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TRUE FOOD (Pt 2 of 2) “Walking with the Word” is the name of our scripture program. The subject of our study is TRUE FOOD. In our last lesson (Part 1), we recalled how our gracious God intervenes powerfully on behalf of every individual Christian in the Sacrament of Baptism. Yet, God acts even more powerfully when baptized Christians are gathered as the Body of Christ. Gathered in the presence of a priest—through, with and in whom Christ ministers to his people—the Body of Christ receives the fullness of the Lord’s own Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity every day, in every celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. For our Lord Jesus Christ declared, “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.” [Jn 6:54-55] +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ For today’s lesson, we continue with Part 2 of our theme: TRUE FOOD. Let’s start by returning to the matter of faith. In Part I, we studied why faith is absolutely vital in accepting the Lord’s eucharistic teaching and what faith must do. In this lesson (Part 2), we examine the Eucharist in terms of the test of faith. St. Paul reminded the Church at Corinth that the Hebrew people failed the test of faith in their forty tragic years of exile in the harsh desert. And it’s possible, teaches St. Paul, for men and women in the present to fail the test of faith as well. It all depends on God’s favorable judgment of the believer who carefully discerns and receives the body of Jesus Christ in a worthy manner. [cf. 1Cor 11:29] ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Today, our subject is TRUE FOOD, the “test of faith”. Our Divine Lesson for today is taken from John’s Gospel Ch. 6 and St. Paul’s comments in 1st Corinthians Chapters 10 and 11. Let’s begin today’s reflection with John Chapter 6, verses 53-57: SO JESUS said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; 54. he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55. FOR MY flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. 56. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. [Jn 6:53-57] Verse 53 stands out as perhaps the most important words Jesus ever spoke. And the most controversial: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you”. [Jn 6:53] These words are strong, very strong. These words allow no ambiguity. These words of the Lord Jesus are presented in terms of an “either-or” proposition. In other words, you and every Christian must choose. Either for life or against life. Jesus stands for life. He wants every human being to be fully alive. He wants every person to attain the fullness of life in his or her humanity. Fullness of life, as Our Lord teaches it, is life that endures to eternity. On the surface, it would seem that every human being on the face of the planet would choose for life. On the other hand, it would seem that no person—in his right mind—would choose against human life. Yet, the history of man is the story of his fall from grace. It’s the story of fallen man’s embrace of sin and his enchantment with death. Thanks be to God, there are countless numbers of men and women of good will who choose for life. Within their human limitations, they try to make the world a better place in which to live. Nevertheless, all is not right even within the very large group of well-meaning men and women who say they desire the fullness of life. Why would all not be right? I say this because so many Christians—including those who are not in communion with the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church” [Nicene Creed]—refuse to take the Lord’s words seriously. What words? The words of John, Chapter 6, verse 53: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you”. [Jn 6:53] So many Christians—Catholic and otherwise—think that they can attain the fullness of life all by themselves apart from the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church”. They think they can attain the fullness of life without having to come to terms with John, Chapter 6 and all the scripture passages that point to John, Chapter 6. They think that they can attain the fullness of human life—even to eternity—without having even to think about, let alone eat Jesus’ Flesh and drink Jesus’ Blood. And how sadly mistaken they are. They’ve convinced themselves that there are many other options out there that will get them to the fullness of life. They think they can choose any one of those options and skip John Chapter 6, and bypass all the scriptures that point to John Chapter 6, and flatly ignore the Lord’s very own words. Now Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you”. [Jn 6:53] So, who’s right and who’s wrong here? Is the Lord Jesus Christ wrong on this? Or are the persons wrong who refuse to acknowledge or accept the Lord’s words? What about people who say, Well, now, Jesus had to have been using a figure of speech? After all, they say, when Peter tells Jesus “You have the words of eternal life”, the apostle himself says that Jesus really intends for his followers to eat what he "says"—not his flesh and blood. Well, let’s take a few moments to examine this claim. When I read, when I hear the words, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” [Jn 6:53], I receive these words exactly as Jesus spoke them. When Jesus says, “Eat my flesh and drink my blood” [Jn 6:53], I take the Lord at his word. He doesn’t say, Pretend to eat my flesh, Pretend to drink my blood, or any such silliness: WHOEVER, THEREFORE, (writes St. Paul in his Letter to the Corinthians) eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.” [1Cor 11:27] I don’t add to these divinely inspired words and I don’t