Pastor's Corner

The distinction between the words “real” and “true” may seem to be pedantic and unimportant. I disagree, and I base my judgment on the far more intelligent judgments of two very important figures in my life: JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis (the latter having learned this distinction from the former).

Jesus’ frustration in today’s Gospel reading is obvious— “You got it, but you didn’t get it!” The crowd is basically saying, “We’re back!” And Jesus is saying, “But why?”

I write this because of the ancient principle of the Church: Lex orandi, lex credenda: the way we pray reveals the “what” in which we believe. If we cannot worship together, do we believe together? And is there any more important way of worship (spoiler alert: no) than our celebration of the Eucharist?

This weekend is the “prelude,” so to speak, of the 5-Sunday “interlude” into our Cycle from Mark, when we add 5 Sundays’ worth of the Gospel of John, chapter 6—the “Bread of Life” discourse. We do this, in part, because Mark’s Gospel is too short to cover all of a year’s worth of “Ordinary Time.” But there’s more to it than that, especially for us this year.