I also quickly remembered that riding a bike can also be pretty challenging. When you’re on level ground, the work of propelling yourself can be very relaxing; when you’re going downhill, it’s even exhilarating, since you don’t have to do any work at all! But when the road changes, and the path ahead becomes narrow and steep, what had been fun and refreshing suddenly becomes hard work. Pedaling uphill requires firm resolve – it requires putting in the sweat and effort needed to keep going forward.
I was reminded of this this past week as I reflected upon the Gospel for this Sunday. If you’re like me, you might approach your relationship with God as a kind of spiritual bike ride. Amid the volatilities of the world around us, the ups and downs of our relationships with others, we tend to want to receive from God only things that refresh and invigorate us. We want the spiritual rush that comes from a great moment of prayer, or an uplifting Mass, or an encouraging affirmation of our vocation. Like a biker coasting downhill, we tend to think, “This is great! Full speed ahead!”
Inevitably, though, we hit a bump in the road. I have spent much of the last week meeting and communicating with people who find themselves struggling in some way with their faith right now. Some of them are outraged and frustrated by the reports of the clergy abuse scandals, and the response to them from our Church leaders – a response that many feel is insufficient so far. Other people are confronting other crises: family health emergencies, a lack of clarity about plans for the future, even a general sense of God being distant or absent from their lives. It seems that many of us are struggling at the moment, for one reason or another.
The Gospel today is all about spiritual struggle, and how to respond to it. This reading is the conclusion of the Bread of Life discourse, and I find it to be one of the sadder parts of the Gospel of John. Jesus has laid out clearly that it is God’s will that he become our spiritual nourishment, not in a symbolic sense but by actually consuming his Flesh and Blood as the pledge of eternal life. Sadly, as we hear, these words are just too shocking for many of his listeners. They are left confused and bewildered, and they find that they can’t accept his words. As we heard, they stop following him, and “returned to their former way of life.” How sad those words sound, even to us today.
Some of Jesus’s followers remain. However, they don’t stay because they totally understand Jesus. They too are shocked and confused. But instead they make the decision to stay because they can’t turn away – they have placed their faith in the Lord. They have decided that life with Christ is better than life without him. As Peter says, “We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God. You have the words of eternal life.”
For Peter and the other disciples, this moment in the Gospel marks a change in their relationship to Jesus. Like others, they had been fascinated by his compelling words, attracted to the miracles he worked and the authority that he claimed. It was a thrilling ride – they were coasting on the spiritual bike ride of discipleship, full speed ahead! But they hadn’t learned the other part of discipleship – that Jesus came not to be loved and respected by all, but ultimately to be rejected and put to death. This moment – when many of Jesus’s disciples walk away from him – is a foreshadowing of the near total abandonment that happens at the foot of the Cross, when eleven of the twelve Apostles including Peter flee out of fear.
The Letter to the Hebrews has a great definition for the virtue of faith. Faith, it says, “is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not yet seen.” It is the belief in something – really, Someone – even when we can’t clearly see the precise way ahead. Faith is not completely blind; but it is a virtue of believing in what is just beyond the edge of visible sight. For the Apostles, and for us, our faith is rooted in Jesus, he whose words are “spirit and life”. But our faith will also be tested. Maybe it is a difficult teaching of the Church, maybe it is a personal crisis, maybe it is the scandals in the headlines – whatever it is, something will inevitably will stop us in our tracks and force us to ask ourselves whether we really are convinced in what we believe.
Don’t let that bump in the road scare you! It’s a step in the path to a more mature faith, to a truer and deeper relationship with Christ. Every disciple must learn to say, as Peter says, “we have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.” Discipleship is proven not when we are gliding along an easy path, but rather when our road becomes rocky, narrow, uphill. It’s then that we are faced with a choice: will I follow Jesus only when it is easy? Will I keep pedaling when the road gets hard? The truth is all of us turn away, at times – it’s what we call sin. But the key to discipleship is to listen to the Lord’s voice inviting us to turn back to him, to receive his grace and strength anew so we can continue to follow where he leads.
About seven years ago, our former pope, Pope Benedict said this in an address to young people: “Dear friends, may no adversity paralyze you. Be afraid neither of the world, nor of the future, nor of your weakness. The Lord has allowed you to live in this moment of history so that, by your faith, his name will continue to resound throughout the world.” I think those are good words to keep in mind in these days. Whether it is the scandals of the Church, or some difficulty in our own faith lives, we may find that our spiritual path is a bit challenging at the moment. What we need is a deeper faith – a renewed conviction in our personal decision to follow the Lord wherever he may lead.
