At a meeting with Pope Francis a little boy wanted to say something. This is what he said: ‘My Dad has died. He was an atheist. Is he in heaven?’ As he asked that he started crying. Before I tell you of the Pope’s reaction I would like us to think what would be a cheap and superficial answer to the question of the little boy. I think it would be saying straight away: ‘Don’t worry. Your father is in heaven.’ The Pope asked the boy to come up to him first. Next he had a quiet conversation with the boy. After that, with the boy’s permission, he explained that the boy’s father, although he was an atheist, he had all his children baptized. He supported their Catholic upbringing. He was also a caring and committed husband and father. The Pope finished by saying: ‘I explained to the boy that all these things he told me of his father give us hope that his father is in heaven.’
My Dear Sisters and Brothers! This Sunday we are concluding the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John we have been listening to over last few weeks. The chapter is called often the Eucharistic chapter as it began with Jesus breaking of bread and fish to feed a big crowd of hungry people and then the chapter showed us our Blessed Lord teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum about the necessity of eating his body and drinking his blood. We who often attend the Mass connect the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel with the Eucharist easily. It can be so obvious to us that we can overlook Jesus’ announcing eternal life for those who eat his body and drink blood. The eternal life which begins here and now so powerfully that even death cannot destroy it.
We believe that because of what happened to Jesus Christ, as the angels announced to the women who came to Jesus’ tomb on Sunday morning: ‘Why look among the dead for someone who is alive? He is not here; he has risen.’ That Sunday morning God assured the first disciples of Jesus, and us as well, that Peter was right when he said: ‘Lord, who shall we go to? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; we know that you are the Holy One of God.’
We say that one needs to have faith to receive the Eucharist, but one needs the Eucharist to sustain his or her faith too. We need it particularly when we start thinking about Jesus like some people from the crowd: ‘This is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it?’ Our mind, our emotions may revolt at times but look at our Crucified Lord who sacrificed heaven to be with us and who sacrificed his life to save us, could we find anyone more trustworthy? Could he, who sacrificed so much for us, be a deceiver? Could the Father, who raised him from the dead, be playing tricks with? Nothing of the sort. Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of the Father, speaks the words which are ‘spirit and they are life.’ His words can bring you out of your own grave which is any situation which takes away a reason for living and believing. If Jesus’ words, the words which ‘are spirit and life,’ brought Lazarus out of his grave they can resurrect us here and now for eternal life.
Jesus also wants us to be his missionaries who can speak from their own experience of having been given new life, having been redeemed. You and only you can proclaim what the Lord has done for you, how he raised you to new life, how he has redeemed you. Some of you may have big stories to tell, some may have little stories to tell, but all these stories can give other people a reason for living and believing.
My Dear fellow Christians. As I think about the meeting of that little boy with Pope Francis I also think of other people who still search for some who can hear them up, someone who can see the presence of the Lord in their life, someone who can give them more than cheap and superficial answers, someone who can give them words which ‘are spirit and life,’ the words which give a reason for living and believing. Can you be this person?

Could you describe me as the worst sinner? It sounds like judging, doesn’t it? But tell me what you can make out of the words I said at the beginning of this Mass: ‘I confess… I have greatly sinned, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.’ I can think of two options: I meant what I said and I am the worst sinner or I didn’t mean what I said and… I am a liar (it still gets me close to the first option, doesn’t it?). Probably we could come up with a third option: I don’t take seriously what I say. It means you better leave as there is no point listening to me.
My Dear Sisters and Brothers! Last week we mediated on the mystery of eternal life. The life which as the Scriptures remind us, happens here and now not after our death. Our Blessed Lord said at the Last Supper: ‘Eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent.’ We could read many books about Jesus Christ and still don’t know him because knowing Jesus Christ is following him and making him the most important person in our life. The Gospel for this Sunday allows us again to hear the big conversation some Jews were having with Jesus. However it also shows us a group of people who instead of talking to Jesus they started ‘arguing with one another.’ They distanced themselves from Jesus. They didn’t include Jesus. How can you know someone if you distance yourself from the person? How can you know someone if you don’t include the person?
