Hi everyone, and welcome to Weekly Homilies with Father Mark Suslenko, Pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. We are part of the Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford. I'm Carol Vassar, parish director of communications, and this is Episode 27 of Season 7 for the Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time  - August 25, 2024. Our Gospel reading is from John Chapter 6: verses 60-69.

Many of Jesus' disciples who were listening said, "This saying is hard; who can accept it?” Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, "Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him.

And he said, "For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father."

As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him. Jesus then said to the Twelve, "Do you also want to leave?” Simon Peter answered him, "Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

The Gospel of the Lord 

“Whom Will You Serve?” by Father Mark S. Suslenko, Pastor, SS. Isidore and Maria Parish, Glastonbury, Connecticut

It is very refreshing when scripture reveals to us human beings like ourselves wrestling with the question of faith. We have Joshua calling the people of his day on the carpet, basically saying to them, enough of this going back and forth. Decide today whom you will serve. Very simple decision. Make it. Decide today, not tomorrow, not the next day, but today, whom you will serve. And then disciples just got through listening to Jesus talk about himself as the bread of life, as the life that God has given for the world.  

Obviously talking about himself as the gift of his Eucharistic presence given for the salvation and life of all people. And as they listen to Jesus talk about himself being the bread of life, they found themselves stepping back and saying, "This teaching is hard, Lord, who can accept this?  How can you be the bread of life and life for the world? How can you claim that you're God?" This is too hard. Now, grant you, these are the same people who were walking with Jesus, talking with Jesus, getting to know him as his friends, and now they're questioning the very essence of who he is. This is too hard.  

And so he looks back at them, and he says, "Does this shock you? You know, after all this time of listening and being with me, all of a sudden, you don't understand who I am." And it was so hard for them that many of those people left, and they went back to their way of life. They said, "We can't do this. We're outta here." 

Why is it that, as human beings, we have such a struggle with faith?  Why do we have such a struggle with faith? If we look out into our world, we see one after the other who don't have faith. Why is this such a problem for the human condition? Well, it could have something to do with how we understand God. You know, for most of us sitting here today, our understanding of God comes to us via what we have learned about him. So, the Church teaches us about God. Our parents teach us about God. We read books about God. Theologians teach us about God. Scripture teaches us about God. We talk to one another, and they teach us about God. So, all of our understanding of God comes in the form of ideas. It's all in the intellect, and it's all coming from out there.  And so we store up all this knowledge, and we read more books, and we get more ideas going on, and God is an action of our brains, and we create this image of who God is. So when we're going through life, and a question of faith comes up that's challenging and doesn't square with our way of thinking, like something like the Eucharist, how can Jesus give us himself in plain bread and wine? How is that even possible? Questions such as that we're like, wait a minute. Or if we're not getting the answers from God in our prayers that we want, we say, hold on,  and we find ourselves moving away.  

So, our understanding of God sometimes appeals only to our brains.  And we process things only through our heads. We forget that, as human beings, we're more than just our brains. We're body, we're mind, but we're also soul. What about the soul? And its engagement with God? Maybe we don't really come to God through our brains. Maybe it's more through our soul.  

There's a great saying attributed to St. Francis of Assisi and it says,  
 “The soul that is troubled, the soul that is troubled, the soul that is lonely,  the soul that is lonely,  the soul that is darkened  will reach out  for outer comforts  and empty enjoyments  of the world.”  

You see, we have this soul that is craving for expression, that is craving for connection, and craving for satisfaction. And if we're not attentive to how it's really working and who's moving it, we're going to find ourselves looking outside of ourselves to outer comforts and enjoyments that are empty, which is exactly what we do. And that's what the disciples did. They couldn't put the pieces together, so they said, "Well, let me go back to my way of life. I knew what I had there, and it was easier." So they went.  

We do the same thing.  

If we have a relationship with God, we need to have a real relationship with God. And here's where it all comes together, and understanding this is so incredibly important to our spiritual lives. I'm going to ask you a question. We're all here today and brought to this sacred place from different places for different reasons. As you sit here today, right now, at this moment, not yesterday, not tomorrow, today, right now,  do you believe that God is speaking to you? Do you believe that God is speaking to you? That God has something to say to you? Not to just all of us, not to the person down the street, but to you? That he has something to say for you? Do you believe this? 

If the answer is yes, but I don't know how to listen for this, then you're onto something. And for most of us, we want to believe that God has something to say to me, but yet when we sit down in prayer and we enter into our prayer times, we don't hear a voice coming back at us.  We don't hear God saying anything. In fact, sometimes, it can be deafening and quiet. And so we conclude that maybe God doesn't have anything to say or worse yet, maybe God is not, and I'm just talking to the air. And so, having that experience, we go on our separate ways from God. And back to our normal routines of life, just like the disciples did. God has a message for you today. You!  

