Reflection on Romans 12 and John 5

Before my 4^th day group meetings each week, I try to make a habit to study the daily Mass readings. It is pretty safe to say lectionary readings were not laid out by happenstance and there is a common theme or thread between the 1^st reading, the responsorial psalm and the gospel. Some days the message is pretty easy for me to recognize. Other days the connection is much vague.

I am pretty sure there was no intended connection between Kathy’s chosen scripture theme from Romans 12 and Skeeter’s scripture theme from John. I firmly believe that while Kathy and Skeeter acted freely and independently in making their choices, there was no randomness in the results.

Despite my near certain understanding there had to be a connection, I struggled to connect the dots.

Finally, one of those aha moments happened to me yesterday afternoon. My brother Greg Hanchett and I were drawn into the day chapel at St. Cyril’s. Our work in the kitchen was over. It was time to turn things over to the clean up and closing committees. After rehashing the weekend for a while, we each fell silent, contemplating the tabernacle before us. As we sat together in the presence of the Lord, I began to see images that were two integrated parts of a whole.

In the Gospel we hear the disciples say, “This saying is hard, who can accept it?” It IS a hard saying. Catholics believe in the real presence in the Eucharist. In the time of Christ just think about how alien the idea would be to people. People would just not have a frame of reference to understand what was being discussed.

Peter responded to the Master’s question about the disciples desire to leave. You just have to love Peter. He just kept trying to get it. His response was startlingly simple and absolutely clear. “Master, to whom else would we go?”

Let’s look now at Romans 12.

We read, “Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer.”

This passage comes from a longer paragraph that is called “Mutual Love.” Throughout the paragraph St. Paul offers us a prescription for living despite knowing how hard the words of eternal are to embrace. Isn’t often true that the hardest things to accept are truest?

The words rejoice, hope, endure and persevere offer us guidance of how to live in this life in order to enjoy eternal life. Perhaps it would be easier to say that Peter describes the destination. Paul offers a road map of how to travel to that destination.

The time came for Greg and I to leave the chapel and rejoin the community. I found myself blessed with an understanding of what this year’s Cursillos were all about that works for me.

Let’s all stay with Jesus and join to together to eat his flesh and drink his blood in the Eucharist. Let’s live our lives by rejoicing with hope, enduring affliction and persevering in prayer. If we do all these things we will know eternal life.