21st Sunday in Ordinary time
Readings:
Joshua 24:1-2,15-18
Ephesians 5:21-32
John 6:60-69
Reflection:
So, today we finally come to the end of six weeks of Sunday Gospels about Jesus, the bread of life, the bread being his body given for the life of the world. And we preachers breathe a sigh of relief after six weeks trying to find a new ‘take’ for our homilies.
Our Gospel today is slightly different, though. As many of Jesus’ disciples abandon him, Peter -impulsive, often-failing Peter, finally comes good and finally gets it right. Speaking for himself, his companion apostles – and indeed for us – he answers Jesus’ question -“Are you going to leave me too?” – with that beautiful reply: ‘Lord, to whom should we go, you have the words of life”.
How often we have prayed this prayer – with gratitude, desperation, relief, longing, faith, and disbelief. Prayed it perhaps with wonder – yet always prayed it with heartfelt love.
I was actually tempted to write about the second reading from Ephesians on marriage. However, trying to explain “Wives be obedient to your husbands” would take up more space than Fr. Giltus allows. But at the end of their years together, Paul is saying, it is so wonderful if husbands and wives can also say to one another, like Peter -“after all these years, there is no one else or nowhere else, I would rather be”.
Fr Tom McDonough CP the Parish Priest and Community Leader at St.Paul’s, Glen Osmond, SA