The following is a close approximation of the homily I delivered on January 24, 2021 at St. Luke the Evangelist Church in Slidell for the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B. The scripture readings on which this is based can be found by clicking this link.

In a Business Insider article entitled “16 People Who Worked Incredibly Hard to Succeed” the author wrote about people who did hard things to reach their goals.   People like Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz who works at the office 13 hours a day and then at home until the wee hours of the night. Then there is sisters Venus and Serena Williams who at 7 and 8 years old were up at 6 AM every day hitting tennis balls. Or Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. When starting his first company, he routinely stayed up until two in the morning reading about new software and went seven years without a day off or a vacation.

Just as worldly endeavors require hard things to be successful, as Christians we daily must do hard things to follow Christ.

In today’s Gospel, we find Jesus inviting two sets of brothers, Simon Peter and Andrew and James and John to become his followers.  Notice that according to Mark everyone abandoned everything and started following Jesus.   If we really stop and think about this scene, we will quickly realize how difficult this had to have been for them.  Neither set of brothers were just weekend fisherman who took their boats out on Lake Pontchartrain for the weekend hoping to fill their ice chests with speckled trout or redfish.   These were professional fisherman. Their livelihoods were dependent on them catching fish.   And other people depended on them.

We know from the Gospel of Luke that Peter was married and to some extent took care of his mother-in-law.   It is likely that Peter and Andrew had some employees.   Yet they just left everything when Jesus said to them “Come after me and I will make you fishers of men.”     We also know that James and John were in the fishing business with their father Zebedee and that they had employees.  Remember we heard in the Gospel “So they left their father Zebedee in the boat along with the hired men and followed him.”

So here we have four men, in the prime of their working careers, leaving their lives and livelihoods to follow along with Jesus.  They had no income and no means of support.  They just followed.  How hard must that have been?

No harder than for any of us who are called to follow Jesus.  Let’s look at some of the hard things that Jesus tells us to do. To be true followers of Christ, here are just a few of the hard things we must do.

From Luke 6 “But to you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”   Extremely hard to do, agree?

From Matthew 10: “He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; “Here Scripture tells us that we must love Jesus more than anyone else, including our close family. How many of us really do this?

Here is a really, really hard one.    From the Gospel of John, Chapter 6, Jesus is preaching to the crowd that he is the bread of life.  They are murmuring and saying under their breath that this is impossible.  Listen now to a few key verses. At verse 54 Jesus says:

“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.”

Skipping down a few verses, John writes “Then many of his disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?”   Notice the word “hard”.  Jesus is asking his own disciples to do something that they think is hard.   Skipping down a few more verses John continues: “As a result of this, many [of] his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.”   Jesus tells them that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood.  Many disciples thought this teaching too hard to follow.  They left. And Jesus does not run after them and tell them he was speaking figuratively.   He lets them go.

The Church has taught from the beginning that after the priests speaks the words of consecration and the Holy Spirit comes down upon the bread and wine, the substance of those gifts changes and become truly the body, blood soul and divinity of Jesus. They look like bread and wine, they taste like bread and wine, they smell like bread and wine.  But they are no longer.  Not a symbol, not a memorial, but the real thing.  Believing in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is a hard thing to do.  But it is the central and foremost belief of the Catholic Church. Quoting Pope Benedict from a homily in June of 2011 “Without the Eucharist, the Church simply does not exist” One more time “Without the Eucharist, the Church simply does not exist.” 

This is the first of a series of homilies that you will hear during this Year of the Eucharist. These homilies will look at various aspects of Eucharistic teaching and beliefs. For homework, I would like everyone to contemplate and reflect on where you are in your belief in the real presence considering what I am about to tell you.

A poll from 2019 reported that only 1/3 of Catholics believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.  That number is shocking to me. Virtually 100% of people who present themselves for Holy Communion, after being presented the Eucharist and they hear “The Body of Christ” they respond …. Amen. …  I believe. Without a doubt.   What is even more shocking to me is an interview with the late Fr Benedict Groeschel I heard many years ago.  He said that on the streets of New York, a consecrated host goes for $100 or more.  They are purchased by Satan worshippers to be desecrated at a so-called Black Mass and in other ways.  Not only do nearly 100% of Satan worshippers believe in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, but some of them can actually tell which hosts are consecrated and which are not.  Fr. Groeschel readily admits “How they know, I have no idea. But they know.”

As you can tell, something is really wrong with this.  Only 1/3 of Catholics believe in the real presence while virtually 100% of Satan worshippers do.

Being a follower of Christ can be really hard. Way harder than working 20 hours or waking at 6 AM to hit tennis balls. Love Him more than your family. Believe in the Eucharist.   Turn the other cheek. Do good to those who hate you. Can you drop whatever nets in your life are holding you back because Jesus is calling you to follow Him?