Most of you know that I love being on the road,
because I love to drive. I enjoy the
experience of controlling a vehicle that is moving me from Point A to Point
B. I enjoy getting there by the fastest
route possible, but I also like dawdling along the scenic route. The trip is often at least as important as
reaching the destination.
Though I always enjoy the driving, there are some
stretches of road that I enjoy more than others. Beautiful roads, challenging roads, and roads
that take me home make my heart sing.
I-81 from Blacksburg down toward Knoxville, for example, is a
favorite. County Road 647 in Fauquier
County, Virginia is another.
The Holy Gospel we hear proclaimed at Mass throughout
the Church year is rather like a road the opens up before us. We follow Jesus from episode to episode, following
where he leads us, all the while seeing much that is familiar, and simultaneously
finding something new every time.
The Scriptural texts for Sunday Mass, presented in
the Lectionary (the book of readings), are arranged in three one-year-long
programs, with each year walking through a Gospel: Year A is Matthew, then Mark
in Year B, and finally Luke in C. John’s
Gospel is peppered throughout the year, usually on Holy Days and major feasts.
This year is Year B, and we are about halfway through
Saint Mark’s Gospel, which is the shortest.
Mark is so brief that there is not enough Gospel to fill all the Sundays
of the year. So to fill the gap, for
five weeks in late summer, we have one chapter of John’s Gospel. As I looked to the readings for this week to
prepare to preach, I was filled with delight as I saw the Gospel passage and
said to myself, is it time for this
already? What a pleasure to walk
once more down this familiar path with you.
Not just any chapter, John 6 is this evangelist’s
contribution to our understanding of the Eucharist. Every evangelist recounts the feeding of the five
thousand with which this chapter begins, but only John presents what follows: Jesus’s
discourse in the synagogue at Capernaum, in which He explains that He is the
Bread of Life, and that unless we eat His flesh and drink His blood, we do not
have life within us.
In a way this Gospel chapter is like a beautiful
road, with words and actions of Christ presented in such a marvelous way that
each and every detail, every word and every sentence, is as perfect and
proportionate as the splendid truth that they collaborate to convey to us. But it is also like a challenging road, in that
each time I explore it I find a new twist that requires an appropriate response
in order to keep me on track. Many of
the disciples turned away at these words; that would be a wrong turn. For us who continue, it is also the road
home, full of comfortable and familiar landmarks that indicate that we are on
the right track, and how close we are to safety.
Here we are again, already. Beginning John 6 means it is almost
August. School will start eight days
after we finish making our way through this chapter. Wow.
Thank goodness it is also a long road, one that takes five weeks! Because while the Holy Eucharist in which
Christ feeds us Himself, body, blood, soul, and divinity, brings us to our
glorious destination with Him in eternal glory, I am not yet eager to reach its
conclusion. I am enjoying the summer,
and as ever, I am enjoying driving down one of my favorite stretches of road.
Monsignor Smith
