense, the Israelites treat their faith as a kind of bargain or mutual pact: you help us, so we will serve you. This is what many of Christ's disciples want from Him throughout His ministry, whether in food, healing or miraculous signs. Most are not so much interested in how best to know and love God, much less how to imitate Christ as their Lord. Their focus, like the Israelites, is on the flesh, not the spirit.

But in this Gospel reading, Christ corrects this attitude, one which caused the disciples previously to confuse the spiritual food of the Eucharist with the nourishment of the flesh given by ordinary food and thus accuse him of cannibalism. This is why Christ earlier said that the bread which He gives is not like the manna in the desert - it is not otherwise ordinary food for bodily sustenance but spiritual food for eternal life, both for the body and the soul. Just as Christ's Body died on the Cross, so will we die also, unless He returns soon; but just as His Body and Soul were resurrected to eternal, spiritual life, so will we be similarly divinized if we remain in communion with His Mystical Body, the Church, and participate in His divine life through the Sacraments. Even now, through Baptism, our soul is resurrected and, so long as we preserve this new life through sanctifying grace, our body will one day share in it.

The disciples who “went back to their old ways, and walked no more in his company” could not see the spiritual, only the physical; their worldliness, like the young man attached to his wealth, prevented them from desiring the salvation which Christ offered. For them, it seemed too good to be true, or was simply too difficult, or conflicted with their sinful habits or risked the derision of their peers - for whatever reasons, they would not believe, and so they left. For many Christians today, whether Protestants or even a large portion of Catholics, the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and its true nature as an unbloody, spiritual sacrifice in which God Himself is received into our innermost selves, is just too outdated, superstitious, demanding or unpopular to believe - but instead of leaving, many simply utilize the relativism of the Reformation and Enlightenment, reinterpreting what they find to be a “hard saying” into something more soft and palatable. Then they can go on attending Mass when they feel like it, receive the Eucharist “not recognizing the Lord’s body for what it is”, (1 Cor 11:29) and live like normal. Others will continue believing themselves to be true disciples because, like the Israelites, they have bargained with God, upholding the so-called “Prosperity Gospel” by which their wealth and success is for them a reassurance of their justification.

This is not what it means to be a Catholic, to be a true disciple of Christ. Like the apostles, we must keep our focus always on “the words of eternal life” which Christ gives and is, obeying Him in humble submission without subordinating His commandments to our own comfort or reputation. This is why the Epistle from St. Paul is similarly challenging, and many of you may hear the edited version used at Mass today, leaving out the sections which outline the true role and complementarity of men and women in marriage as one of mutual service according to their proper masculinity and femininity, but one which only demands service from the husband, thus making it more digestible to our feminist age, whose culmination is the total separation of women from the family to the point of publicly celebrating the murder of unborn children.

https://www.seekingtheosis.blog/bridging-heaven-and-earth/

But we are not made for lies, and to live in lies only breeds misery, confusion and despair, as can be seen in the dysfunction of family life and the emptiness and heresy rampant in our churches today. To be Catholic, we must keep our eyes on Christ and on the spiritual, ascending the ladder of love from the goods of this world to God, who is truth, goodness and beauty Himself, guided along the way by the Blessed Virgin Mary as the beacon of God's light in this world, bearing within her womb the Shekinah of His divine presence. Like Elizabeth, we must welcome Christ into our lives with joy, enthroning Him in our hearts above all else. As the ancient Letter to Diognetus so beautifully explained,

For Christians are not distinct from other men in terms either of their territories, their language, or their way of life. . . . They live in the cities of the Greeks or the barbarians, as the lot has fallen to each one, and they adapt to the customs of the place in their clothing and food and in the rest of their way of living, offering the example of their marvelous form of social life, which all admit has something incredible about it. They live each in his own native land, but as if they were foreigners. They take their share in all the burdens, as citizens, and they put up with everything, as strangers. Every foreign land is a native land for them, and every native land is a foreign land. They get married like everyone else and have children, but they do not expose their newborn children. They share their table, but not their bed. They live in the flesh, but not according to the flesh. They dwell on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the laws that have been laid down, but with their manner of life they rise above the laws. They love all and are persecuted by all. . . . To put it in a word, Christians are in the world what the soul is in the body. . . . The soul loves the flesh that hates it and loves its limbs: Christians, too, love those who hate them. The soul is shut up within the body, but it is the soul that sustains the body: Christians, too, are held in the world as in a prison, but it is they who sustain the world. . . . God has assigned them such a high position, and they are not allowed to abandon it.

(Cover image source: https://catholicexchange.com/eating-fire-and-spirit-receiving-jesus-in-holy-communion/)