Friends, the spiritual path may incline upwards at times. But it was never steeper than on the Hill of Calvary, when it seemed that all was lost. But even that was an invitation to a deeper faith, the ultimate revelation of God’s love for his people. Surely, the One who has conquered death can give us the strength to face the challenges of our present moment if we continue placing our faith in him. May the Eucharist that we give us strength for the journey in front of us, helping us to keep pedaling, uphill at times but always moving forward, toward “that place where true gladness is found.”
Giovanni Lanfranco, Miracle of the Bread and Fish (c. 1620)
The Gospel today is all about spiritual struggle, and how to respond to it. This reading is the conclusion of the Bread of Life discourse, and I find it to be one of the sadder parts of the Gospel of John. Jesus has laid out clearly that it is God’s will that he become our spiritual nourishment, not in a symbolic sense but by actually consuming his Flesh and Blood as the pledge of eternal life. Sadly, as we hear, these words are just too shocking for many of his listeners. They are left confused and bewildered, and they find that they can’t accept his words. As we heard, they stop following him, and “returned to their former way of life.” How sad those words sound, even to us today.
Some of Jesus’s followers remain. However, they don’t stay because they totally understand Jesus. They too are shocked and confused. But instead they make the decision to stay because they can’t turn away – they have placed their faith in the Lord. They have decided that life with Christ is better than life without him. As Peter says, “We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God. You have the words of eternal life.”
For Peter and the other disciples, this moment in the Gospel marks a change in their relationship to Jesus. Like others, they had been fascinated by his compelling words, attracted to the miracles he worked and the authority that he claimed. It was a thrilling ride – they were coasting on the spiritual bike ride of discipleship, full speed ahead! But they hadn’t learned the other part of discipleship – that Jesus came not to be loved and respected by all, but ultimately to be rejected and put to death. This moment – when many of Jesus’s disciples walk away from him – is a foreshadowing of the near total abandonment that happens at the foot of the Cross, when eleven of the twelve Apostles including Peter flee out of fear.
The Letter to the Hebrews has a great definition for the virtue of faith. Faith, it says, “is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not yet seen.” It is the belief in something – really, Someone – even when we can’t clearly see the precise way ahead. Faith is not completely blind; but it is a virtue of believing in what is just beyond the edge of visible sight. For the Apostles, and for us, our faith is rooted in Jesus, he whose words are “spirit and life”. But our faith will also be tested. Maybe it is a difficult teaching of the Church, maybe it is a personal crisis, maybe it is the scandals in the headlines – whatever it is, something will inevitably will stop us in our tracks and force us to ask ourselves whether we really are convinced in what we believe.
Don’t let that bump in the road scare you! It’s a step in the path to a more mature faith, to a truer and deeper relationship with Christ. Every disciple must learn to say, as Peter says, “we have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.” Discipleship is proven not when we are gliding along an easy path, but rather when our road becomes rocky, narrow, uphill. It’s then that we are faced with a choice: will I follow Jesus only when it is easy? Will I keep pedaling when the road gets hard? The truth is all of us turn away, at times – it’s what we call sin. But the key to discipleship is to listen to the Lord’s voice inviting us to turn back to him, to receive his grace and strength anew so we can continue to follow where he leads.
About seven years ago, our former pope, Pope Benedict said this in an address to young people: “Dear friends, may no adversity paralyze you. Be afraid neither of the world, nor of the future, nor of your weakness. The Lord has allowed you to live in this moment of history so that, by your faith, his name will continue to resound throughout the world.” I think those are good words to keep in mind in these days. Whether it is the scandals of the Church, or some difficulty in our own faith lives, we may find that our spiritual path is a bit challenging at the moment. What we need is a deeper faith – a renewed conviction in our personal decision to follow the Lord wherever he may lead.
Friends, the spiritual path may incline upwards at times. But it was never steeper than on the Hill of Calvary, when it seemed that all was lost. But even that was an invitation to a deeper faith, the ultimate revelation of God’s love for his people. Surely, the One who has conquered death can give us the strength to face the challenges of our present moment if we continue placing our faith in him. May the Eucharist that we give us strength for the journey in front of us, helping us to keep pedaling, uphill at times but always moving forward, toward “that place where true gladness is found.”
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