If we don’t know Jesus we don’t know his Father either. If we don’t know Jesus we don’t know ourselves either. When we come to know Jesus we come to know our sinful condition, like Peter who, after Jesus’ command had a great catch of fish, recognised that he was in the presence of divine and said: ‘Leave me Lord; I am a sinful man.’
There is another passage in the Gospel of Luke about a Pharisee and a tax collector who came to the Temple to pray. The tax collector ‘stood some distance away’ and prayed: ‘God be merciful to me the sinner.’ The man stood away from the Pharisee who defined his condition by comparing himself to others. That’s why he thought that some people were worse sinners than him. The tax collector, the one who stood away, distanced himself from the attitude of comparing himself to others. Instead he placed himself in the presence of all holy God and thus described himself as ‘the sinner’ as if there weren’t any other sinner on the earth. He didn’t look for some other worse people to make himself feel better but he stood in the light of Truth and Love, in the light of God himself.
It reminds me of a boy who got angry and said some hurting things to his mum. When his emotions subsided he realised what he said and he was heartbroken. He could have said that some people did worse things to their parents but it didn’t matter to him. What mattered was that he wronged his own mother. It was the worst wrongdoing because it was done to the person who loved him the most.
My Dear fellow believers. One of the prayers I love is the one inspired by the man who ‘stood some distance away.’ It goes like this: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me the sinner.’ This prayer reminds me not to compare myself to others but to stand in the presence of all holly, all loving Lord Jesus Christ. It is a prayer which reminds me that my sin is directed against the person who loves me the most:  my Lord and my God.
Today as we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, ask yourself where you stand. Are you standing some distance away from those who justify themselves? Are you standing some distance away from those who look for worse people to feel better themselves? Are you standing some distance away from those who compare themselves to others? Are you standing some distance from those people so that you could stand in the presence of the person who loves you the most: your God and your Lord?
 That's why I am not afraid to call myself the worst sinner or the sinner.

Last year a research revealed that an average Australian spends every day 9 hours and 40 minutes on electronic devices. It means more time in front of the screen than sleeping or working. At the same time it was also found out that half of the population distrusts social media. Among the young users, who spent more time on their devices than average, the distrusts towards the social media reaches nearly 70%. However this distrusts doesn’t lead to deserting the social media. Despite the fake news, false statistics, etc. people are still drawn to the social media.
My Dear Sisters and Brothers! I am not here to analyse the impact of the electronic devices on our health, etc. Instead what I would like to do is to listen to and discern in the light of the Scriptures the insight which comes from this new situation. What does the Holy Spirit tell us when it is more common to see a person glued to his or her smartphone than having a face to face conversation?
Let me begin with what Jesus spoke in the Gospel. ‘Everybody who believes in me has eternal life.’ To appreciate this we need to put aside our modern understanding that eternal life happens after our death. Pope Benedict in his book Jesus of Nazareth reminded us that eternal life can be lived in the present age. What people find attractive in the virtual life is that they can escape the reality of everyday living or they can create their idealistic image.
It isn’t a new thing. In our First Reading, about the Prophet Elijah, we see that people faced similar things well before computers were invented. The Prophet who first proved that his God was the true God had to run away as the queen vowed to kill him for leading people away from her god. The prophet, who before brought fire from heaven, cowardly run away. It upset him so badly that when he realised his weakness, which he first despised in his compatriots, he wanted to die. He said to God: ‘Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.’ However in the midst of his disappointment with himself and with his fellowmen and women he had to face it. The angel of God who appeared to Elijah didn’t come to make him feel better. The angel stepped into the social, emotional and spiritual misery of Elijah to give him food which would sustain the prophet on his journey to meet God on the mountain called Horeb. What happened on that mountain was one of the most profound encounters with God recorded in the Bible. However the reading for this Sunday doesn’t take us there yet. Instead we follow Elijah on his forty-day-journey as he is still burdened by the misery of his situation. That forty-day-walk of the prophet is something we can relate to. It is a heavenly gift to us. Most likely our life is not perfect like the life of Elijah was not perfect. However it is not the reason to run away into whatever the modern technology has to offer. Instead take the heavenly food consecrated and distributed at Mass: Jesus’ Body and Blood to continue your life with its various commitments.
