Lord, to Whom Shall We Go?

One

The Great Leaving

In the sixth chapter of John, Jesus gives His great teaching on the Eucharist. He tells His listeners that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood if they are to have eternal life.

This is, understandably, a very strange teaching for them to hear.

How, they say, can this man give us his flesh to eat, or his blood to drink? And why would we want to do such a thing?

So they say, “This is a hard saying – who can accept it?”

Right then, many of those who used to follow Jesus decide they aren’t going to follow Him anymore. And Jesus lets them go. 

But then He turns to His apostles. He doesn’t ask them to stay. He doesn’t thank them for staying. Instead, He gives them a challenge. He forces them to decide.

He looks at His chosen ones, and He says, “Will you also go away?”

Two

Peter’s answer

Peter, the spokesman for the apostles, the spokesman for the future Church, was almost never wanting for words.

So when Jesus said, “Will you also go away?” he had his answer ready.

He said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life.”

These should be the words of every true believer, every time our faith is challenged.

Every time we’re confused, angry, discouraged. Every time we’re tempted to throw in the towel and give up on even trying to be holy. Every time we think, this just isn’t working for me.

Every time we feel that way, we should turn to the crucifix, or simply raise our eyes to Heaven and say, “Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of everlasting life.”

Three

Mystery and truth

Notice what Peter did not say. He did not say He understood what was going on. He did not say He understood the Eucharist.

He did not say, “Of course, we’re not leaving you, Lord. We know how we can eat your body and drink your blood. It’s just a matter of applying the basic Aristotelian categories of substance and accident. By retaining the accidents of some common food – say, bread – you could simply change its substance so that we could receive the res et sacramentum of your body, blood, soul, and divinity in a physical, human way.”

Peter did not say that. He was probably just as mystified by Jesus’ words as everyone else.

But He knew that this man was the Christ, the Son of God. He had seen His goodness, seen His love. He had seen the way He cared for people, seen His power to help them physically and spiritually. 

Peter had heard the Sermon on the Mount and knew that this Man knew the secret of a good human life and that He understood the truth about God. 

Some of what Jesus said was mysterious. It might have even sounded crazy if someone else had said it. But someone else didn’t say it. The One who had spoken more truth than anyone else in human history had said it. 

And Peter wasn’t going to leave Him.

Four

Mystery and sanity

Isn’t it amazing how the Catholic Church – with its strange, startling teaching about the Eucharist – is also the last bastion of goodness and common sense left?

It’s that same pattern of the life of Christ Himself.

We are the ones who say that what appears to be bread and wine is actually God’s body and blood.

But we’re also the ones who say that life is a gift. That you shouldn’t shred your own baby, mutilate your own body, pretend you’re an animal, or hand your life over to money, fame, or power. 

Go to a first communion, look at the beautiful little girls in their white dresses, and the boys in their suits, surrounded by loving families, singing beautiful songs in a beautiful building.

Look at how all that is best in human life centers around the Eucharist. 

Yes, the Eucharist, the Church, Christ, God, it is all a mystery. But we know it’s true because it calls forth all that is best within us. 

Five

Where else shall we go?

In the meantime, those who deny the mysteries of Christ keep descending into deeper and deeper insanity.

Those who reject God and the Church also reject that life has any ultimate meaning. That it all comes from the blind workings of mindless matter. They claim that our mysteries are irrational, and then go on to say that the whole universe is irrational. 

They say it doesn’t make sense to turn bread and wine into body and blood with just a few words and then they claim that a man can be turned into a woman just because he says so. 

They claim that the Church doesn’t appreciate the good things in life – and then they lobby for the right to kill themselves. 

So yeah, sometimes the Christian life is hard. Sometimes God’s providence isn’t easy to see. Sometimes the Church’s teachings seem obscure. But what’s the alternative? The madness of the world? 

No. 

Dear Lord, keep us close to you, to your Church, to your body and blood in the Eucharist. 

Oh Lord, where else, to whom else, shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life.