Lord, to Whom Shall We Go?
“For the Souls in Purgatory – Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord”
John 6:67-69
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.’
Grace Prayed For
Lord, when your teaching is hard and our hearts are tempted to turn back, give us the grace of Peter’s answer: ‘You have the words of eternal life.’
Reflection
There is a moment in most serious spiritual lives when the faith becomes genuinely costly. The crowd had followed Jesus for the loaves. When the teaching turned toward his flesh and blood — toward a self-giving so total it scandalized them — many left. The Gospel says they returned to their former way of life.
And Jesus let them go. He did not negotiate or clarify or make the teaching more palatable. He turned to his closest friends and essentially asked: Are you leaving too?
Peter’s answer is not triumphant certainty. It is honest loyalty. ‘To whom shall we go?’ There is an implied acknowledgment in this question: we have looked around. We have considered the alternatives. And nothing else holds what you hold. You have the words of eternal life. We don’t fully understand; we’re not sure we can stomach the implications; but we have been with you long enough to know we cannot go back.
This is mature faith — not the faith of someone who has answered all the questions, but the faith of someone who has enough experience of Christ to know that the alternatives are genuinely worse. Not worse because they are sinful, but because they are empty. They cannot carry the weight of what we most deeply are.
For our small groups, this passage opens a valuable conversation: What has kept you following, even through periods of doubt or difficulty? What has been your version of Peter’s ‘to whom shall we go?’ Not as a theological argument, but as an honest life-experience.
Faith stays not because it has eliminated all questions, but because it has found, in Christ, something no question has managed to dislodge.
When Time Allows Reflect on the Posts in Library and Musings
Sharing
Jesus last words on Earth were to his disciples, can be found in Matthew Chap 28 when Jesus told his disciples, “Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Jesus calls all of us to share in his redemptive mission here on Earth. I would ask you to share this Scripture reflection with your family, your friends and your acquaintances, and then share it with a couple of individuals that you may may not be comfortable sharing with, keeping in mind always the words of Jesus, And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age
Author was assisted by AI in the drafting of this Post