We believe in the message of eternal life
Twenty First Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)
Over the past five weeks we have been reading from one particular chapter in St John’s Gospel at our Sunday Masses. The normal Gospel readings during this year are taken from St Mark, but we have this intervention. The whole of chapter 6 of St John is devoted to the teaching of Jesus about the Eucharist. It follows the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand.
Last week’s gospel was really the high point of the teaching of Jesus. The Lord offers us an extraordinary promise: “Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day”. We desire to receive Holy Communion because we want to unite ourselves with Jesus as our Lord and Saviour. We embrace the salvation won for us on Calvary.
Holy Communion is firstly the means given to us by Christ by which we unite ourselves with his saving death. At the Last Supper as he held the bread aloft, he said, “This is my body, given for you”. He offered up his life on the cross. It was the atoning sacrifice by which humanity was redeemed.
When he took the chalice he said, “This is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins”. We hear these words at every Mass and we can miss their profound meaning. Jesus knew that he was to be crucified and as the centurion pierced his heart, the last drops of blood poured out. The sacrifice was total and complete. Humanity was redeemed. Forgiveness was granted. The ransom was paid.
The affirmation that follows in St John really only makes sense in the light of the Resurrection. Jesus declares: “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in him”. We come into an intimate, personal communion with the Risen Lord every time we receive Him in Holy Communion. This again is an awesome mystery. Jesus, now risen and glorified, wants to enter into the heart and life of anyone who believes in him and, by receiving Holy Communion desires to be united with him.
This is the great Eucharistic hunger. I want to open up all that I am to Christ, my Lord. I desire to be one with him. St Paul, captured the depth of his hunger for Christ when he said, “For me to live is Christ” (Phil 1:21).
In his letter to the Philippians St Paul gives striking testimony to the depth of his desire to be united with Christ, he states, “I believe nothing can happen that will outweigh the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil 3:8). He later comments, “All I want is to know Christ and the power of his Resurrection” (Phil 3:10).
We come to Mass with this desire deep within us.
In the Gospel today we see that all of this was just too much for the people listening. They rejected his teaching saying that it was “intolerable language”.
Jesus comments that such teaching must be received at the spiritual level, and not just subject to human analysis. He says, “the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life”. It is ultimately faith that enables us to embrace this sublime teaching. Even for some Christians it is beyond their acceptance. They see Jesus’ words as expressing a presence that is only symbolic and not real. The Catholic Church has accepted the teaching as Jesus intended it. We believe in the Real Presence of the Lord in his Body and Blood.
We have had the blessing of the presence of a relic of Bl Carlo Acutis and his display of Eucharistic miracles here in Tasmania over the past weeks. It is now in Hobart. I hope you had a chance to visit the display. Bl Carlo had a deep faith in the Eucharist. He described it as his “Highway to Heaven”. As a young man he would never miss going to daily Mass.
He assembled a display of 160 Eucharistic miracles approved by the Church as a means by which he could promote a deeper faith in the Real Presence. The Eucharistic miracles attest to the desire of God to confirm the faith of believers. Often they occurred to particular people who doubted the truth of the Real Presence. Like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, the Lord intervened so that they faith could be strengthened.
Let us never allow doubts to rise in our hearts. We can take the words of Peter as expressing our personal conviction: “You have the message of eternal life, and we believe, we know that you are the Holy One of God”.
Archbishop Julian Porteous