The gospel for the next several weeks unfolds a continuous scenario, much like a television soap opera. In the last episode we saw the tremendous crowds coming to Jesus, so vast and demanding that there was no place to rest and eat. Mark tells us Jesus began to teach them at great length. Matthew says: the crowd was so spell-bound by his teaching that they lingered three days without food. Though some were beginning to faint, they would not go away.

The crowds were particularly enormous since it was the Passover festival, the highest of holy days for the Jewish people. Jesus did not let this coincidence go without recognition. He began by calling to mind how the Father had provided bread for their ancestors in the desert; then Jesus provided bread and fish for their empty stomachs.

Nor is it coincidence that he uses the gestures of blessing and breaking bread and distributing it, the very same gestures He will use at next year's Passover in which He will offer Himself as the Passover sacrifice.

Having satisfied their intellectual and bodily hungers, Jesus proceeds with a lengthy sermon which we will hear in parts over the next few weeks; to prepare them to recognize the Bread of Life, the food which is His Body and Blood.

But with these words the crowd grows antagonistic. This is a teaching that is too difficult to understand, too difficult to swallow. The crowds turn away and begin deserting Him.

And that was only the first wave of defections. A survey claimed a couple of years ago, but you can never trust surveys, because the questions are always asked in such a way to elicit the response that they are trying to get, 73% of Catholics no longer believe that Jesus is really present in the consecrated species. That what we receive is only a memorial of Jesus; but just bread and wine. 51% of born again Christians do not believe in the divinity of the Holy Spirit. 55% of all Christians today no longer believe in the divinity or the resurrection of Jesus.

If these numbers were truly accurate. We might as well close up shop. What is left to believe in? Something seems to have gone drastically wrong.

Personally I believe that some Catholics do not believe in the Eucharist, that the tabernacle is really nothing more than a bread box to them, but that percentage is much lower than 73%.

Let me share with you an interesting conversation that I had with a woman I met while I was living in the Bronx for 5 years. She had left the church with great resentment; became involved with a glee club, which turned out to be a front for satanic worship; and eventually was delivered and reconciled to the church. Now she gives many retreats throughout the country.

She told me: "Father when I was practicing -satanic worship, if there were one consecrated host shuffled into a bag of plain breads, I could pull out the consecrated host, by feeling its heat on my finger tips.

On two occasions prior to my ministry in NYC, I was offered the opportunity to preach for ten days in the Ukraine by means of an interpreter much like Billy Graham and other protestant evangelists.

Christians of Eastern Europe, in the old Soviet block, where religion had been suppressed by the government as the opiate of the people, were starving for Bibles and rosaries, and missionaries. And they did flood in.

Personally, I prayed about the situation, but I sensed the Lord saying that the time was not ripe for me. After returning from NYC, Bishop Sean gave me the ministry which I have had for the past four years, that of traveling evangelist throughout the diocese and in fact the country, for weekends, weeks, even a month at a time.

I have also had the wonderfully rewarding opportunity to work with Twelve Step Retreats as an opportunity to tell our life story, our rebirth, our recovery, the regeneration of our new spiritual gardens.

Perhaps Twelve Step is successful because it is small groups sequestered and anonymous and comfortable with one another, and being exclusive. Certainly the first disciples did this same thing from Good Friday to Pentecost Sunday, but then they were filled with joy to share with anyone and everyone the Good News of Jesus Christ.

What is demonstrated through these examples is the fact that the seed does not die. The tree might be torn up by its roots; but there is life in the root that will return to life in due time and regenerate the garden.