I love the passage in the Gospel of St. John when Jesus explains that He is the “Bread of Life come down from heaven,” and that “whoever eats His Body and drinks His Blood will have eternal life.” At the end of that long Bread of Life discourse, we read that many of His disciples stopped following Him and went back to their former way of life, because His teaching on the Eucharist was too difficult for them to accept. It seems shocking that people who just witnessed the miracles of Him feeding thousands of people with just a few loaves of bread and a few fish and saw him walking on water would abandon Him. But that is reality – people walked away (and continue to) from Jesus.
What I love most, however, is what Jesus says to His apostles who are standing there watching people walk away. He asks, "Are you going to leave me also?" St. Peter says, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life, we have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:67-69).
This Gospel passage came to mind when I was praying and thinking about what the Church will look like in the aftermath of the coronavirus crisis. Will people come back to Church and participate in parish activities as they did before the shutdown? Will people be anxious about being in a large congregations? Have people become too comfortable with Masses online? Have people perceived that the Church isn’t “essential?” What will the Church look like when this is all over? I often wonder, will people walk away from Christ and His Church, as they did at the end of His teaching on the Eucharist.
I will admit, in moments of anxiety and worry, I am concerned about our future as a Church. I think there will be some who after weeks, perhaps months, of not attending Mass simply never return. I am worried about our financial status – weeks of no collections, all of our fundraisers have been cancelled and the bills continue to come in – will we be financially stable when this is over? I worry that people question how essential the faith and the sacraments really are. Most of our bishops have done little to nothing to communicate that the Eucharist and Confession are as essential as grocery stores, liquor stores, abortion clinics and marijuana dispensaries, which have all remained open during this crisis. How could people truly believe that the Eucharist is essential – the source and the summit of the Christian life – when bishops have prevented them from receiving it – even in safe and creative ways? I really worry about what things will look like.
I do find some comfort in the prophetic words of Pope Benedict XVI, who long before being elected pope spoke about the future of the church. He predicted that we would be a smaller, but holier church. He predicted that those who approach the faith casually or take it for granted would eventually walk away, just like those who walked away from Jesus himself. He also predicted that the church of the future would be the church of the saints, a more spiritually strong church, one that embraces heroic virtue and the Lord’s mandate to go out and make disciples of all nations. I do no justice to Pope Benedict’s beautiful reflection, read it in full here:
I guess my point of this reflection is ultimately to ask you what your response will be to this crisis and the time away from the Church and the Sacraments. What have you learned from this crisis? What changes do you want to make in your life? Have you taken your faith and the Eucharist and Confession for granted? Do you want to be closer to Christ and His Church, or will you walk away too? Jesus will ask each of us the same question he asked to St. Peter and the other Apostles? Will you also leave me? I pray that we all have the faith and the courage to recognize that there is no place else to go, because Jesus Christ alone has the words of the everlasting life. What will you do when this crisis is over?
