21st Sunday per annum (OF) - The Scandal of the Eucharist

As we conclude our reading of John chapter 6, we come to a point where we see something that does not occur anywhere else in the Gospels except during Our Lord’s Passion: people abandon Christ.  Certainly, there have be situations where those around Christ have questioned His sayings and teachings or have left not understanding His words.  But in this instance we find the one occasion where we hear the Gospel writer declare that not only did some of His disciples left Him, but they also returned to their former way of life.  We see in this passage the scandal which the definition of the Eucharist caused in Christ’s own time, and the shadows of the scandal of the Eucharist which remains to our own day.

For certainly, the Eucharist is a scandal to our Protestant brethren, especially fundamentalists.  They uphold a literal reading of the Scriptures as essential to the faith, except when it comes to this specific passage.  They will seek to reinterpret or downplay what Our Lord declares here, trying to show that it is only symbolic or that Christ is really meaning faith or the Scriptures or anything else other than the Eucharist.  Their folly is exposed simply by carefully reading the passage.  Does Christ stop those who are leaving?  Does He correct them and say that He is only symbolically the bread of life or that we must symbolically eat His flesh and drink His blood through the bread and wine of Communion?  Never!  In fact, Saint John’s Greek is very scandalous: John uses a Greek verb for eating which was associated with how animals ate.  It denotes rending, gnashing, gobbling, the simple, stupid, slovenly way that animals eat as compared to a normal human.  There can be no doubt about it: the Catholic Church, from the very beginning, has maintained the literal reading of this passage along with the whole Scriptures in contrast to the falsities of the Protestants.

The Eucharist is scandalous to non-Christians as well, those who live united to the sinful world rather than those seeking after the good God.  We see this in the way they elevate their bodies as their god instead of the One who gave them both bodies and souls.  Our society is filled with those who seek the pleasures of the body as the means of happiness and let nothing in the way.  The rampant use of abortion and contraception demonstrates this principle most sorrowfully to us.  One author remarks that abortion is the devil’s parody of the Eucharist, for in both the key phrase to understand each is “This is my body.”  For when your belly is your god, then your Eucharist is only found within, and this leads to destruction.

The Eucharist is lastly scandalous to those Catholics who have not remained faithful to Christ, whether they have remained in the Church or not.  For we are reminded once more in this passage of the necessity of faith and its very essence as a gift of God.  Christ reminds those who are about to go away that no one comes to Him and to His Church except the Father draw them in through the Holy Spirit who bestows life upon us.  St. John Chrysostom teaches that in this passage Christ is desiring to remove the scandal of the Eucharist from the hearts of His disciples so that they will believe.  Yet they still abandon Him because His words ask too much of them.  Saint John remarks that Christ, being divine, knew who would believe and who would not believe, and even knew the one who would betray Him to His passion and death.  In the example of Judas we see those bad Catholics who have abandoned the faith while still remaining within the confines of the Church.  For Judas was chosen to be an apostle, one of the Twelve sent by Christ to proclaim the Gospel to the world, yet he chooses to abandon Christ for his own sinful reasons.  How tragic it is to see Catholics receive the Eucharist when it means so little to them and when it will bring not eternal life but eternal punishment upon them!

If we are to avoid that same fate, if we are to avoid the pains of Hell and to receive eternal life, we must do as Saint Peter and the faithful Apostles did.  We must believe what Christ tells us and receive His flesh and blood in the Eucharist faithfully and worthily.  We must not let our reception of Holy Communion be wasted, but lead us into a deeper relationship with Christ really and truly present in this mystery of faith.  We must be nourished by the one who, as Saint Paul reveals, loves the Church as a husband loves his wife, so much in fact that He is willing to die for her, willing to die for us.  We must seek to free our lives of every sin which separates us from the love of God and from worthily receiving the bread come down from Heaven.

