Many of Jesus' disciples who were listening said, "This saying is
hard; who can accept it?" Since Jesus knew that his disciples were
murmuring about this, he said to them, "Does this shock you? What if you
were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit
that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you
are Spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe." Jesus
knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would
betray him. And he said, "For this reason I have told you that no one can
come to me unless it is granted him by my Father."
As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way
of life and no longer accompanied him. Jesus then said to the Twelve, "Do
you also want to leave?" Simon Peter answered him, "Master, to whom
shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and
are convinced that you are the Holy One of God."
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Reflection:
What should be our guiding principle if we decide to follow Jesus? It
must always be forever! We will not only follow Jesus in good times we must
also learn to follow Jesus in our most trying times. We will stay with
Jesus even if it’s hard to believe that He is comforting us in the midst of our
sufferings and tribulations like with what we are going through with the
Covid-19 pandemic.
The very large crowd (More than five thousand of them) who were with
Jesus when He multiplied the loaves and fish suddenly became very few. Only the
twelve apostles remained many of those who followed Him returned to their
former way of life. Why? Because they couldn’t accept Jesus’ continuous
insistence that He is the true bread of life that whoever believes in Him will
never hunger and thirst (John 6:35).
They rapidly had amnesia because they all of a sudden forgot that it was
Jesus who feed them when they were all hungry. It was Jesus who healed them
when they were sick and it was Jesus who gave them hope when they were
hopeless.
Such is the behavior of many of us, we quickly question or even leave
Jesus when we go through trials. We never remember or perhaps we purposely
forget the many blessings that He had given us in the past. Let us never leave Jesus no matter how difficult our present
circumstances are right now. Let us always choose to be with Him in sickness
and in health, in our good times as well as in our difficult times.
What are we going to do if we leave Jesus? We embrace Satan and his
worldly teachings? – Marino J. Dasmarinas
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