21st Sunday B Ordinary Time
Knights of Columbus Leadership, Chaplains, and Priest-Scholars
St. Augustin Church, Manila
August 24, 2024
A Moment of Decision
In 1965, at the age of 14, I enrolled in a high school seminary; It was quite an adjustment. The seminary was located on a large dairy farm in central Kentucky, approximately 250 kilometers from where my parents were then living. We lived in old buildings and slept on army cots in large, cold dormitories. The spiritual life, the studies, the sports, and the chores were rigorous.
About six weeks after I entered the seminary, my parents came for their first visit, and I was determined to show them how well I was doing. We had a wonderful day together, but when it was time for my parents to depart, my pent-up homesickness came out – in spite of myself, I burst into tears. In her gentle way, my Mother asked if I wanted to get in the car and go home….and with that, my tears dried, I stood up straight, and said, “No, I want to be a priest!” It was a moment of decision in my young life, the first of many.
Moments of Decision in Scripture
Today’s Scripture readings confront us with moments of decision. Joshua, the successor of Moses, confronts the leaders of Israel. He demands to know whether they will serve the false gods of other peoples or whether they will serve the living and true God. After 40 years in the desert, the Chosen People were on the brink of destiny. Either they would seek God’s help in securing the Promised Land, or else turn away from God and be assimilated into the surrounding tribes, worshipping their false gods and living as they did.
Joshua made it clear where he stood. He and his household would serve the only true and living God. He would not worship false gods who ask nothing and give nothing . . . Led by Joshua, the people of Israel decided to follow the Lord their God. In the Gospel, Jesus confronts us with a supreme moment of decision. Jesus was teaching the people that he is the Bread of the Life. Not only would he nourish them with sound teaching, but he would feed them with his own flesh and blood, his gift of self in the Eucharist. His teaching met with opposition, but Jesus refused to change it to please an audience comprised of onlookers, disciples, and Apostles. People did leave, and it wasn’t just curious onlookers who left, but also some of Jesus’ disciples, his followers.
Jesus then asks his Apostles: “Do you also want to leave?”– a moment of decision! Peter, their leader, answers for the rest of the Apostles: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life …!” As yet, Peter did not fully understand what it meant to follow the Lord. Nonetheless, Peter’s words challenge us – “Lord, to whom shall we go?” Joshua led his people in deciding to serve the true and living God. Peter led the Apostles in deciding to follow Jesus, the Holy One of God.
Our Moment of Decision
Now, this generation of Catholics faces a moment of decision. Will we be committed Catholic Christians of the 21st century or will we let ourselves be assimilated by a global, secular culture? Will we drift from the Lord and the Church or remain steadfast in faith? This is the great decision each of us must make.
But what does it mean to be steadfast in faith? To be Christ’s followers today? Doesn’t it mean for us what it meant for Peter and the Apostles? When the Holy Spirit came upon them at Pentecost, their minds and hearts were opened to the Scriptures. They recognized Jesus in the Breaking of Bread. They celebrated the memorial of his death and resurrection with one mind & heart. They knew for certain that there is salvation in no one else except the Christ.
To decide for Christ is not merely a matter of adopting new rules of conduct. No, it means opening our hearts to Christ in the power of the Spirit, so much so that we can say with St. Paul, “It is not I who live but Christ who lives in me!” I think of what Pope Benedict said, words Pope Francis often quotes: “Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction…” (DCE, no. 1). When we have encountered Christ in the power of the Spirit, taken to heart his words of “spirit and life”, received his Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity into the depth of our being – then let nothing and no one separate us from the love of Christ . . . .“Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life!”
So it is that deciding fully for Christ means deciding for the Eucharist:
…deciding to be nourished inwardly with Christ’s own Flesh and Blood,
…deciding for Christ to live in us and work through us,
…deciding to be united to one another in the communion of the Church,
…deciding to be Eucharistic missionaries who bear witness before the world to the truth, beauty, and goodness of the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
Knights of the Eucharist
The Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, Patrick Kelly, has challenged us, his two million brother knights and their families, to be “Knights of the Eucharist”, those who have decided to stake their lives on Jesus’ gift of self in the Eucharist, those who are Eucharistic missionaries in today’s world, those whose eucharistic faith, in God’s grace, overcomes the indifference and hostility with which the world often greets Jesus’ gift of self.
What an appropriate summons for all of us – for Knights and Ladies and their families, for us, the Chaplains of the Order, indeed, for all of us, the baptized members of the Church! Let us decide anew, every day, to stake our lives on the Eucharist and sharing in Jesus’ gift of self, let us go “on mission” – bearing witness before the world that the Eucharistic Lord truly is the Bread of Life without whom we cannot live! Vivat Jesus!