To Whom Shall We Go?

Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

By Rev. Joseph McCloskey, S.J.

If it does not please you to serve the LORD, decide today whom you will serve, the gods your fathers served beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose country you are dwelling. As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." But the people answered, "Far be it from us to forsake the LORD for the service of other gods. Joshua 24:15-16

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." John 6:67-69

Piety

Christ is the Love of God the Father for us and our world. It is not only that we are created through Christ, but also that we are created for him. Piety is the reality of Christ being our real life and at the same time being our response to the father for his so great love for us. Peter answers for all of us when he says when asked if he would go; to whom could we go? You have the words of eternal life. Christ tells us not only he has the word for eternal life, but that he also is the food of life. Our oneness with Christ calls us into oneness with the Father. Christ says it clearly. “I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.” The closeness to Christ is the closeness of married love. Christ loves us as husband love their wives. Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. Spouse love means each loves the other as the real self. That is how Christ loves the Church. Vatican II defined the Church as the People of God. The Church is truly the Mystical body of Christ. Our piety bids us to the Church even as Christ loves the Church as himself. We need to discover ourselves in the Church as one with Christ. Our piety claims the response of love for the Church and all the Church asks of us. We need to pray about our relationship with the Church to discover how the Church is the Word of God and God's love for us in Christ. What the Church asks of us is that we see and hear Christ in all we should do out of our love for the Church.

Study

Christ handed himself over for the Church to sanctify her. Our imitation of Christ in how we relate to the Church is how the Church has its life in Christ. The Church is the someone who speaks for God in the world. How we listen to the Church is how Christ speaks to us. He claims our hearts by giving his life for us and we respond to Christ’s so great love for us by how we give ourselves back to the Church by using God’s gifts in us for the sake of the Church. Our service of the Church is the flesh and blood of Christ alive in our world. The redemptive suffering in our lives is how our offerings of self sanctify the Church In the name of Christ. Our study allows us to know what is of God and what is of the evil one. Peace and joy follow our attempts to do what God is asking of us. It brings happiness to know our life has meaning and to find what we are doing belongs to the work of God. The Spirit has been illuminating the minds and the hearts of the people of God down through the ages. We discover in the traditions of the Church the workings of the Spirit and learn how to recognize what leads us closer to God and reveals God to us in the examples of the good people of our lives. As Teresa of Calcutta said; “We learn to love and to be loved.”

Action

What shocks us about the life of the Church is God at work getting our attention. People hear things they do not like and move on or try to do something about what they see as something wrong. Our love of the Word of God and our actions where we try to do something about what is wrong reveal our love of God. Our goodness keeps us from walking away from the word God puts on our hearts. Love puts the best possible interpretation on what we hear about the Church. We do not reject because we disagree. We do not go elsewhere because we do not like what we are hearing or seeing. We work to find understanding and to bring understanding on what disturbs the people of God. God at work in us leads us to bring peace and accord and to throw oil of the Spirit's gifts on the troubled waters of the life of the Church. We work to bring peace and to minister to those that are weak and hurting. What we do for even one person out of love of Christ radiates out on the whole Church. We stay close to the Church so that we can stay close to Christ. We know that in Christ we have our life and the closer we come to Christ in the good we are doing for the least ones of our lives, the more we are serving the Christ who identifies with the Church. What radiates out on our world in the good we do for one comes back upon us in the love of Christ we share.