Reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. Now this continues the story that follows after the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes which happened on the eastern side of the lake. And our blessed lord, as you will recall, left them and picked up the disciples and continued on across to Capernaum. He walked on the water. He walked across the lake.
So, you know, we we picked the narrative up, the drama at that point. The crowd that had been fed with the few loaves and the fish, they remained on the other side of the lake, that's the Eastern shore. The next day, the following morning, they realized that there had been only one boat there and that Jesus had not left in that boat. Rather, the disciples of Jesus had set out in that boat by themselves without Jesus. Then some boats came out from Tiberias near the place where they had eaten the bread after the lord had given thanks.
Once the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they too embarked in the boats and went across the lake to Capernaum looking for Jesus. That's very laudable. You can't fault them for that. Now listen. When they found Jesus on the other side of the lake, that is, you know, around Capernaum up in that northwest corner, they said to him, rabbi, when did you come here?
And then Jesus answered, I assure you, you are not looking for me because you have seen signs, but because you have eaten your fill of bread. You should not be working for perishable food, but for food that remains unto life eternal, food which the son of man will give you. It is on him that god the father has set his seal. At this, they said to Jesus, what must we do to perform the works of god? Jesus answered, this is the work of god.
Have faith in the one whom he sent. And this is the gospel of the lord. Praise to you, lord Jesus Christ. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. There is a this this path a narrative, the multiplication of the loaves and the fish, and then what follows after including today's reading, to me is extremely dramatic and extremely revealing of what we call human nature.
The first thing to to you should very carefully think about when you talk about human nature, that there is no such thing as human nature. That's the first thing you should think about when you talk about human. There is no such thing as human nature. The only thing which exists that we can call human nature are individual human beings. Unless you're an out and out Platonist, and I pray to the Lord none of us present here this morning have fallen for that moonshine.
The only reality is the reality of the individual human being. Now we can talk all we want about community and society and collectivity and all the rest of it, but all of these things are abstract terms. And the only reality they have is the individual man and woman, the individual boy and girl, the individual baby that's conceived and is born and is raised and dies. But it's an individual, and every one of those individuals has an individual history, is a complete individual, and as our holy father so often says, is irreplaceable. There'll never be another liking or her.
This is the absolute state of affairs, But we lose ourselves in these ambiguities. We lose ourselves in these universal terms. We use our lose ourselves in these abstractions, and we think we're dealing with reality. I have referred more than once to a man named George MacDonald. Now MacDonald was a very prolific Scottish writer in the second half of the nineteenth century.
He had tremendous influence upon C. S. Lewis. Lewis said that he that he never wrote anything that wasn't under the influence of George McDonald. Now in one of the novels that has been re edited and reissued and republished of George McDonald, it's called him The Marquee's Secret.
And in there there's a I mentioned this but I'm repeating, I know I'm repeating myself. Because I don't think I can repeat it often enough, that in there you have this fine manager of a big estate and he's a good God fearing Christian. He knows he is and if you ask him he'd be the first one to say I'm a good God fearing Christian. It came to a matter of selling a horse. It was a murderous horse.
And somebody says to him, Look, are you going to tell the buyer that he's buying an instrument of homicide? And the manager is astounded. Because you see selling a horse had nothing to do with his being a first class member of the church, being a deacon in his parish. He was a good God fearing citizen. He was an upstanding citizen.
He was a good God fearing Christian, and he'd be the first one to say he was. But when it came to selling a horse, it had nothing to do with his religion, of course. Caveat emptor, let the buyer beware. There's the horse, what do you give me for him? Well, I take your money and you take the horse.
If the horse kills you, that's your fault. You you're the corpse. I'm not. And here is what Mcdonald comments, the author of comments, about this fine, upstanding Christian gentleman. Now, I mean, he was.
He was respected in his community. He he kept all the commandments. He was a good man, you know. And he knew he was a good man, and he would tell you he was a good man. And McDonald says, he was asleep in the mud and was dreaming he was on a pedestal.
Asleep in the mud, but dreaming he was on a pedestal. Now in many ways, we are asleep in the mud. We've gotta get that mud out of our eyes. We've got to see reality, for heaven's sakes. And that's not easily done, believe me, in this world we're living in today.
It isn't. I mean, the honest to god reality of existence. As I say, for example, do you believe in god? Sure. I believe in god.
Do you really believe in god? Yes. I do really believe in god. Well, I recently read an account of written by a man who had lost his wife. Now he was a good god fearing I I mean a good Christian, really good one.
But as he says, my faith was never tested until my wife died. And then I realized with what a thin thread my faith held me up above the chasm of unbelief. I was talking yesterday well, as usual it was an argument and the thing was the persecution is going there's a strong anti Catholic movement going on right in this country. Some of you saw the posters, you know, about three weeks ago. And I said, That's a very good thing because the church thrives under persecution.
We die when we're not persecuted. That's that's that's a fact of history. But doesn't it scare the heck out of you to think about it? And the thush of, e god, what would I do if I were faced hanging over the chasm on the thin thread of my faith? And all I can say is, I know where I'll go if I if I'm left alone.
I'll just shoot down to the bottom of the canyon. And if I only have myself to rely on in the in the crunch, it's a hopeless situation. I know that. So I I'm not a I I have no doubts about that, and I don't have any doubts that I won't be alone. When the time comes, I'll be strengthened because that's what the that's what Christ said, and I believe him.
And I can prove it from history that he does support his own. So let's not be frightened, but let us not let us not underrate the situation that we each stand alone before god. And I'm the first one to tell you, you can't save yourself alone. I know that. We didn't come into this world on our own power.
We're not gonna exist on our own power, and we're not going to be saved on our own power. I know that. But I'm saying that in the last analysis, it's this individual who stands before god and says, my lord and my god, I believe help thou my unbelief. Forgive me a sinner. It's the individual you.
It was the individual Maximilian Kolbe that jumped out of the line and took a man's place down in the dungeon and starved at death. Individual. It's an individual decision. All that other people can do is to help me to make that decision, and I can help them to make that decision. And I'm bound to do that.
In the marriage ceremony, it's often overlooked, but there's a beautiful sentence in there where in this where the priest turns to each one of them and says that how responsible each is for the other for his or her eternal salvation. Because that's the end of the line. That's what we're here for. That's what they're getting married for. That's what they'll have babies for.
I mean, that's what they should be doing it for, for their salvation. Do we think about this? And this is an individual. Nobody can do your thinking. Do you realize what you're up to?
Do you realize the realities of your daily living? Do they do they have a punch? Do they wake you up? Let's get the mud out of our eyes, Because all of us are more or less asleep in the mud, but dreaming we're on a pedestal. In the name of the father, son, the holy spirit.
Amen.