This Sunday we are brought to the conclusion of the sixth chapter of Saint John’s Gospel which we have spent about a month with. Here those present were brought to a crossroad where they had to accept Christ or abandon Him. We are told that there were those who “returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him” and those who were “convinced that (He is) the Holy One of God.”
Our life is filled with this same crossroad. We are constantly being given the invitation to choose Christ or to deny Him. Thankfully we are fed by the Most Holy Eucharist which binds us together as believers and strengthens us in the midst of temptation. If we allow the Eucharist to be the central point of our life then we will never abandon Christ, but will always remain “convinced that (He is) the Holy One of God.”
We must each answer if we truly want to follow after Him or do we want to leave in order to pursue the ways of the world. It is easy to want to leave in order to become a slave to our passions. It is easy to want to leave because we don’t believe ourself to be holy enough to be a disciple of the Lord. It is easy to want to leave because we are scandalized and have grown frustrated. It is easy to want to leave because our life is difficult.
No matter the temptation, the hardship, the cross, or the scandal that might give rise we must stand with Saint Peter in the confidence of faith and come to profess: “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.” If we are to make such a statement of faith we must foster devotion to the Eucharist. There is nothing more comforting then walking into an empty church and realizing in the midst of its silence the presence of Christ who dwells there. What a peaceful place to retreat from the busyness and noise of the world to enter into prayer in order that our heart and mind may be raised upwards towards the divine presence of God.
Throughout the month of September our parish’s perpetual adoration committee will highlight the importance of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. Devotion to the Blessed Sacrament is something that all of us must consider for devotion to the Blessed Sacrament is devotion to Christ. Christ saw the multitude in the complexity of their needs and He fed them. Christ sees us in the complexity of our needs and He feeds us. We are fed by the Most Holy Eucharist and thus we are sent forth strengthened to face the many twists and turns that our life may take.
