Hi everyone – Here’s my homily for Sunday August 23, 2009 – the 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time. The readings for the day can be found at https://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/082309.shtml – Thanks for reading and all of your feedback! God Bless, Fr Jim
HOMILY:
It’s amazing how much people will reveal about themselves online in various internet forums, blogs, facebook. Looking for something on a Google search, one of the suggested search results turned up this page called “Regrets – If you could do it all over again…” On it, people posted all types of things.
Some of the posts had people looking back at missed opportunities that could fall into “Monday Morning Quarterback” territory:
– I would go back to 22. Would have stayed in LA and taken the marketing job right out of college. I would have bought the condo in long beach for $60k that I was looking into. The rest…….history. I would be a true real estate investor and wouldn’t be tied to a 9 to 5.
– I would go back to 16 and chosen a different university for my engineering degree…
Some were a bit more serious, for example, one individual said I would go back to when I was 20 and NOT smoke that first cigarette. There were more than a couple of people who agreed with that post.
Some were truly heartbreaking, like this one: I wish I could go back and marry the only person I really cared about and never let something as stupid as a relocation get in the way and think that it wouldn’t affect us.
Regrets, we can sing along with Frank Sinatra, I’m sure, we’ve all had a few… Some in the grand scheme of things aren’t too big a deal (I should have gotten that car in blue instead of green); while another might be a life-altering moment that puts us on a different track – that, in hindsight, is a bad decision. A decision that because of our blindness, stubbornness, ignorance, whatever the reason – we made that choice and it has affected us for the rest of our lives. And because we’ve experienced those regrets in our own life, it’s almost sadder to watch others – children, friends, relatives, co-workers making a choice we know inevitably they will regret later…
For the last month we’ve been hearing from John Chapter 6 in the Gospel for Sunday Mass. It is called Jesus’ Bread of Life Discourse, and by way of brief reminders, the whole “discourse” began with one tremendous miracle. Jesus feeds thousands of people with five loaves and two fishes. UNBELIEVABLE! That was utterly amazing to the crowds. It was impressive to a whole bunch of Jesus’ disciples who had been following him and thought they had been impressed with him already!
Jesus had engaged them and told them to look beyond their stomachs. To see the hungers in their hearts, their souls, their lives and that yes – He could give them the nourishment that would satisfy that too.
Jesus would give His Flesh to eat and His Blood to drink. And he follows that by saying that the only way to have those hungers fulfilled is to feast on His body and blood. “That can’t be,” some thought… “What do you mean?” many asked – wondering was this a parable, some symbol he was referring to or metaphor for something else… Yet Jesus continues to say it over and over – I am the Bread of Life – you must eat my flesh and drink my blood…
And so after these weeks of hearing this back and forth dialogue between those who were awe-struck-filled-with-wonder-and-amazement disciples and Jesus, we read some pretty sad words: Many of Jesus’ disciples who were listening said “this saying is hard; who can accept it?. . . as a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.
I’m sure for Jesus that it was hard watching someone (or a whole bunch of someones in this case) make a decision that he knew, eventually, they would regret.
What is striking though is that the choice here is whether to stay and continue to follow Jesus or not. The choice to stay didn’t mean that the doubts disappeared (really, we are going to be eating your flesh?). The choice to stay didn’t mean perfect understanding that what Jesus was saying would eventually come to light (how does that piece of bread that cup of wine at Mass become Jesus’ body and blood?).
But then again, just look at those who did stay. Peter and the twelve would prove more times than not how little they understood what Jesus was saying to them, and how often their doubts would re-appear (and make them screw up)?
Yet, they stayed despite all of those doubts and confusions because Jesus hadn’t given them any reason not to trust Him. Yes, “this saying is hard” – but Jesus offers that if we trust him, stick with him, continue to follow him – it won’t make things easier – in fact things will probably become harder. But it’s a choice we will never regret. Because we too will come to make Peter’s words our own – We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.
