“So we’re continuing our study in John. This is one of the times in the year when we really go through consistently through the sixth chapter of John. Now next week (I can’t say unfortunately because it’s a great feast day but) our pattern will be interrupted because the Feast of the Assumption falls on Sunday so our readings will be for that feast, so we’ll skip out on that next part of the sixth chapter reading, so I’m going to sneak it in tonight later on.
In the Gospel Jesus tells his followers, ‘I am the living bread of life that came down from Heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever and the bread that I’ll give is my flesh for the life of the world.’ and his Jewish disciples, they murmur, they’re grumbling. I hate it when people are always talking like behind your back, but that’s what they’re doing and he goes, ‘How can he say that he came down from Heaven? We know who he is.’ Well you notice that the first announcement of the Eucharist divided the disciples just like the first announcement of the cross divided them as well. They didn’t want to accept that truth. They wanted to have it their way. They had their idea of how it should be.
Studies tell us today that many Catholics don’t believe that Jesus is truly and really present in the Eucharist. They believe it’s just a symbol. I bet there are some of you here that think that. People who leave the Church sometimes tell me, ‘Yeah I used to be a Catholic, but I left.’ I go, ‘Oh really, why?’ They say, ‘I just never felt like I was being fed there.’ I go, ‘Not being fed?!? You’re being fed by God himself, the Bread of Life! What kind of food are you looking for? If you’re not being fed here, you’re not going to be fed anywhere because we have the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus.’ Now, that’s not the only way Jesus is present, but it’s the most powerful and unique way. Today we’re experiencing a crisis of faith. Christian faith demands letting go of pride, letting go of me wanting to put God in my own categories. It requires a humble pursuit of truth, now not apart from reason, but in accord with reason realizing that there are some things that are beyond reason’s grasp. We can’t fully comprehend them completely. Some things we have to accept and know by faith. Yes, faith is another way of knowing something. When we speak of faith, what moves us to believe is not the fact that what’s revealed appears to be true and intelligible in the light of our natural reason. That’s not faith. That’s proof or science or if you can prove it you don’t need faith. Faith is when we believe because of the authority of God himself who reveals something to us and we know that He can neither deceive nor be conceived. That’s why we believe. Why do we believe that this is the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus? ‘Cuz he said it was. He said, ‘This is my body.’ The real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is one of those revealed truths that we’re called to believe. Now the mode of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist is unique. He’s present to us in many ways. Christ is present the Church tells us when the scriptures are proclaimed. It’s Christ who speaks to us. Now I don’t always speak clearly. I might stumble over my words, but it’s Christ who’s speaking through me when we read the scriptures. It’s the Lord speaking to you. He’s present in His Word proclaimed. He’s present ‘when two or three are gathered in my name.’ He’s present here when the Church gathers in prayer. He’s present among you. Your presence here makes Him present. The Church tells us He’s present in the person of the priest when he’s functioning at Mass as Christ the head of the body, the Church. That doesn’t mean the priest is the very worthy guy. He may or may not be, but in his role as presider of the assembly Christ is present in him, but he’s present in a unique way in a way par excellence in the Eucharistic species in the consecrated bread and wine. He’s present there body, blood, soul and divinity.
Sometimes some of our protestant brothers and sisters, they really question the Eucharist. They go, ‘How can you guys really believe that that wafer is Jesus?’ ‘Well how can you believe that this Jewish guy that was born of a young maiden that walked the Middle East, had bad breath and body odor, was the incarnate, was the divine Word of God in the flesh, the one whom all things were created who made Heaven and Earth? Seems like it’s just as easy to believe that God can be present in a wafer as some Jewish guy in the Middle East is God in the flesh, the one who made all things and holds them into being. If you can believe that truth which almost every Christian does, why do we think God can’t make him present in the Eucharist as well?
The Church says at the Second Vatican Council that the Eucharist is the source and the summit of the entire Christian life. What does that mean? That means that everything we do, every ministry we have, every effort we have, every program we have is all directed toward and flows from the Eucharist. Why? Because the Eucharist is Christ Jesus. He in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church namely Christ himself.
The second reading today says, ‘Be imitators of God as beloved children and live and love as Christ loved us and handed himself over to us as a sacrificial offering to God.’ St. Irenaeus in the late 100’s, very early on in the life of the Church, said, ‘Our way of thinking as Christians is attuned to the Eucharist and the Eucharist in turn confirms our way of thinking.’ Already then the Eucharist was at the center of the Christian life. Faithful reception of the Eucharist not only sustains us, but should change us.’ It should change us. We should become more and more like what we consume at Mass. While many today deny the Eucharist is anything but a symbol. Others who claim to believe that it is the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus nonetheless refuse to let that Eucharist change them. They want to go on living the same way they always have. I wonder, do they really believe that you have just encountered the one through whom all things were made when come forward for communion? Do you really believe that? If so, how can that not eventually change us? How can it not change our priorities?
Now I mentioned next week because of the Holy Day we’re gonna miss the next part of chapter six. That’s the part where the Jews quarrel again because Jesus says that you must eat his flesh and drink his blood and they go, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ Now this sounds crazy they’re saying. This is over the top. C’mon I was with this guy, but not now. So that’s what happens next week and does Jesus say, ‘Oh whoa wait you misunderstand. I’m just speaking symbolically. No, no he doesn’t say that at all. He doubles down. He says, ‘Amen amen I say to you, unless you you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood you have no life in you.’ Those are not my words. Those are the words of Jesus Christ. ‘Unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood you have no life in you.’ And guess what happened? Many said, ‘He’s nuts. We’re out of here.’ And many walked away. Many walked away. Jesus asked his disciples and we’ll see this the next Sunday after the Assumption. He asks, ’Are you gonna leave too?’ And Peter’s response, ‘Lord where else can we go? You have the words of everlasting life. There’s nowhere else to go.’ The Eucharist and the cross are indeed stumbling blocks. It’s the same mystery and it never ceases to be an occasion of division because it is a hard teaching, but it’s the truth and we’re called to embrace it in faith.
In the first reading today Elijah is at wit’s end. He’s ready to throw in the towel and he prays that the Lord take his life and the angel says, ‘Get up and eat else the journey be too long for you.’ Get up and eat so you can make it on this long journey. Are you at wit’s end? Are you anxious about many things? I’ve only been here a month, but it’s my impression that many of you are quite anxious about many things. My advice: stop trying so hard to fix it on your own. Surrender. Turn it over to God. Let Him change things first by changing you and it can start right here today in the Eucharist where you’ll encounter the living God in an absolutely unique way. Don’t be preoccupied with all those anxieties and yes there are many of them ‘cuz you might just miss the one answer to your greatest problems, Jesus Christ himself present to us here. He’s food for our journey. He’s offering to change us to conform us so that we can become gradually more and more like Him. We come to Mass weekly and like the angel in the first reading we hear these words, ‘Get up and eat less the journey be too long for you.’ That’s what we should hear when we come to Mass. Get up and eat. ‘Come forward. Receive me.’ Jesus says, ‘and help me change you so we can make this journey together.’ The journey is not to Mt. Horeb like Elijah was heading. The journey is to the Kingdom of Heaven. That’s our destiny and our strength, our food for it happens right here in the Eucharist where we encounter the living God body, blood, soul and divinity. The Church has believed that for two thousand years and she continues to proclaim that truth today. It’s not an easy teaching.”