May 10
[media presentation below]
GospelThink
Saturday, May 10
JOHN 6:60-69
Convinced
Prayerthoughts
a. What are the most difficult of all of Jesus’s teachings, and what has been my response to them? (This is the task of the meditation.)
b. Those words of Jesus are a major part of my spiritual life. Am I spending as much time as I should in developing my spiritual life?
c. There are some who do not believe as we do. Jesus did not condemn them. Perhaps I should adopt a new attitude toward believers who are different in belief than I am.
d. I have been blessed by God in believing in the Eucharist and Jesus’s other major teachings. Again, thanksgiving to the Lord is in order in my pr
ayer today.
e. We reply with Peter that Jesus has the words of everlasting life. What thoughts, actions and words should I work on to make them more indicative of Jesus’s influence?
f. The apostles tell Jesus that they are convinced that Jesus is the center of their lives. We believe that Jesus is Lord for us. Do I go so far as to say, “I am convinced”? What should I do to show that I am more convincing in my words?
g. My prayerthoughts…
Today, I will list the major teachings of Jesus as I see it.
Some Thoughts on the Liturgy
+ There are two ideas that come from the readings today, both of which concern the thought of becoming a believer in Jesus
- one of them is the thought of Peter and his particular process of becoming a believer
- the other is the thought of coming to believe for all of us
+ In the Gospel, we see Peter in the process of beginning to believe
- using strong words, words of real commitment
- “we have come to believe”, “we are convinced”
- of course, he was in process because we know of his struggles later on as Jesus suffered and died
- his denial and running away from the situation
- but he was to end by the grace of the Holy Spirit in the Acts reading
- with complete trust in the Lord, total confidence because of him
- capable of miracles
+ The application to us Christians is pretty easy
- we too are in process
- we believe in the Lord, but we know that we also fail and have failed
- but our prayer is that we survive as Peter did
- and become true believers in the Lord who are willing to follow him completely
+ Secondly, that phrase of Peter’s in the Gospel —“we have come to believe”
- and a similar statement at the end of the Acts reading describing the early followers of Peter—“many came to believe”
- meaning—“we have done some serious thinking, and we have arrived at the conclusion”
- the Gospel statement is after Jesus’ discussion of the Eucharist in John’s Gospel
- some people could not accept it, and left Jesus
- Peter says: we have carefully considered this, and have come to believe in you, concluding—“to whom shall we go”
- in the Acts statement after Peter’s miracles
- people were trying to understand the world around them, how God was at work
- and they finally conclude after seeing Peter’s miracles that they will believe
+ The application here is that we have to be people who carefully consider what Jesus says and did
- by study, by reading, by prayer
- and come to the conclusion as Peter did in the Gospel—“to whom shall we go, you have the words of eternal life”
- and then follow through with those words in our living
+ Therefore, we have two thoughts to consider about coming to believe
- Peter’s evolvement into who he was
- our own evolvement into what we should be.
Jesus said to his disciples, “Let is go back to Judea.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you, and you want to go back there?” Thomas, called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go back to die with him.” |
Gospelthink: Toward the end of my life on earth, I was aware of my upcoming death and my Apostles wanted to help. As I think of my death, what are the most important things I should do? |
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The situation was dire. As the opening text of the movie gave the true history, during World War II the British and French armies had over 400,000 soldiers stranded on Dunkirk as they waited for the miracle of a rescue or until they died/ The movie “Dunkirk” is the story of how some 338,000 were rescued, even though the leaders of the Allied forces felt that only 30,000 coulde possibly be saved. (Historically, for some reason, Hitler and his staff decided not to massacre the soldies who were stranded in the open at Dunkirk.) The men expected at any moment to die, and were grabbing every opportunity they could to determine some escape. |
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In John’s Gospel, Jesus was determined to go to Jerusalem even though he had recently encountered significant opposition to his message. He knew that people had threatened to kill him, and he knew the consequences of his decision. It is interesting to see the couorage of the apostles at that moment in Jesus’s life. No matter what their eventual feelings about their Master’s death, at this moment, they were willing to die. Death was not a pleasant thought for them, but realiaing the importane of Jesus in their lives, they felt that giving up their lives was a way for them to truly follow Jesus.
For the thousands who were trapped on the shores of Dunkirk during the early stages of the Second World War as portrayed in the movie “Dunkirk,” death was almost a “given” if they could not find a way back to safety. No doubt many of the men thought of death as a possibility to do whatever they could to save themselves, nut if they were thinking as Christians, they were making themselves ready to die so that eternal life would be theirs.
Perhaps one of the great facts of living is that we all must die, and further, that some orf those deaths will not be easy—as disease and unfortunate circumstances like war and so forth will make our passing more difficult. But just as certain as death, one of the great facts of Christianity is that we will have the ultimate reward of true life we we try to earn it in our earthly lives.
Christianity is a hopeful religion. Christians know with absolute certainty that they will have eternal happiness after our lives here on earth as long as we are trying to live the Christian life that Jesus gave us. |
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PRAYER Good and gracious God, Your disciples were willing to die with Your Son in their earthly lives. Give us the grace to understand better our own deaths, and to accept them with the true understanding that You are our ultimate goal. Be with us, we pray. |
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+++++ GUIDE FOR CLASSROOM PRESENTATION AND PERSONAL ENRICHMENT Theme:
For
most of us, the thought of death is obviously not
pleasant, but it is the gateway to eternal life. 2. If you knew that you were going to die soon, how should you prepare yourself? 3. In general, do you believe that Christians think about death in a positive way? Yes or no and why? 4. In your opinion, do most Christians "prepare" for death in the way they live? Yes or no and why? 5. What is your definition of "hope"? 6. If you would give one way to live the Christian life while here on earth well, what would it be? |
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©2007
Capuchin Province of Mid-America |