One of the most touching YouTube videos I’ve ever seen is one in which a deaf woman receives new technology to heal her hearing. She hears her husband's voice for the first time — and her own, too — and bursts into tears of overwhelming joy. It must have been like an immovable wall between her and her loved ones came tumbling down.

Purity isn’t popular at the moment. Or is it? Look at a rack of health magazines or at popular podcasts. You’ll see an infinite ocean of regulations and rituals of diets, intermittent fasting, morning sun rituals, intense juice detox practices, lists of dangerous foods, mental practices, as well as long lists of dos and don’ts for the proper cleaning of clothes, dishes, cars, houses, pets, and children. Like it or not, we long to be pure, clean, and without blemish.

The famous Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky said, “Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing.” In the Gospel reading this week, Jesus does something harsh and dreadful — he watches his own disciples abandon him. What could possibly be loving about that?

A priest I know was asked by a door-to-door evangelist, “Do you believe in Jesus?” He answered, “Yes, I do. But if I may ask you,” he continued, “Where do you experience Jesus’ body and blood?” His interlocutor responded somewhat confusedly, “I don’t. I just believe in him. That’s all that is needed.” Later my priest friend would relate to me, “The more I thought about it, that response struck me as totally inadequate. As human beings, we need to encounter Jesus’ body and blood, not just hear about him and mentally believe. Otherwise, Jesus is just a ghost.”

This week we hear Jesus say, “He that believes in me, has eternal life” (John 6:47). These straightforward words, uttered by human lips, sound — how to put this? — insane. Who could possibly say such a thing? Jesus says things that are so high, so demanding, so beyond our capacity to fathom, we hardly know what to do with them and (if you’re like me), they usually go in one ear and out the other. So, let us ask: how can believing in him lead to eternal life?

Since my college days I’ve loved a song called “Dance with You” by the rock band Live. It touches on the deep mystical hunger of our heart: “I’ve tasted all the wines/ a half a billion times/ came sickened to your shore/ you showed me what this life is for.” These lines resonate with anyone who has feasted on the good things of this world only to be left spiritually hungover and unsatisfied.

The world is filled with people whose basic needs aren’t met, whether for clean water, nutrition, safety, education, meaningful work, stable family life, basic medical resources, religious freedom, and the right to life. So how can we possibly believe what Psalm 145 says to us this week, “The hand of the Lord feeds us, he answers all our needs”? Does he? What about the countless poor? Can’t we identify at least a few unmet needs in our own lives right now? Is the Bible promoting wishful thinking and laziness in helping others?

Burnout. Recent studies suggest that roughly two-thirds of doctors and nurses have signs of it. You probably know what burnout is: long-term stress leading to emotional exhaustion and a lack of a sense of personal accomplishment. Burnout can threaten anyone who tries to seriously serve and love others. How does our faith inform this challenging experience, and how do we find refreshment?

Once I asked a fallen-away Catholic friend of mine what he remembered about the parish priest from his youth. He said, “He was a gentle, nice guy. Kind of vanilla. Kept to himself.” It struck me that he, perhaps like many, perceive Catholic priests as the following: lonely, harmless, and self-sufficient. As a challenge both to this perception (accurate or not) and to us priests who perhaps feel a pull in that uninspiring direction, stands the mighty image of what we see in the Gospel this Sunday.

Recently I watched a bunch of YouTube videos on how to optimize willpower in the face of weakness. The message was: do not accept your weakness. Crush it. Dominate it. In one video, however, at the end of a rant by a willpower coach, the muscular stoic admitted, “You’ll never actually get what you want, no matter how hard you try.” Amazingly, he admitted that willpower alone is not sufficient for us weak-willed humans.