Let us do our part, then, to imitate the example of the Israelites in our first reading, by readily clinging to God above all else.  Let us not be fooled by the devil into our own interpretations but receive this mystery with a willing heart and being transformed by Christ each time we receive Him.  Let us cleanse our hearts of sin through our more frequent reception of confession so that we may receive more fully the graces and gifts Christ desires to pour upon us in our need.  May our reception of the Body and Blood of Christ bring us all to eternal life.

19th Sunday per annum (OF) - The Eucharist: The Mystery of Faith

Every time we participate in the Mass in its Ordinary Form, we hear the priest utter this phrase after the consecration of the elements: “The mystery of faith.”  This phrase, originating in the sixth century, has been a constant feature of the liturgy we have used in the western rites of the Church.  When the priest says this phrase at the Mass, we respond with one of three phrases, all of them emphasizing the Eucharist as the memorial of the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ and our eager hope for His continual support.  Yet, in conjunction with our readings today, this phrase helps us to understand more greatly the centrality of faith in our life and how the Eucharist aids us to be faithful and to be faith-filled.

When we hear the word “mystery”, we often think of detectives trying to solve a crime and discover the culprit.  This offers a hint to us of the root meaning of the word, since it comes from the Greek μυστηριον, which means something hidden or secret.  Anything that fell under the term μυστηριον was something which was not meant to be revealed except to those who were in the know.  The Christians took up this term early on in the Church’s history to denote those beliefs and practices which are of a supernatural character, such that we could not understand them on our own.  This is why the term became extended to the mystery of faith, which we find used in St. Paul’s first letter to Timothy.  These mysteries could only be understood as such by those who were Christians.

Our Gospel helps us to understand why this is the case.  Christ, in rebuking the Jews, tells them that “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him.”  Our Lord reveals to us the beginnings of this belief which enables us to grasp the mysteries of faith.  It is not of our own power or volition, but the gift of God the Father who created us.  God draws us to Himself and to the one Church wherein dwells the wellspring of faith.  It is not by our willing that we have received the faith, but by the will of God.

Yet that faith which we have initially received from the Father can be accepted or rejected by us.  We see this in the soul which decides either to continue to practice the Catholic faith or to reject it and to search elsewhere, to its eternal detriment.  That faith can also be increased or decreased, which leads us back to the Eucharist.  Since, as we have seen before, Holy Communion is the source and the summit of the Christian faith, it is in the Eucharist, the bread of life, that we are able not only to find expression of our faith, but also to be given the grace necessary for our faith to be maintained and even to increase in relation to God.  Just as earthly bread increases our strength so as to live as material beings, so too does the Eucharist increase our spiritual strength to live as spiritual beings.

If we are faithful Catholics, we will desire the Eucharist more fervently each day, because we believe what Christ proclaimed and what the Church has professed and maintained to our present day: that Jesus Christ is still among His people, nourishing them with His body and blood so as to draw them to Himself, most especially on the last day.  St. Pio of Pietrelcina said, “It would be easier for the world to survive without the sun than to do so without the Holy Mass.”  It is in the Eucharist that we find our faith most eloquently expressed, but in a manner that only those with the grace of God are able to receive.  To be a Catholic is to be one who is enveloped in the mystery of faith, most particularly the mystery of faith in the Eucharist, and who lives that faith out not merely in the church, but in every aspect of our lives.

Let us not grow slack, then, in our faith, but be nourished by the bread of life so that our faith may increase.  Let us be nourished as Elijah was nourished in our first reading, so as to go forth and do the will of God in our lives.  Let us taste and see the goodness of the Lord with the eyes of faith.  Let us live in love, as St. Paul urges us to do, being imitators of God, who so loved us as to give His only Son for our salvation, and who continually gives His Son to us to be our bread of life.  Let us appreciate the Eucharist more and more as the mystery of faith; not something to be solved, but some one to be discovered and loved in the embrace of faith, a some one who desires us to live with Him in the reality of eternal life.

