The movie “Alive” which came out in 1993, featuring John Malcovich and Ethan Hawke, is about the Uruguayan Rugby Team whose plane crashed on the side of the Andes and a lot of their team mates died, together with the pilots and the flight attendants.
Jesus’ teaching of putting a millstone around a person’s neck and throwing him into the sea; plucking out the eye, cutting off limbs if one sins is rather disturbing and puzzling for a good teacher like Jesus.
During his prime, Muhammad Ali, the heavyweight-boxing champion of the 60s and the 70s proclaimed one day, “I am the greatest! I am the greatest!” When he said this nobody tried to refute it, for during his time, he was indeed the greatest.
If I asked anybody if they love to experience pain, particularly physical pain, well I'd think you were a masochist if you would ever say yes. Well … believe it or not, pain is very necessary in life and, ironically, pain is life-saving.
Today, the first reading is taken from the book of Prophet Isaiah. He tells the timid people, those who are uneasy about the Word of God, whose hearts live in fear “Be strong! Fear not!”
“After hearing Jesus (as he taught in the synagogue at Capernaum), many of his followers said, ‘This is intolerable language! How could anyone accept it?”. (John 6:60)
The mythical fountain of youth is an object that has inspired a lot of adventure stories of people who believe that they can live forever if they manage to find it and have a drink of its precious water.
In today’s Gospel passage, we indeed see the continuation of the discourse on the Bread of Life from last Sunday. Who is the Bread of Life? Jesus himself.
There was a company, which was working in the forest and looking for a woodchopper. One day, two woodchoppers applied for the job. The manager said that they would only accept one. So, he invited both of them to a test.
The Lord Jesus, in the Gospel passage today, inaugurates the victory over evil by organising his “crew,” that is to say, the apostles, into specific modes of acting in order to be victorious over the forces of evil and anything which is not of God. Jesus gathers his followers together and gives very clear instructions.
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