Pilgrims in AssisiRead Time 8 min

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: 1 Kings 19: 4-8

Psalm 34: 2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9

Ephesians 4: 30-5:2

John 6: 41-51

My husband and I recently returned from pilgrimage to Assisi, where we walked in the footsteps of St. Francis. We were with others who pursued ways to bring about peace to the world without violence. Pilgrimages take on a life of their own. Though there are plans and good intentions, there are also surprises that awaken something deep within us. Some things are just out of our control, like the heat, or the people we meet unexpectedly.

It was in Italy outside the Cathedral of San Rufino, high in the mountains of Assisi, where we met a lovely couple from Miami on the piazza. Millie and Jesus were on pilgrimage looking for all the places where Eucharistic miracles occurred. Coming from Spain, now they were in Assisi to pray at the tomb of Blessed Carlo Acutis, the young teen who spent a good bit of his life researching Eucharistic miracles. Millie and Jesus shared common family themes with us. Delighted, we felt assured that even thousands of miles away, there were people with the same dreams and goals.

Like our children. They were intent upon bringing in spirit their adult children to each shrine praying for their return to the Church. I admit, my children were with me at every shrine and every Mass we shared.

It is what parents do. For deep within us, no matter how old our children are, there is a longing for their salvation. There is that longing for our children and grandchildren to taste the living bread come down from heaven to help them realize that whoever believes in Christ, Jesus — whoever encounters the living God — will have eternal life.

What young people are looking for in religion today is twofold: authenticity and courage. What they often experience in the secular world is cynicism and withdrawal; but the fact is, and we all know this, we are wired for God. Yes, we are wired to be connected to the living God who continues to pursue each of us like the hound of heaven until we rest within him. So, whether our families reject God, parents with faith realize that Christ loves their children and handed himself over for them as a sacrificial offering to God so that in the end, we would be one in Spirit and truth.

Coming off the close of the National Eucharistic Congress, our awareness of Christ present in the Eucharist has been heightened universally. What John 6 is about is the great gift that Jesus was giving to the people then and to us now: the gift of himself in the living bread come down from heaven.

Yet, he encountered cynicism, the great enemy of faith. “Do we not know your father and your mother?” “How can you say you have come down from heaven?” Jesus pushes past the negativity and says, “Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.” Here is the incarnational Christ at his best. There is a fearlessness, a courage and authenticity about his response that I found in the eyes of Millie and Jesus that hot afternoon in Assisi.

I must admit, I went to the Sanctuary of the Renunciation where Carlo Acutis’ body is in repose that afternoon. He could have been any one of my grandsons: handsome, young, fair complected, curly hair, sneakers, blue jeans and jacket. There he was in his untimely death, and there I was weeping before him, commending my children and grandchildren to his intercession. I was grateful in that moment for the communion of saints, the Body of Christ on the Earth and in the heavens where we stand together against the tide of cynicism and unbelief. Where I, along with other pilgrims that day, could weep before the innocence of a soon-to-be saint who loved the Lord and who received the Eucharist frequently.

He had come into his salvation vis-à-vis the Eucharist. And now he would draw others through his holiness and his youth. I left the church full of thoughts and love. Full of gratitude that Jesus, in a moment of history when he faced off with all his dissenters, left for us his living legacy: the Body of Christ, who comes humbly to us all in our palms, and to whom we cry out, “Amen!”