“Accompaniment” is a buzzword in the Francis papacy. It’s striking, then, that it appeared in the Gospel last Sunday, though not exactly in the manner to which current ecclesiastics have grown accustomed. Sunday’s Gospel wrapped up the Eucharistic teaching of Jesus we have been reading from John 6 these last five weeks.

Jesus had multiplied loaves. Many in the crowd saw a king promising free lunches. Jesus seeks to redirect their attention to spiritual food, raising them beyond the manna “your ancestors ate in the desert” to anticipate His own Eucharistic sacrifice. He makes clear it is sine qua non to life. His audience divides, some perhaps thinking him out of His mind. They are confronted with the same kind of existential decision the Apostles would face when He asks them: “Who do you say that I Am? (Mk 8:29, which also follows a multiplication of loaves). The Jewish crowd faces what the English punk band The Clash captured in their lyrics: “Should I stay or should I go?”

And, as John recounts: “As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him” (John 6:66). Note four things about that verse:

– It is not Jesus who is “accompanying” them, it is they who “no longer accompanied” (periepatoun, literally, “walked” with) Jesus. A disciple is one who follows, who is under the discipline of the Master. That discipline is the norm.

– To abandon that “accompaniment” is to revert to one’s “former way of life.” To “accompany” Christ means, therefore, conversion. It is what is contained in the word “repent” — metanoiete — which literally means “to change one’s mind” about how to live.

– Conversion, like hearing Christ’s Word, is the work of grace, not merely a human decision. That is why “no one can come to me unless it is granted by my Father.” So, conversion implies at least the incipient movement of changing one’s mind about how one lives. It’s not about the saying we have in Polish for the lazy, Panie, tak mnie stworzyłeś, tak mnie masz!” (Lord, that’s how you made me, that’s what you’ve got!)

– Jesus does not temporize to preserve “accompaniment.” He doesn’t backpedal on His “hard saying.” In fact, He reiterates it, the Evangelist noting that He knew “the ones who would not believe,” and He turns to the Apostles and asks, “Do you want to go, too?”

These four characteristics about “accompaniment” as described in the Gospel seem amazingly anemic if not stunningly absent from the caricature of “accompaniment” pedaled currently in some ecclesiastical circles. If we are to be truly faithful to the Second Vatican Council, as we are admonished to do, well, Vatican II was rather explicit about the need for our religious practice to be well-grounded scripturally.

Two other observations the readings for the 21^st Sunday in Ordinary Time (here) sparked are these:

Freedom and Choice. Jesus “knew from the beginning” His Bread of Life discourse would alienate some hearers. He gives them freedom: “many … returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied Him.” He broadened the offer by asking His Apostles if they also wanted to leave. But take note: The fact that they had the freedom to go does not mean “should I stay or should I go” were equally valid choices.

Returning to “their former way of life” is not considered a neutral “we tried it and this isn’t for us.” It is pejorative. To turn from the Lord is to turn to futility, where “you shall not have life within you.” It is to return to death rather than choose life. It is the stark choice Moses posed in Deuteronomy 30: “I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse” (v. 19). One is free to pick either one, but blessings remain blessings and curses remain curses. Curses do not “transition” to blessings because I chose them. This is the false notion of freedom that has afflicted all people but especially moderns. Freedom is not the end, so that what I choose freely is good. Freedom is a means, a means by which I make the good (or evil) my good (or evil), in which I take moral ownership of my decision. One can make evil decisions, which remain evil decisions (along with their consequences) regardless of the fact that I chose them.

The same contraposition is found in the First Reading. Joshua assembles the Israelites after they have finally finished the Exodus and entered the Promised Land. He gives them three choices: You can serve Yahweh God. You can revert to your worship of the Egyptian gods. Or, now that you have come to a land Yahweh gave you in which other people also dwell, you can take up the gods of the Amorites. “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (Josh 24:15b). The people in unison acclaim that faith.

Now, Joshua gave them a choice. It might not be the choice moderns would like, which would be ultimately not to serve anybody but my own whims, but it is a choice. But it doesn’t mean the three choices weighed equally in the balances. To return to the worship of bird-gods and crocodile-gods after experiencing the signs and wonders by which God freed Israel from Egyptian slavery would have been rank ingratitude. To take up the worship of the polytheistic Amorites, whose pantheon included Dagan (their name for Ba’al, the fertility deity that demanded baby sacrifice) would have been no better. Again, choice exists so that the chooser makes a commitment, takes responsibility for his stance. It does not exist to make all choices equivalent.

Taste and See. The Responsorial Psalm refrain is “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord!” It’s the last Psalm in our five week installment on Eucharistic theology. What struck me here was precisely the two verbs: “taste” and “see.”

The post-Vatican II era saw the ascendance of a certain gulled approach to liturgical and sacramental theology that downplayed (and in some places destroyed) Eucharistic adoration. Veneration of the Eucharist outside Mass was criticized with the sophomoric claim, “Jesus said, ‘take and eat,’ not ‘take and look.’” Almost a whole generation grew up with minimal exposure to things like Holy Hours, Adoration, Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, Forty Hours Devotion, etc. Happily, such callow thinking has gone into decline but has not disappeared. Every now and then, for example, one hears criticisms of the recently concluded National Eucharistic Revival and Congress that it overemphasized Eucharistic devotion at the expense of “being Eucharist” by undertaking social justice projects.

The “take and eat” critics are not unlike fundamentalist Protestants who, seizing on one Biblical verse, run with it no matter how much it alone distorts the whole scriptural context. Yes, Christ said “take and eat” and one of the positive achievements of the Council — a process begun sixty years earlier with St. Pius X’s acceleration of First Communion — was to encourage frequent Eucharistic reception. But that one verse, as great and powerful and meaningful as it is, does not exhaust the entire Biblical teaching on the Eucharist.

As we see from the Psalm, the believer is exhorted to “taste” and “see,” to witness God’s goodness. The Jews witnessed it in the manna in the desert. They witnessed it in the water from the rock. The Catholic witnesses it in the Eucharist. And that is why Eucharistic devotion outside of Mass is both legitimate and necessary as a complement to the celebration of the Eucharist itself.