"Many of Jesus' disciples who were listening said, 'This saying is hard; who can accept it?'" -John 6:60
I love this line from today's Gospel reading. I find myself using it pretty regularly--"God, this situation is ridiculously hard; do you really expect me to accept it?" (Especially in those early morning/late night/no nap situations... really? I'm really supposed to be able to get through this? And with a good attitude?! Ha.)
And I love that in her divinely bestowed wisdom our Church has paired this reading from the end of the Bread of Life Discourse with Paul's exhortation to spouses from Ephesians 5. Sitting in Mass today we went directly from "For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the church." (Ephesians 5:31-32) to "This saying is hard; who can accept it?"
I find this pairing particularly appropriate on two different levels. Everywhere we turn today we find people who look at the Church's teachings on marriage and sexuality and respond with "This saying is hard (and ridiculous, out-dated, oppressive, hateful, etc.); who (in their right mind) can accept it?" How many of Jesus' 21st century disciples have walked (or drifted) away from his words of everlasting life because they are hard?
On an even deeper level, hearing these two readings paired highlights the beautiful connections between marriage and the Eucharist. St. Paul tells us at the end of today's reading from Ephesians that the maritial union of a man and woman becoming one flesh is a great mystery--and it is to be understood in relation to Christ and his Church. Alex and I chose this passage as the second reading at our wedding Mass. We did so for several reasons (one of which may or may not have been an attempt to scandalize some of our guests with the very non-PC language of submission), but primarily because we felt this one passage most clearly summarized the wedding vows. The mystery of truly becoming one flesh in marriage requires the mutual submission about which St. Paul writes (although you may have missed the mutual part if you got the shortened version at Mass today). As a wife, I submit to Alex. Not as a doormat, not as a slave, not as someone whose ideas or preferences or dignity is somehow less important than his. Rather, I do so as someone who has chosen to place herself under his mission. In short, I submit to Alex as I do to Christ. And I am called to do this because he is also called to submit. This can be easy to miss in reading Ephesians 5--we hear about wives submitting first and it can be hard to get past that to fully consider what husbands are called to do in turn. But the role of husband being discussed second actually places a stronger emphasis on the way in which he is called to sacrifice. It's not exactly the same way--in fact, in my opinion, it's an even harder way. As a husband, Alex is head of our family as Christ is head of the Church. That means death--death to self for my sake, just as Christ died for the Church. Alex is called to submit everything for my good. That makes it pretty easy (at least in theory) for me to submit to him.
But this is still a hard saying--because I'm fallen I don't always want to submit, even when it makes sense in theory. Thank God for the grace of the sacrament of marriage, and for the grace of the Eucharist--the sacramental marriage feast between Christ and his bride, the Church. And just as real physical union is necessary to the sacrament of marriage, so also in our marriage to Christ we experience real physical union with God through receiving Jesus--body, blood, soul and divinity--in the Eucharist.
John is relating the reaction of many of Jesus' followers upon hearing the shocking claim that Jesus' flesh is quite literally true food and his blood is true drink. Some of them simply cannot/will not accept this and they leave. But Paul's sayings about marriage--both between a man and woman here on earth, and between Christ and his Church for all eternity--are also hard.
I don't know about you, but I desperately need the first to live out the second!
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