Jesus said in today’s gospel,
“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. Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my Flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.” ~ Jn 6: 52-58
These are some of the most beautiful words ever written in the bible. We actually eat Jesus at Mass each week. He becomes part of us and we become part of Him. A union in mind, body and Spirit that wells up to eternal life. What can we really add to these words? They have a life all their own. They are living words.
These verses in the gospel have confused people right from the first moment Jesus spoke them, though. We read in today’s gospel that the Jews quarreled among themselves saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus’s words probably sounded a lot like cannibalism to them. The gospel reading today doesn’t include the fact that many of Jesus’s own disciples became disgusted by his remarks too. They walked off and no longer followed him after they heard him say that we have to eat his flesh to obtain eternal life.
A lot of the time, it seems like we are just living our lives on the surface of things and do not fully grasp the more important aspects of our lives. We are all so busy that we just don’t have the time to stop and think very in-depth. If we do pause long enough to really think about a remark someone made, it isn’t always something positive. It’s easy to jump to conclusions and see the negative side of things. We often read things into other people’s words and actions according to our own mindset or emotions at the time, rather than that person’s intent, or ask for clarification on what they meant.
Have you ever read an email from a friend, family member or a coworker that just struck you wrong? You wonder, “what did they mean by that remark?” It’s very easy to take offense at their words, which may have unintentionally come across wrong. They didn’t mean for it to sound at all the way that you took it. The higher road in these circumstances would be to give the person the benefit of a doubt. Hear them out. Ask them to clarify what they meant because you didn’t quite get what they were trying to say. And if you were the one who said something that another person took wrong, it helps to just tell the other person that you are not communicating very well at the moment and that you are having problems articulating what you meant.
Jesus didn’t have that problem in today’s gospel though. He told the truth and it was shocking. No one understood it at the time. But, maybe that was Christ’s whole point. His words would not be forgotten, they would be written down and thought about more deeply, at a later date. The words Jesus said in that moment in time, has been studied for countless generations ever since. It may have been precisely because his words were so shocking that people remembered them, and paid attention to what he said.
There were major misunderstandings in both the first reading for mass, and the gospel today too. No one understood what Jesus meant about eating his flesh and blood. Many Protestants still have problems understanding this today.
Saul certainly misunderstood Jesus in the first reading for mass today and thought the worst of his followers too. Rather than admit that the Son of God had truly been in their midst, (because so many people testified to this), Saul took it the wrong way. The truth became all twisted up in his mind, and especially inside his heart. His negative, judgemental attitude took over and drowned out everything else except for his misguided religious zeal.
Before we are too hard on ourselves for the misunderstandings that occur in our own lives though, we need to pay close attention to what Jesus did to Saul. Jesus looked right through the very worst faults that Saul had and still wanted Saul to serve him. Jesus wanted to tame that passion for God that burned so fiercely inside of Saul, and channel it into evangelizing his early church. Saul’s misguided religious zeal was converted into the fire of the Holy Spirit that spread throughout the known world, forming the early church.
A strong religious zeal for Jesus is not always a bad thing, even if it is a little misdirected at times. We aren’t perfect people. Saul sure wasn’t either. However, we are not the One who is actually in control of our lives. Jesus is. Saul sat in the darkness for three days before he finally accepted the fact that Jesus was the one in control of his life.
Maybe we need to let go of our need to control others, or control everything in our own lives too. It’s pretty tiring and stressful anyway. What a sense of peace we could have if we just put our life in Christ’s hands, and trust him, the way Saul was forced to do in today’s first reading. Jesus did this to Saul for his own good, but also for the good of those around him.
Daily Mass Readings:
Acts 9: 1-20 / Psalm 117: 1bc, 2 / John 6: 52-59
