When I was in FOCUS, I had the opportunity to work with many amazing and faithful lay men and women. I always enjoyed coming together for our summer training where we could reconnect and share the amazing ways that the Lord had worked in our lives.  We would share everything from our daily struggles to the many graces we encountered in serving the Lord. One of the stories that remains with me to this day came from a missionary who was hesitant that she could even do this type of amazing work when she first arrived.  Her dad was a deacon in the Church, and she came across FOCUS not through her own experience, but through outside recruitment.  She was hired, but felt overwhelmed as she compared herself to the other missionaries.  She felt like she didn’t have the ability to reach others for the Lord. However, she eventually overcame that fear and it literally changed her life.  

In her first couple of years, she gained confidence and grew to trust in the Lord.  Her “yes” to missionary work would eventually lead her to find her vocation and her spouse. She encountered a man who was not practicing any faith. She doubted that her invitation to him to encounter the Lord would bear any fruit, but something happened. Grace entered him, his heart was opened to the Lord, and he had a conversion of faith – which led to a deepening of their friendship.  Before she knew it they were dating, which led to a proposal, marriage, and now a beautiful family. 

What struck me the most was how she came back and shared her hesitancy of how she doubted that the Lord could work in her simple invitation.  Clearly, the Lord had amazing and beautiful plans.  Her story always strikes me because it highlights a common theme among all of us: How often do we put limitations on how God can work in our lives and in the lives of others? 

This isn’t anything new, and we see it in the Gospel as Jesus proclaims that he is the” Bread of Life” and the “Bread sent down from Heaven.” The people begin to question Jesus’ origin saying, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph?” Their doubt was that God could not work through someone they knew. They doubted that God could do something so personal in their own lives.  Yes, they believed in the great stories of Moses and how the Israelites were provided Manna every day in the desert.  However, when it came to something personal, they felt that God was far away!

The Gospel, the good news, is that God is not far away.  He comes to us every weekend in a deep and personal way in the Eucharist.  Every time we receive the Lord in the Eucharist, we receive a profound gift of Love. Let us cast our doubts aside and realize the beautiful gift we receive in the Eucharist: the Body and Blood of Christ!   

Father Michael