take away from these divinely inspired words of our Lord Jesus. [cf. Rev 22:18-19] I won’t drain the life out of these “words of eternal life”. [John 6:68] I won’t treat our Lord’s words as some kind of elusive parable or elaborate code regarding secret subjects. As it is, the Son of God speaks very plainly to me, Eat my flesh. Drink my blood. The crowd of disciples listening to Jesus at the synagogue of Capernuam knew Jesus meant every word he said. Many, if not most of them, were disgusted: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (they cried out). [Jn 6:52] “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” (they shouted). [Jn 6:60] They knew what Jesus was telling them. They knew what he meant. They knew. And, for his part, Jesus knew their hearts. He knew their hearts were hardened like the Hebrews at Meribah in the desert. Their hearts were so hardened, their “eyes of faith” shut so tight, their stubborn pride so overwhelming, that they flatly would deny his ascension even if it took place right in front of their face. And Jesus told this crowd exactly that. He said to them, “Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending to where he was before?” [Jn 6:62] But Jesus had performed enough signs already. It was time that these disciples—acting more like a crowd than his faithful followers—make the “leap of faith” in their hearts. It was time that they depended on their “eyes of faith” to see what their human eyes could never see or understand. It was time for this crowd of disciples to let go of the multiplication of the barley loaves and fish. It was time for these followers to eat his Flesh and drink his Blood. Why? Because, otherwise they would have no life in them. The only way they could have the fullness of life—even to eternity—was to partake in the Lord’s Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. They had to trust Jesus. They had to put real faith in him and in his teaching. What teaching? “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you”. [Jn 6:53] When Jesus tells these troubled people “the flesh is of no avail” [Jn 6:63], he’s not talking about the flesh of the Son of Man. He’s talking to the people in the crowd who placed their reliance, not on faith, but on their own human senses and their human appetites. For the Lord to say, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” [Jn 6:63], is to invite the disciples to discern the things of God, the heavenly things, the things that are above--not the things of man. Discern the spirit, he says, come to the Kingdom banquet of life! Now, it’s a comfortable thought, isn’t it, that if Jesus were to stand before us in this very hour and speak eloquently about all these things to us, we wouldn’t have stubborn hearts would we? We wouldn’t fail to understand him, would we? We have the Holy Spirit, don’t we? The Holy Spirit teaches us all things, doesn’t He? So what does the Holy Spirit prompt you to do when you hear Jesus’ words, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you”? [Jn 6:53] To ignore them? To change their meaning? To water them down? Or to do exactly what our Lord Jesus Christ has commanded you to do: Eat my Flesh and drink my Blood. A reality check, however, tells us that even in the age of the Holy Spirit, there are many, many people who will not go along with Jesus on this. They won’t follow him to the banquet table, the altar of sacrifice. They won’t eat his flesh and drink his blood. Jesus knows what the problem is. He knows. He knows that “there are some of you that do not believe” [Jn 6:64]; moreover, he has known from the start who those are that do not believe. [cf. Jn 6:64] Thus, the Eucharist is a test of faith; nevertheless, the present generation should refrain from putting God’s test to the test at the risk being overthrown as were the Hebrews in the desert of Sinai: WHY DO you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and not do what I tell you? 47. Every one who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: 48. he is like a man building a house, who dug deep, and laid the foundation upon rock; and when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house, and could not shake it, because it had been well built. 49. BUT HE who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation; against which the stream broke, and immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great. [Lk 6:46-49] When Jesus says “Believe”, do you imagine that he’s talking about you believing in a figure of speech? Believing that flesh and blood makes a graphic, intense visual image in your brain? Do you think for a moment this is what Peter had in mind when he said to Jesus: LORD, TO whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God. [Jn 6:68-69] If what Peter really meant was You have the words of a really great English teacher, then the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church” might as well just pack it up and walk into the sunset. My dear friends, the reason our beloved Peter of blessed memory, our first pope, said these words is unmistakably clear. Most of the crowd of disciples who, yesterday, had loved Jesus on the hillsides of Capernaum and today hated him in the synagogue, turned their backs on him and walked away forever. The collapse of Jesus’ ministry in the northern Galilee was so devastating, that it seemed as though the Twelve apostles might abandon him and walk away, too. Jesus turned to the Twelve apostles whom he had chosen out of the 120 disciples, and asked, perhaps very quietly, very intently, "Do you also wish to go away?" [Jn 6:67] Now, you know why Peter said what he did. Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God” [Jn 6:68-69], because Jesus had just asked the Twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” So when Peter says to Jesus, “You have the words”, he’s not saying to Jesus, What you just said was a great speech. No, what Peter says to his Master is something altogether different and marvelous, “You have the (teachings) of everlasting life”. What is the teaching? Take and eat. Take and drink. It’s a matter of friendship, you see, friendship with Jesus Christ. In speaking of “friendship” with Jesus, I disassociate myself from all forms of greeting-card and refrigerator-magnet sentimentality. I’m talking about divine-human communion that is made possible by Jesus Christ’s passion and death on the cross. It was Christ himself who re-wove man’s destiny, situating it into the tapestry of God’s saving plan after man’s sin had ripped it away. Jesus mediates the reconciliation between man and God. We come to Jesus Christ. He leads us to the Father. In no way can “friendship” with God be construed as if such were an association of equals, eyeball-to-eyeball, high-five to high-five. Anyone who claims to have a high-five relationship with God is only looking at himself in a mirror and slapping one hand against the other. To the contrary, the true friend of God is found on his knees in humble submission: humbly repenting of his fallen nature, humbly recognizing his dependence on God, humbly praising and glorifying God’s name, humbly asking God to consider what he needs, and humbly thanking God for all the graces and blessings he’s received. Humility and obedience to Christ are inseparable. Humble obedience, therefore, is the human prerequisite for friendship with God: YOU ARE my friends (says the Lord Jesus) if you do what I command you. 15. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. [Jn 15:14-15] As friends of Jesus Christ—who intend to eat his flesh and drink his blood—we must first turn away from the manna of the desert and water from the rock. In the confrontation between Jesus and many of his followers, Our Lord said: I AM the bread of life. 49. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. 51. I AM the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh. [Jn 6:48-51] The Lord Jesus makes a profound distinction between the manna that the Hebrews ate in the deserts of Sinai and his own Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Holy Eucharist. He says that manna—blessed food from heaven—could not save the Hebrew people from death; although it had a supernatural origin, manna was mere natural food. The manna in the desert was food for the flesh, not the "living bread which came down from heaven". [Jn 6:51] The Lord's precept—Eat my Body and Drink my Blood to possess the fullness of life—makes clear humanity’s need for supernatural food of supernatural origin. “Fullness” encompasses health and longevity in this present life [cf. 1Cor 11:29-30] and life in God for eternity. That the consecrated bread and wine in the Mass is supernatural food of supernatural origin is proven by the fact that the power of death has been broken. Death which destroyed flesh and blood was itself destroyed by Flesh and Blood! FOR THIS perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality. 54. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory." 55. "O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?" [1Cor 15:53-55] In short, manna was the food of this world for the flesh of this world, not the food of heaven for the eternal souls destined to dwell in heaven. Yes, manna was blessed food given by God himself to his chosen people, but as a lesser gift, it prophesied the coming of the greater gift—the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ. The manna in the desert and the water from the rock of Meribah [cf. 1Cor 10:1-6] were blessed food and drink, yes, but remember a cardinal principle of biblical prophecy: the lesser always foretells the greater. Never does the lesser foretell the lesser. The manna of the desert and the water at Meribah are the lesser signs which foretell the great miracle of the Lord’s people receiving his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity into their own body and soul. To eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man is to receive a share of his own divine life. To eat and drink is to receive God’s pledge of eternal life. Therefore, to treat the Lord’s command to eat his flesh and drink his blood indifferently, or as a peculiar kind of first-century, Upper Room performance art, would be a tragic misunderstanding. To imagine that the Lord’s Body and Blood are no better than table food—whether manna in the desert, the bread in your pantry, or fast-food in a paper bag—is to offend the meaning of the sacrifice of his Body and Blood on the cross of Golgotha. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.” [Jn 6:48] If we strip the meaning of the Lord’s divine revelation concerning his Body and Blood, what are we left with? We make an idol of our human senses and a mockery of faith. Remember, the lesser always points to the greater. Human opinion is lesser. Divine Revelation is greater. No mere human precept may be raised higher than the cross of Christ. Notice how Our Lord, himself, recognizes how the lesser points to the greater: YOUR FATHERS ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died, (says the Lord). 50. