The lesson from Today’s Reading is a question: “Please, can you just connect a few dots?” The man to whom Jesus said “Verily, verily thou art Peter and on this rock I build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I give you the keys to The Kingdom of Heaven.” gives us Dot 1. St. Peter tells us in Acts 5:32-33 who may receive The Holy Spirit: “We are witnesses to all this, we and The Holy Spirit Whom God has given to all who obey Him.”
The Bible makes Dot 1 clear to us: Those who disobey God will not be given the The Holy Spirit.
We connect that with Dot #2: John 3:35, “Whoever believes in The Son has eternal life, but whoever disobeys The Son will not see life but the wrath of God remains upon him.”
Dot 1: Obey God. Dot 2: If a person chooses to disobey God, “the wrath of God remains upon him.” So far, so good. Lots of people get the first two dots connected!
Then, Dot #3, His Great Winnowing Instruction. It is so important that He repeats “If you do not eat My Body and drink My Blood you do not have life in you.” a dozen ways and times between John 6:33 and John 6:66!
Many people connect those first three Dots!
What is the dreaded Dot #4? Every Catholic Mass since The Last Supper has been presided over by a priest who is a living link with Jesus’ Ordination of The Apostles. Jesus did not only want those at The Last Supper to “have life in” them. So, His priests had to have the power to forgive sins (John 20:23), “Those whose sins you forgive on earth are forgiven in Heaven.” so those who chose could be made worthy to receive His Body and Blood.
Can it be unreasonable to avoid concluding that those who willfully choose to disobey God’s instructions, which include the oft-repeated “If you do not eat My Body and drink My Blood you do not have life in you.” have nothing but “the wrath of God” in their future?
Is this why so many Protestants are so unhappy? They say “I believe in Jesus and The Bible.” while both Jesus and The Bible make it clear what happens to those without the obedience to actually obey “If you do not eat My Body and drink My Blood you do not have life in you.”
Protestants are in the very odd position of embracing beliefs that tell them they may not receive The Holy Spirit and that “the wrath of God remains on them.”
When we ask “Why would anyone be in one of the 43,000 denominations invented by an ambitious Protestant man with a Marketing Plan when their own Bible says “the wrath of God remains upon him” if they do so?
We must pray for better ways to help them understand that Jesus may be obeyed only by receiving His Body and Blood in The Only Church He Founded. We must ask God to help us find ways to let truth break through the walls of lies that separate lost souls from God.
We may begin by asking: “Please, can you just connect a few dots?”
