August 11, 2024

19^thSunday in Ordinary Time (B)

Believe for God does not Deceive

Msgr. Thomas Gervasio

Having listened to Our Lord, the crowd began to complain. They listened but did not learn because their listening was amiss. We can listen in different ways: there is the listening of criticism, the listening of resentment, the listening of superiority, the listening of indifference. These are the ways the crowd listened to Jesus, and this “blocked” the gift of faith. How could this simple carpenter from Nazareth claim to have come down from heaven and declare that he is the bread of life which is his flesh for the life of the world? They found his teaching unnerving, too difficult to accept.
 
God respects our freedom. He does not impose himself on us. God’s approach is to “draw” us to faith, to a life with him. In his love, he will pursue us. He can be, as Francis Thompson, has called him, “the hound of heaven.”
 
God can draw us but our resistance can defeat God’s pull.
 
In times of struggle, we hear people say, “Just have faith.” But it is not always easy, is it? There are times when our faith is challenged, when it is fragile. Faith is easy on one’s wedding day or ordination day, but tough when the first problem comes along. Faith is fine when we are healthy, but elusive when we are ill. Faith can be ignored when all is well and we are content—but we surely need it when we are frustrated, worried, anxious, and overwhelmed.
 
So, faith must be nurtured continuously. We can’t allow it to “sleep.” We nurture faith through study, prayer, and practice. The Lord invites us to have faith in many things that may appear to the secular mind impossible or even unreasonable. But faith starts with trust in the speaker. The speaker is the Son of God whose words are reliable. In the Act of Faith, we affirm that God “can neither deceive nor be deceived.”
 
Today the Lord points us to the gift of the Holy Eucharist and invites us to reaffirm our faith in the veiled, but Real Presence of Our Lord under the form of bread and wine. Deacon Clarence Enzler, in his book My Other Self, reflects, putting these words on the lips of Jesus:
 

"Look at the Host...a wafer of bread. Never were appearances so deceiving! The host is myself...healer of lepers, giver of sight...he who wept at Lazarus' grave, who asked drink of the Samaritan woman...who forgave the adulteress...the Teacher, the Savior...
 
Do you not see the love that prompts your God...how zealously I work to bring you close to me? To give myself to you...I had to make myself unlike you. I hid myself under the likeness of common food because I did not want you to shrink from coming to me.
 
When I come to you in the Eucharist...I am in you! You are in me! In the Eucharist we become one flesh. You work not...alone, but I work in you. You serve others...not alone...I serve in you. You suffer, not alone, but I suffer in you. You adore with me; you give thanks with me; you love with me; you live now, not yourself...but I live in you!"

 
Lord, help me listen with an open and receptive heart so that I can believe in you who can neither deceive nor be deceived.