21^st Sunday in Ordinary Time : Mass at St. Paul’s, Paisley

 1.                              The disturbing thing about today’s Gospel is that Jesus encountered serious opposition from his own followers. The people who turned against him were not the usual suspects – the Scribes and Pharisees or groups of hostile Jews. The opposition came from many of his own followers, who, having heard Jesus’ doctrine were saying, “This is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it?”

 2.                              So what was their complaint? Jesus had just delivered this teaching: “I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world.” He had revealed to them what the Church has come to call the mystery of the Eucharist in which the believer truly receives the body and blood of Christ under the forms of bread and wine. And Jesus went on: “Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise him up on the last day.”  This teaching was the cause of his followers’ dissent, and the evangelist tells us eventually, “After this, many of his disciples left him and stopped going with him.” I would guess that that must have saddened the Lord a great deal. It is salutary to think that even the Lord could not hold on to all those who initially were his disciples.

 3.                              I think history has shown that the Church can cope with opposition from outside. In fact, often in the face of naked persecution and blatant opposition, the Church grows stronger and flourishes. But what is really disturbing is when people lose their faith, stop going to Mass, stop “going with Jesus”. Regretfully this has happened a lot in recent times and it continues to be a way of the cross for the Church in Western Europe at least: I would be pleasantly surprised if any Catholic family has been unscathed by this sad trend.

 4.                              So in this time of crisis of faith, Jesus speaks to us as he spoke to the Twelve: “What about you, do you want to go away too?” Jesus is waiting for our answer. What is your answer, our answer? And I am here today as your bishop to speak for all of us and repeat the inspiring words of Peter, who found it in his heart to say: “Lord, who shall we go to? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; we know that you are the Holy One of God.”

 5.                              I do not speak these words in any kind of spirit of blind defiance against the inevitable march of history. Not at all. I speak them with trust that God, the Lord of history, will bring his purposes in Christ to fulfilment and that He, the God of mercies, wants all human beings to be saved and to come to the knowledge of his truth. I speak them with joy that our faith in Christ offers us peace, forgiveness and fullness of life. I speak them with hope, encouraging you in your faith, exhorting you to pass on your faith to your children and young people as a treasure for their lives. I speak them with thankfulness that we profess our faith within a Church to which belong not a decreasing number but still an increasing number of our brothers and sisters all over the world. As we celebrate this Eucharist and come forward to receive the body and blood of Christ, we say with them: Lord, you have the message of eternal life!

27th August 2006