To Whom Shall We Go?

Wed., March 11, 2026 – Third Week of Lent Time –Year A, Cycle 2 
Deuteronomy 4:1, 5-9 3:1-10, Psalm 147:12-13, 15-16, 19-20, Matthew 5:17-19 


“Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life; You have the words of everlasting life.”
John 6:63, 68

This Scripture from the Gospel of John comes immediately after the Bread of Life Discourse, where Jesus made several statements that many of His disciples just could not handle.

He said things like, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is My flesh for the life of the world.” Jesus also said, “I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. Whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

Because of these statements, many of His disciples chose to leave Him, exclaiming, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” Then Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Do you also want to leave?” St. Peter, who often put his foot in his mouth, made the most accurate and faithful statement of his life, saying, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

As we journey through these last few weeks of Lent and hear reading after reading about how the followers of Jesus often didn’t understand, doubted, fled, or betrayed Him when He didn’t fit their worldview, or when their lives were put in jeopardy for being one of His disciples, we tend to think that if we lived in the time of Jesus and were actually with Him while He was in the flesh here on earth, we would have automatically believed and followed Him no matter what the cost. But the fact of the matter is that even with the hindsight of 2,000 years of Church history and the insights of many saints, theologians, and the Scriptures at our disposal, we often do the same thing. Now is the time to solidify in our hearts and minds that Jesus is the Word of God made flesh, the second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, and that He should always be the most important person in our lives because He is God, and He alone has the words of everlasting life.

Both of our readings today lead us to reflect on the word of God as taught to the people of Israel by Moses as he prepared them to enter into the Promised Land, as well as that which was taught by the Word Himself, Jesus Christ, who proclaimed that He did not come to abolish the law of Moses and the prophets, but to fulfill it.

As we focus our lives more intentionally on growing closer to Jesus during this Lenten season, we should take some time to do a good inventory of our spiritual life. The Catholic formula of prayer, self-denial, and works of mercy are not just catchy religious sayings but three critical components to the spiritual life of every Christian. They provide a framework for all of us to grow in our relationship with the Lord and assess whether we are living according to the prophecies of the Old Testament that Jesus did, in fact, fulfill, as well as His teachings in the New Testament that He sent the Apostles to spread throughout the world, baptizing and making disciples of all nations.

These spiritual practices help us determine if we are living with our faith deeply rooted in the Lord and His Church, or if our spiritual life is rooted in the shallow message of our culture and the world. They can help us recognize whether we are truly surrendering ourselves to God’s love and allowing Him to form us into the Christian He desires for us to become, or if we are trying to form our faith in God into something that fits into our own personal wants and desires.

While reflecting and acting on the practices of prayer, self-denial, and works of mercy are something we tend to focus on more during Advent and Lent, how we are living them is actually something we should be asking ourselves every day, year-round, recognizing that these things form the foundation of our faith and our relationship with Jesus, and that committing ourselves to spending time with Jesus through them will lead us along the narrow and difficult way to the Lord, in which the ultimate destination is eternal union with God in heaven.

Amen!