During the Last Supper Jesus said:  ‘Eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent.’ Who does know Jesus? The person, who takes up his or her cross and follows the Lord. Pope Benedict, in the mentioned book Jesus of Nazareth, reminded us that the first followers of Jesus Christ called themselves ‘the living.’ Believe Jesus, trust him, give your life to him and the eternal life will be yours here and now, you will be among the living and it will take you through the gate of death into the communion of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as Jesus said: ‘If anyone believes in me, even though he will die he will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.’
The prophet Elijah is God’s gift to us to recognise that our dark moments are moments filled with God’s presence. We don’t need to substitute them with creating a virtual reality where we can pretend or show off. It is fake life and it is as destructive to us as the fake news is. Fake life on the net is fake news. Jesus Christ is the Good News. Jesus Christ is life. He is our Good News. He is our life.
If an average Australian spends every day 9 hours and 40 minutes on electronic devices imagine how much faith growing we would experience if we spent such amount of time praying, reading the Scriptures and contemplating it.

            Last Sunday, when St John the Apostle showed us Jesus going to the other side of the Lake of Galilee and the crowd of people following him, we could recognize in that the image of the Good Shepherd and his flock. As the Good Shepherd, Jesus took care of his sheep. He provided food for them. However the breaking of five barley loaves and two fish for a few thousand hungry people was also a divine teaching which was to satisfy the hunger of the soul. The crowd’s focus only on the bread and fish could have made Jesus popular but Jesus was not looking for popularity. That’s why he left them or better to say, as the Good Shepherd, he made his sheep to move again. He moved them back to Capernaum, to the synagogue, to the place which was all about listening to God’s Word. It was their opportunity to feast on the Word of God this time. As we will see over the next few weeks it was a lengthy teaching. St John wrote fifteen verses about the miracle of the feeding of the people but he dedicated three times more verses to pass onto us Jesus’ teaching based on that event.
            My Dear Sisters and Brothers! We who follow Jesus are now in our privileged place where the Word of God is proclaimed and broken for us. Our Blessed Lord, our Good Shepherd has led us here like he led the crowds in the Gospel. It is not only about the journey measured by miles or kilometers but about the journey measured by our faith in Jesus. Christ himself reveals to us, like he had revealed to the people who found him in the synagogue in Capernaum: ‘This is working for God, you must believe in the one God has sent.’ He is the One sent by God so that by believing in him we could have life to the full.
            The people who looked for Jesus wanted to have life to the full too. However for them it meant having someone who would make their lives easy by providing them with daily free meals. It is not what Jesus would support. On the contrary he said that: ‘The way that is easy leads to destruction, and those who enter it are many.’
            At a University a research was conducted when students were given a test to do. Some days later they were given a new test of similar difficulty, but this time the quality of paper and ink was poor which made really difficult to read the questions. When the results were compared it was discovered that the students did much better at the second test. The extra difficulty they had to face made them pay a better attention to the questions and subsequently to think more carefully about the answers.
            We can find a similar insight in what Jesus said at another time: ‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me.’ Our Blessed Lord didn’t speak about a University test but about our life which is more important. In the life marked by challenges and difficulties we encounter our God who gives us grace not simply to overcome or to survive those challenges and difficulties but to stimulate us to enhance our life.
            I pray so that we may trust our Blessed Lord when he leads to the green pastures which are not idyllic places and situations but the places and situations which can stimulate our human and spiritual growth like he led the crowd in the Gospel.