How do we know this? How do we listen for it? We listen with our soul. God does not talk to us as human beings talk to us. He doesn't communicate to us as our best friend communicates to you. He doesn't talk to us as a father does to their child or as we speak to our spouse or we speak to our parents. We use human words for that. God does not communicate to us using those kinds of words. God speaks the language of the soul,  and if we haven't learned the language of the soul, we're not gonna know what God is saying. It's like going into a foreign country, never speaking or hearing the language before, and people are talking all around us, but we have no idea what they are saying. The language of the soul is the same thing. 

How does God speak to us through that language? How do we know that he's talking? Well, every human being has some rock-bottom existential questions they need to work out about their lives. The first one is this. Who am I? Who am I? We all have to ask and answer that question and describe ourselves to someone else. Who am I? 

Well, if you listen deep within, every single one of us wants to belong to someone, someone greater than ourselves, not just to humanity, but to someone greater. We want to know that someone more powerful than I willed us into existence. We want that! And God is bringing us to that point by echoing that in our soul, saying, "I created you. You're my child," God is saying to us in the depth of our souls. That's a game-changer. I belong to a creator who calls me his child.  

We listen to the voice of the world. Who are you? The world tells us you are who you want to be. You are what you make of yourselves.  You are the measure of happiness you can find. You are as others define you to be. There's no real pattern or way to look or answer that question. It's all up to you. You're simply a human being. Figure it out.  

Decide: listen to God? Or listen to the world? 

Deep within ourselves, we want to know the meaning of life. Why are we here? Why are we doing any of this at all? God says, deep within our souls, "I created you. I fashioned you. I loved you, and I placed you in this world, in this time, for a particular reason, to do a particular thing."  

As we listen to that voice through God echoing within, we find ourselves filling up with hope and purpose and direction. We listen to the voice of the world and the world tells us your purpose is what you make it. Figure it out for yourself because there's no rhyme or reason to any of it all. Get through your earthly existence the best way possible because this is just a random event that somehow happened in time, and human beings found themselves here. That's all. Decide whom you will serve: the voice of God calling you to purpose or the voice of the world calling you to whatever.  

And here's the last one:  what will happen to you when you die?  What will happen to you when you die?  Regardless of where we are on our human journey, I have to believe that every human being, in the depth of their soul, wants to live forever.  We do.  We're hardwired for it.  And deep within our soul, God is saying to us, I am eternal life.  I am the way and the truth and the life. Come to me for the salvation of your soul that you want to have live forever.  We want to hear that, and God speaks it to us if we listen carefully and deeply enough.  We listen to the voice of the world. 

What happens to you when you die? The world laughs at us and says, "Oh, foolish one.  That's really a simple answer.  It's a big period,  and that's it."  

When you die,  the world tells us it's simply over.  Whatever you did, history will forget, and you're no more.  

Whom do you want to serve?  The God of life?  Or the ending that the world portrays?  

As we wrestle with these very important questions and moments of prayer,  what happens is amazing.  If we endure this relationship with God and we pursue our relationship with God,  even when God seems to be absent and silent and remote and not tangible, if we keep working and working, we are going to find ourselves increasing with faith just because we're gonna find ourselves increasing in faith.  We are gonna gain what's called experiential knowledge, and this is how we come to God, not through the head, but through the soul, through experiential knowledge, just like learning how to ride a bicycle.  You know, people can tell you how to do this, but that doesn't help you do it. You've gotta get on the thing, make it stay straight, and figure out that you can do this, and you learn how to ride a bicycle.  You can't articulate that to someone. You just simply have to do it.  

Same thing with prayer and faith. You have to delve into it, own it, and then watch the fruit blossom.  And we're gonna walk away with three things that are so important to the spiritual life. And they're so simple. They're somewhat silly in one sense, or at least very obvious.  The first: God is God.  Simple.  Prayer is going to assure us that God is God.  Number two:  we are who we are.  We are who we are. Simple.  The third:  we are because God is. We are because God is. So, God is God. We are who we are, and we are because God is.  And that assurance of faith is going to root us in that strength of belief,  so when those tides of water begin to shift, we'll be able to write it out knowing that God is God, and we are who we are, and we are because God is.  And as we look to the Eucharist,  we'll be able to do the same.  As we witness the bread and wine transformed into the body and blood of Christ,  we won't approach that just with our brains. We're gonna approach it with our souls, and we will know, without using words, but as a matter of the heart and soul, that God is God,  that the Eucharist is the body and blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ,  and that the Eucharist is the soul and divinity of Jesus Christ because God is. Simple!  But the soul is gonna know that here, not here. 

It's like dough.  It requires yeast to become filled with life.  As human beings, we require our souls and this utter relationship with God in order to be filled with life.  Then, when we go out, and God puts people in our path, we can open ourselves to them authentically, genuinely, and with full heart, mind, and soul because we will have found the center of love and mercy at the depth of who we are and God's very presence itself.  

And so today,  once again,  not tomorrow,  but today,  decide whom you will serve. 

Father Mark Suslenko is the pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. Learn more about our parish community at www.isidoreandmaria.org. And follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Our music comes free of charge from Blue Dot Sessions in Fall River, Massachusetts. I’m Carol Vassar. Thanks for joining us.