“Do you also want to leave?”
By Deacon Rod Knight
In the past few weeks, we have heard Jesus tell us things such as “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood you have no life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.” Many of Christ’s disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer followed Him. Jesus asked the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?” This teaching is hard. There are many hard teachings within our faith. Remember faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen. If we are living our faith and spreading the Good News, we probably feel like salmon swimming upstream. We can feel rejected by society. Consolation can be found in Jesus. Jesus did not eat with tax collectors, prostitutes, and other sinners to be an example of diversity, equity, inclusion or even tolerance. Christ spent time with them as a call to conversion, a change of heart. A call to a more abundant life. Jesus was constantly ridiculed by man for doing things contrary to the cultural norms. The Lamb of God healed the sick on the Sabbath, He touched lepers, He spoke to a Samaritan woman alone, failed to wash His hands before eating, and the list goes on. We are also called to be a counterculture if it is for the common good and in obedience to God. Most of the problems I have witnessed with Catholics/non-Catholics not believing a teaching of “The Church” (Holy Mother Church) is not so much a disbelief or even a disagreement but a lack of understanding of the full (depth) teaching. In encounters with the world (non-Catholics) or those coming into the Church (OCIA) I see misunderstandings, misconceptions, and even false teachings in reference to the Holy Trinity, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Saints, Purgatory, the Sacraments, a belief that the Church is misogynistic, my body my choice (pro-abortion/pro-choice), the Pope is infallible, the Church hates gays and is against sex, and why does God allow evil, to mention a few. This anything goes society is willing to cancel or attack anyone or anything to include the Catholic Church if it contradicts anything the current culture accepts. God the Eternal Law is the one who created the universe, brought order from chaos, established what was good and proper, and established truth. We are called not only to live this truth but to teach it to all nations. We cannot give what we do not have. We cannot serve both God and mammon (material wealth). No man can serve two masters. If we are struggling with a teaching, we must dive in and do our research. This helps us grow in faith, in evangelizing, in defending our faith better, become more holy, and brings us closer to God. This sounds like work, a lot of work. Do you also want to leave? To whom shall you go?