18th Sunday per annum (OF) - The Eucharist: The Bread from Heaven

We Americans have become a people of snacks.  We certainly cannot complain about lacking any food in our diet, but we are known especially for our consumption of snack foods.  How much chocolate do we enjoy on a weekly basis?  How often do we partake of some form of chips or popcorn when we are enjoying some free time?  We love to eat these tasty treats, perhaps to a fault, as repeated warnings concerning obesity remind us.  Yet we still have a fundamental understanding that man does not live on snacks alone.

God reveals to us that this is also the case not merely in our physical reality but also in our spiritual relationship with Him.  Just as our bodies are meant to be nourished by a solid diet, so too are our souls nourished by a proper diet and not merely on snacks.  Look to our first reading to begin to understand this.  The Israelites are complaining because they no longer have their luxurious meals as they once enjoyed while being slaves in Egypt.  God has freed them from this subjugation, yet they are sorrowful that this has been done!  Insteading of beseeching God for His help, they complain to Him!  Yet God, ever mindful of their needs, pours down upon them bread from heaven.

This miracle is above all what strikes the Israelites for generations to come.  Few other events are recalled as often as the bread come down from heaven, as we see from our psalm.  It is this event which the people recall in our Gospel today, when they ask Our Lord for a miracle.  Nothing else done in the desert was as remarkable as God providing the food needed to make the great journey out of Egypt.  And this is what stands out in this episode of the Gospel which began for us last week.

Recall that Christ fed 5,000 men last week at the beginning of this chapter.  Continuing this week, we hear that many of the crowd followed Him after He left, seemingly desiring more.  They want to understand who is this Jesus who can seemingly produce bread from so little.  His miracle recalls to their mind the manna from the desert, that bread from heaven we heard about in the first reading.  Christ points them towards seeking that which lasts unto eternal life, trying to elevate them and us beyond merely physical concerns.  But the crowd raises a question: How can we do this?

Two answers are given to them.  First, Christ tells them to believe in the one whom the Father has sent, that is to believe in Him.  All must start from faith in Christ if we are to be what God desires us to be.  Saint Paul wishes this for all of us as expressed in our second reading when he tells the Ephesians to no longer live as the Gentiles they once were, but to live in this faith which comes to the new self.  The second answer given is to receive the true bread from heaven, which brings life to the world.

But what is this true and life-giving bread?  As the end of today’s Gospel reveals, Christ Himself is the true bread come down from heaven, the bread of life given to us by the Father.  It is Christ who will aid us in maintaining and even increasing our faith in Him.  He becomes for us the spiritual food necessary for us to live as spiritual beings, just as regular food aids us to be corporeal beings.  The Eucharist is the meal we are meant to receive so that our souls may be nourished.

If the Eucharist is truly the bread of life, then we must receive it in accord with why Christ has given it to us.  We must prepare ourselves for so great a meal by calling to mind the reason this is offered to us: our growth in and with God.  We must cleanse ourselves of everything that prohibits us from receiving this spiritual meal worthily and to our benefit by receiving the absolution of confession frequently.  And we must not disregard this spiritual food which we have received as if it is only a nice snack.  What we are given is the true nourishment of the soul, that which is most necessary for us to live in union with God through Christ in the Holy Spirit.  We must receive and treasure this gift in every way possible.

Let us then receive the bread of angels become our bread of life with joyous and thankful hearts.  Let us receive this bread as often as possible so as to truly fulfill that wondrous phrase we pray in the Our Father: “Give us this day our daily bread.”  Let us not disregard or belittle this immense and necessary food as we would some earthly food, but treasure each time we receive Him from the hands of the priest.  Let us be mindful of the necessity of the Eucharist in our own spiritual lives, as the food whereby God cares and feeds us just as He did for the Israelites.  Let us desire to be strengthened by this heavenly bread so as to live our lives more oriented to God each day and to be prepared for the glories of the feast which awaits us in eternal life.