Should I stay or should I go? Choose to stay with Jesus! - Homily 21st Sunday, Cycle B

Darling, you got to let me know

Should I stay, or should I go?

If you say that you are mine

I'll be here till the end of time

So you got to let me know

Should I stay, or should I go?

These are the lyrics from The Clash’s 1981 hit, “Should I stay, or should I go?”, that came to me after reflecting on today’s Gospel. There’s a bit of the truth that resonates in this catchy tune of what that Jesus disciples were wrestling with: Should I stay, or should I go.

The last three weeks we have heard Jesus telling the Jews and his disciples in Capernaum, that he was the bread of life that came down from heaven, and if they ate his flesh and drank his blood, they would have eternal life. For the Jews this was unacceptable, as eating anything that contained blood was forbidden in their tradition.  So many of the Jews probably had moved on, and in today’s reading we hear Jesus is speaking to his disciples.  

The disciples had been following Jesus witnessing the miracles he had performed.  They experienced the feeding of the multitudes, 5000 people, with 5 loaves and two fish. Many of them had witnessed other miracles, turning the water into wine at Cana, giving sight of the blind, and restoring the lame to walk. They were following Jesus because these miracles were signs indicating that he was someone special, possibly the long-awaited Messiah.  But now, even his disciples were having a hard time accepting what he was telling them. Instead of backing down, Jesus doubles down, asking if they are shocked by his teaching that he came from God, asking them, what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? This was too much for them, so they returned to their former way of life. 

I think we all know people today, who are just like the disciples who left Jesus, who have a hard time accepting many of the teachings of the Catholic Church, especially Jesus’ real presence in the Eucharist.  The purpose of the National Eucharistic Revival held over the past three years, was to help Catholic’s belief in the Jesus real presence’ in the Eucharist and His desire to be in an intimate relationship with us. There’s still a large percentage of Catholics who struggle with this belief and many attend Mass infrequently or have stopped attending Mass altogether.  Sadly, many people are missing the intimate relationship of a God who loves us so much that he became food to spiritually nourish us with His Body and Blood in the Eucharist. 

With many of the disciples leaving, Jesus asks the twelve apostles, “Do you also want to leave?”  Peter answers with hopeful faith on behalf of all the apostles, with one of the most important answers of all time, “Master, to whom shall we go?”   Peter realizes that while he

may not totally understand what Jesus means by eating his body and drinking this blood, that he has faith in him, and chooses to stay with him.  He affirms this faith in Jesus by proclaiming, “You have the words of eternal life, and we have come to believe that you are the Holy One of God.”  Without the faith of Peter, we would not have the Church nor the Sacraments to sustain and feed us. 

Jesus wants to be in an intimate personal relationship with each of us, so we can be with him forever. He does this through the Church and the Sacraments, most profoundly in the Eucharist.  We just need to have faith like Peter and trust that the words that Jesus proclaims are true.  Jesus says that the word he speaks are Spirit and life.  The Spirit is the divine power that creates. If Jesus is God who created the world, he surely has the power through the Holy Spirit to change ordinary bread and wine, into his Body and Blood, through the priests of his Church.  It’s amazing that the God of the universe chose to become one of us in human form, so we can intimately know him, and even more amazing that he continues to be with us in the Eucharist, so we can be spiritually nourished and become one with him.

Jesus wants all of us to choose to stay with him, just like Peter did.  Peter and the apostles were in a close relationship with Jesus, because they were with him daily, spending a lot of time with him.   The more time you spend with someone, the more you know them and grow in love with them.  

Someone who spent a lot of time with Jesus and developed a great love for him in our modern age, was Blessed Carlos Acutis.   Carlos was born in Italy in 1991 and grew up in a family that was not very religious, but after receiving his first communion, he desired to receive the Eucharist every day. Carlos said that the Eucharist is my freeway to heaven.  Carlos became very interested in Eucharistic miracles and desired share to the stories about them with as many people as possible.  He traveled to many of the sites of the miracles and developed a web site which contained posters explaining each of the miracles.  Unfortunately, Carlos died at the young age of 15, but the website he developed is still used today to share these Eucharistic miracles with the world.  The documents about the miracles on his website were on display at the National Eucharistic Congress and was one of most popular exhibitions at the conference.  If you have not seen them, I would encourage you to visit the website. Carlos will be canonized a saint in 2025 by Pope Francis.

These Eucharistic miracles have occurred to help those who doubt to have faith in Jesus real presence in the Eucharist.   One of the most recent miracles occurred in 2006 at Saint Martin of Tours Parish in Tixtla, Mexico, where a host that a religious sister was taking to the sick appeared to have blood coming out of it.  The sister returned the host to the parish priest and upon seeing this, reported it to the diocese and an investigation took place to determine what was happening. The independent scientific investigation concluded that the blood was of type AB and detected the tissue of living heart muscles. The same blood type found in similar investigations done on Holy Shroud of Turin, the burial cloth that covered Jesus in the tomb. There have also been many other Eucharistic miracles that have had the same results from scientific testing.  If you know anyone who has a doubt in Jesus real presence in the Eucharist, I encourage you to share these miracles with them to help bolster their faith.

So, you got to let me know
Should I stay, or should I go?

I hope that each of us, have faith like Peter, and choose to stay with Jesus, because he is the bread come down from heaven, which gives us eternal life.  May your choice to stay with Jesus, be something that you freely share to help lead others to have that same faith, so they too can have eternal life.