Many of the disciples of Jesus 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?
The teaching of Jesus, particularly about the Eucharist, was always divisive. Here we can see it was not only his opponents or the crowds generally who murmured like the desert generation during the Exodus, but also even his own disciples. They were still trying to use fleshly modes of thinking to understand that which could be only understood spiritually.
And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual (see First Corinthians 2:13).
Spiritual understanding was not the same thing as saying that the discourse was actually only a metaphor. That sort of understanding was still a human way of thinking about a literary device. Spiritual understanding pertained to an unseen but nevertheless real and concrete facet of reality.
The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit (see John 3:8).
It would have been easy to suggest that the need to eat the Flesh and drink the Blood of Jesus was just a symbol. Then it wouldn't have been any more problematic than when he said that he was the vine or that he was the gate for the sheep. But those teachings were never provocative causes of dissension in the way that the teaching about the Eucharist proved to be. Yet though this new teaching was shocking, Jesus did not clarify, but rather doubled down. The revelation of his own glory demonstrated by his rising and ascending to the Father would provide the eventual context for understanding more deeply how this was a part of the larger plan of God to give life to the world. Yet even before that event Jesus called people to put their trust in him. Even though it was in no way obvious and indeed highly provocative he still made it a lynchpin on which rested continued fellowship with him. If disciples didn't like it, they could leave.
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.
Jesus, it seemed, was even willing to let his own beloved Twelve go if they wouldn't accept this teaching. And even they weren't entirely persuaded on the merit of the teaching itself, weren't happily accepting or readily convinced. Yet they had nevertheless come to believe more in the one who was teaching them than in their own ability to process or understand what was taught. They knew that the one who was truth itself could not lie. They were certain that the was who was goodness itself would have a good reason for this as well. They were not merely credulous, for Jesus had already demonstrated that he was absolutely trustworthy. Now he was able to lead them even through the darkness of faith when their human understanding failed. They possessed the core truth of who he was and that allowed them to accept all that he taught whether it was immediately intuitive to them or not.
We have come to believe
and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.
The disciples who remained did so because they allowed the Father to draw them. They didn't insist on their own understanding when they approached a mystery that was too great for human reason unaided by faith to grasp. Yet others, and with them Judas the traitor, refused to accept this teaching. They instead asserted the centrality of their own understanding. They were in some way repeating the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, preferring their own judgment to that of the Lord. And the consequence for them would be the same. They would not receive the fruit of immortality from the tree of life.
For ourselves it is likely that not every aspect of the Christian revelation will be genial to our own intellect and will. We will probably think that if we were in charge we would have implemented some things differently or not at all. But hopefully by now we have come to trust even in those things which chaff against our flesh because we have come to trust in the identity of the one on whom the truth of all of the contingent teachings rests, Jesus himself, the Holy One of God. Let us pray for all of our separated brethren for whom the Eucharist is 'just a symbol' that they may find their way to something much greater, the rich feast of life at the table of the Lord. May we all be led by the Holy Spirit into a season of unity and peace like the one described in today's first reading.
The Church throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria
was at peace.
She was being built up and walked in the fear of the Lord,
and with the consolation of the Holy Spirit she grew in numbers.
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