“Sunday Reflection” is a regular feature, looking at the specific readings used in today’s Mass in Catholic parishes around the world. The reflection represents only my own point of view, intended to help prepare myself for the Lord’s day and perhaps spark a meaningful discussion. Previous Sunday Reflections from the main page can be found here.  For previous Green Room entries, click here.

This morning’s Gospel reading is John 6:51-58:

Jesus said to the crowds:

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

Today, I will spend my day in a leadership retreat at my parish, preparing for the next year of business in our community. We will go into the hills and wilderness — all right, really just up the road into a small patch of trees where we maintain a youth retreat center — and do our best to come together in Jesus’ name. We hope to commune with the Holy Spirit to do His will, while going through innumerable Powerpoint slides and spreadsheets, and squeeze in a bit of lunch in the middle somewhere.

The retreat includes spiritual direction and meditation. Our pastor may have another passage from Scripture for reflection, but today’s Gospel has insight into what it means to become true disciples, and how difficult it can be. Discipleship in Christ is a total commitment, even if that commitment gets executed imperfectly.

In today’s passage, Jesus extends his teachings on Himself being the break of life and the blood of the new covenant. The Israelites received manna in the desert from the Lord, but that bread had to be eaten within a day (two days for the Sabbath) or it would spoil. Jesus states that He is the “living bread” of eternal life. At this point, the crowds who had been ready to proclaim Jesus a king stayed with Him.

However, Jesus then shocks them by explaining what this will mean for his true disciples. Not only will they have to follow Him, Jesus says, but salvation depends on eating His flesh and drinking His blood, terms which He specifically emphasizes three times in the passage.  Later, in next week’s Gospel, many of these followers ask Jesus if He meant that literally, and Jesus challenges them to make that commitment to salvation. They walk away, except for the Twelve, who trust in Jesus even though they do not understand His teaching. They put their trust in Jesus, the Lord, rather than in their own understanding.

We will do that today, too, although not nearly as well as the Apostles did. We will have a challenging year in our parish, and all of us have other pressing commitments — jobs, family, and health issues. This will be my third year in parish leadership, and I’m not sure I know much more about it than when I started, and that’s not really a very good feeling at all. Like so many other tasks in which leadership is needed (parenting is a good example), it can easily overwhelm, and does with me often.

In fact, it feels too often like the opposite of our passage from Proverbs today, in which Wisdom calls out, “Let whoever is simple turn in here!” Nothing is simple in these leadership tasks, and the weight of the responsibility is palpable.

However, that’s only if we get caught up in thinking that we are alone in this task. First, it should be pointed out that the pastor is the one who really bears the weight. We exist to alleviate a small part of it from him, but we are advisers, not deciders. (If you want to gain sympathy for the plight of pastors, spend three years on a pastoral council.)

But even apart from that, we are not alone because Christ is there with us, as He promised in Matthew 18:20. “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” We come to meet and plan with each other, but we are gathered in communion with Christ on the business of our faith community. At the end of the day, we will gather for Mass to share in the body and blood of Christ, but we will be gathering in His name and asking for His grace to lead us in unity and purpose.

Does that mean we will get our tasks done perfectly? Er … no. (Ever been to one of these meetings?) The Apostles themselves made missteps even after the Last Supper, especially so in the immediate aftermath of it. We will have differences of opinion, different points of view, but those will help us to reach better decisions, too. In the end, though, as long as we remain centered on Christ, we will muddle our way through to unity and love.

Christ provides this same plan for us all. The body and blood of Christ is not meant for the perfect, but for those who need nourishment on the long journey to salvation. We will continue to have differences of perspective and approach in worldly matters, but the body and blood of Christ is the banquet of Wisdom, and it unifies us beyond our own abilities to overcome differences. The only way we can be lost is if we turn away from the banquet and fail to trust in the Lord.

The front-page image is the Christ Pantocrator mosaic in the Pammakaristos Church and museum in Istanbul.