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. [Jn 6:49-50] As we have learned, the lesser always points to the greater. The converse of this principle likewise is true: To deny the greater is to deny the lesser. To reject the True Presence of the Lord Jesus Christ—in the consecrated bread and wine of the Mass—is to deny the fullness of his saving passion and death on the cross. To reject the True Presence is to deny the fullness of one’s own humanity. By magnifying the Lord, however, we humbly magnify our own humanity. We have the Lord’s teaching on this: HE WHO has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him. [Jn 14:21] ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I believe we understand the meaning of true worship most profoundly when we consider the difference between manna and the Eucharist. Happiness, like the manna of the Hebrews, can be gathered only for the day. Like a cut flower, the manna by which God fed his Hebrew refugees from Egypt, quickly rotted and had to be thrown out. One could gather only so much each day, and anything more than could be consumed had to be thrown out by nightfall. Every morning the Hebrews would have to go out and collect manna all over again. The Hebrews were grateful to eat, to be sure, but there was a certain sadness in this. Manna was not the fruit of the harvest of labor. Though the manna was a sign of the people receiving their “daily bread” directly from God himself, it was not a sign of abundance. Manna was the meager food for a forty-year “journey of frustration” of a generation of homeless Hebrews in search of a place they could call their own—but a home they would never reach because of their pride. The apostle Paul was acutely aware of the lessons to be drawn from the example of the arrogant Hebrews who defied God in the desert. He urged the Church at Corinth to humble themselves before truth: I WANT you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2. and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3. and all ate the same supernatural food 4. and all drank the same supernatural drink. FOR THEY drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ. 5. Nevertheless with most of them God was not pleased; for they were overthrown in the wilderness. 6. Now these things are warnings for us, not to desire evil as they did. [1Cor 10:1-6] Whereas the manna of old is like happiness that quickly disappears, the Eucharist celebrated each day in your local parish is a sharing in the everlasting joy of God’s Kingdom. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, in which we partake of the Lord’s own Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, is “food for the journey” (Lat. viaticum). But the journey we are talking about is the Church’s pilgrim journey to eternity and the heavenly city Jerusalem. The joy of Holy Communion is very much the banner, the standard by which the enduring graces of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass are known. As the Church fathers of Vatican Council II put it famously: THE CHURCH, then, God’s only flock, like a standard lifted on high for the nations to see it, ministers the Gospel of peace to all mankind, as it makes its pilgrim way in hope toward its goal, the fatherland above. [VATICAN COUNCIL II, Unitatis Redintegratio, no. 2 (1964)] As the liturgy of the Church is the summit and fount of her ministry and her power, so joy is commanded by the Father to be the visible sign of her perfection in Christ. “Righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” [Rom 14:17] in the Kingdom of God is infinitely superior to ordinary food and drink. In the same way, the enduring, heavenly gift of joy in Christ and his Church surpasses that of mere happiness which disappears like a fog in the heat of noon. And is not the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass joy itself? Jesus Christ is the bright morning star of every celebration of the holy Eucharist. The light of Christ is joy. We know joy as the tangible experience of the Holy Spirit’s gift of “wonder and awe”. To know Christ is to know the Eucharist, the most beautiful and excellent way that Christ participates in the life of his people, his Church. Praise be to our God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, in his infinite love, graciously shares his divinity with all who are reconciled to him by the grace of his only begotten Son. Therefore, stop pursuing happiness in created things as though it were possible for it to fulfill all your hopes and dreams. A mirage is just a mirage. A dream is just a dream. Rather, seek after the “higher gifts...the still more excellent way” [1Cor 12:31], the enduring joy that evidences a holy way of life. For the gift of joy is not taken back by the one who gives it. Therefore: DO NOT labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give to you; for on him has God the Father set his seal. [Jn 6:27] The joy of the Eucharist will endure to the end, even to eternity. The Eucharist comforts and strengthens you even in the moments of your deepest sorrow and greatest trial. The Eucharist will change you forever. St. Augustine of Hippo (died 430 AD) experienced the transforming power of the Lord’s Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity and rejoiced: YOU OUGHT to know what you have received, what you are going to receive, and what you ought to receive daily. That Bread which you see on the altar, consecrated by the word of God, is the Body of Christ. That chalice, or rather, what the chalice holds, consecrated by the word of God, is the Blood of Christ. THROUGH THOSE accidents (elements of bread and wine), the Lord wished to entrust to us His Body and the Blood which he poured out for the remission of sins. If you have received worthily, you are what you have received, for the Apostle says, “The bread is one; we though many, are one body.” [Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 227, THE TEACHINGS OF THE CHURCH FATHERS, ed. John R. Willis SJ (Montreal: Palm Publishers 1966) 443]
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