Jesus' popularity peaked after He fed the 5,000. It plummeted when He said that He was "bread of eternal live from heaven." The response of His listeners to this extraordinary statement was, "This is a hard saying; who can understand it?"
As a result, many abandoned Him, giving opportunities to the Pharisees and opponents of Jesus to dig up evidence and arguments to refute His words and then accuse Him of blasphemy.
The crowds who followed Jesus were happy only because Jesus provided for their needs and satisfied their desires. They backed away when He asked for a commitment. To trust in Him, to follow Him, to go up to Jerusalem. To change the world.
Jesus' question to His disciples (12 friends except one) was, "Do you also want to go away?" (v. 67). Peter answered for the others, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (v. 68).
Well! Like the disappointed crowd, have we chosen the thought that many in the world have of Jesus today or, like Peter, will we trust and seek the truth in the words of the Gospel, the Eucharist and Pope Francis?
Peter is searching for the common truth, even at the cost of his own reasons and convictions. He wants to reach a clear and definitive conclusion despite everything, first and foremost for himself and for the other eleven. After all, they have become a true community of friends.
And the common truth, if we think about it, is simple: we are all sinners, imperfect creatures, except Him. But to reach a serious agreement on this simple thought, many generations, social stratifications and human settlements in the stars of our galaxy will have to pass.
"Do you want to go away ..to ..where, to whom we will go", are verbs of movement. They indicate that the path towards the common truth, as proposed by the Gospel, is not easy to find. Even today, the division among Christians confirms this and among the anonymous crowds it is a continuous up-down.
A journey made more difficult today that we seem to drown in a sea of information often only pseudo truths marketed by unscrupulous characters. But if this journey in the footsteps of Christ, through the recognition of our imperfect human nature, is in the form of dialogue, sharing, where the opinions of others are as useful as ours, perhaps it will be a bumpy journey, but never inconclusive.
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