Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Welcome to the Blessed Sacrament Homilies podcast where our mission is to help everyone recognize and experience the presence of God. We hope you are nourished and encouraged by the word. Thank you for joining us.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: The Lord be with you and with your spirit. A reading from the holy gospel according to John Glory to you, Lord. Many of Jesus disciples who were listening said, this saying is hard. Who can accept it?
Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of man ascending to where he was before?
It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail.
The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life, but there are some of you who do not believe.
Jesus knew from the beginning the ones that would not believe and the one who would betray him.
And he said, for this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my father.
As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.
Jesus then said to the twelve, do you also want to leave?
Simon Peter answered him, 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.
The gospel of the Lord praise to you, Lord.
It is always important for us to remember that we have that perfect vision of hindsight when we listen to the scriptures.
Because without remembering that truth, it is easy, I think, for us to look at the behavior of some and be quite critical, asking ourselves, how could they be that dense? How could they be that weak in their faith to walk away?
But that's not the right approach.
The right approach is actually to see the weakness in the disciples and followers of Jesus and use it with the lens of do I ever act that way? Am I ever weak in my faith? Do I ever walk away and return to my former way of life?
And I'm not sure about you, but I'm totally sure about me. I do that often.
I don't walk away in the blunt sense that they did in the scriptures today, but I definitely walk away a lot.
But it's much more subtle.
I walk away in all of those times where rather than being generous with either my time or my resources, I become stingy and put a blind eye toward them.
I do it whenever I have an issue with someone and I'm slow to forgive or I hold on to a grudge.
I do it when the busyness of my day to day life keeps me from being loving and compassionate to others.
I do it constantly.
I walk away.
It's too hard.
Well, here's the mystery and the grace that happens in the midst of that.
Jesus was under no false understanding that we would be perfect in our discipleship.
He knew farewell, that we are weak, that we stumble, that we walk away.
So he continues to offer us his perfect mercy, his healing, his compassion and his love, and simply asks us to assess where we're at and come back with contrite hearts. And his forgiveness will be lavished upon us not just once, not just twice, but sometimes, for some of us, like me, thousands of times.
His healing is not there for the perfect.
It is very much there for people just like you and I, who are far from perfect. You'll want to keep trying.
