Friday, May 9, 2025

 

Friday of the Third Week of Easter

(Acts 9:1-20; John 6:52-59)

People have searched for the perfect food.  They want a natural source of all the necessary protein, carbohydrates, fat, and nutrients.  Eating this food, they would never worry about balancing their diet.  Nutritionists, however, say that no such food exists.  Of course, there are eatables that are very healthy, but no single food can sustain a person indefinitely.  So, what is Jesus talking about in today’s gospel?  He says, “Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood has eternal life?” What does he mean by this?

The passage marks a turn in the “Bread of Life” discourse.  Jesus is no longer referring to receiving him by heeding his teaching as what gives life.  Rather, he is pointing to the Eucharist.  It is the bread transformed into his Body and the wine made into his Blood that give eternal life.  Two additional points need to be made.  First, Jesus is not saying that the Eucharist will sustain natural life.  Rather, they provide life in God’s company for eternity.  Second, eating his Body and drinking his Blood is tantamount to receiving him and heeding his teaching.  Anyone who does not believe in Jesus or has not followed his teaching does not benefit from the Eucharist but puts him or herself in peril.  It will bring that person condemnation, not life.

The Eucharist on a spiritual plane is like a balanced diet on a natural plane.  As we eat healthy food to keep us alive, we need the Eucharist to enjoy life with God forever. 

Friday, April 19, 2024

Friday of the Third Week of Easter

(Acts 9:1-20; John 6:52-59)

For over fifty years dialysis has extended the lives of countless patients with compromised kidneys.  Like the kidneys, dialysis purifies the blood of contaminants that would bring about death if unchecked.  The gospel reading today tells how the Flesh and Blood of the Eucharist similarly extends the spiritual lives of Christians.

The matter has always been controversial as the opening phrase indicates: “The Jew quarreled among themselves…” The Reformed Church split with the Catholic Church largely over this issue in the sixteenth century.  By accepting that Eucharistic bread becomes the Body of Christ and Eucharistic wine becomes his Blood, the Catholic Church sees partaking in this food and drink as nourishing the eternal life planted in Baptism.  Without this enrichment, the baptized person is likely to lose the faith, hope, and charity initially imparted by the Spirit.

We must take care not to trivialize the Eucharist.  The Church calls us to partake of it every Sunday so that Christ’s life might grow within us.  We should no more skip Mass than a kidney patient should skip dialysis.

Friday, April 28, 2023

 Friday of the Third Week of Easter

(Acts 9:1-20; John 6:52-59)

Many people today are concerned about quality of life.  The elderly worry about having good health in retirement.  For them quality of life is not to have to live with chronic pain and, even more critical, not to lose their minds.  Meanwhile, young people consider quality of life in economic terms.  For them to have a high quality of life means to have the money to buy season tickets to their favorite sports team’s home games and to take a cruise every other year.  In today’s gospel Jesus has an alternative conception of quality of life to consider.

Of course, Jesus does not use the term quality of life at all.  Rather he speaks of having his life within.  His life is much more than biological life, which bread and wine by themselves can sustain.  No, he means eternal life or life in abundance which comes from participating in God’s love.  It is a life of gratitude because one is assured of God loves for her or him.  The Eucharist, Jesus’ gift of his body and blood, depicts this perfectly.  Derived from the Greek language, the word means to be thankful. 

We are a Eucharistic people -- a people who continually give thanks to God.  Yet we strive to become ever more so.  We see the efforts people make for us and thank them.  We recognize how we have benefitted from the work of people in times past and feel a sense of gratitude for them as well.  Even if our quality of life is not that great in the eyes of others, we know differently.  Sick or well, poor or rich, we enjoy a high quality of life because we know of God’s love for us and are thankful for it. 

Friday, April 23, 2021

 Friday of the Third Week of Easter

(Acts 9:1-20; John 6:52-59)

Bishops are worried today because most American Catholics do not believe that Christ is really present in Holy Communion.  According to professional polls, most Catholics think that the bread and wine are only symbols for Christ.  In today’s gospel Jesus refutes this mistaken idea.

The Jews in the gospel question the doctrine of the Church.  They say, “’How can this man give us his Flesh to eat?’”  They probably would have less trouble in thinking of the bread and wine as symbols representing a spiritual communion with Christ.  This is what Calvinist Protestants have believed since the sixteenth century.  But the gospel is imminently clear.  It cites Jesus saying that to have his life, one must eat his flesh and drink his blood.

Of course, accepting that the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ defies the senses.  The bread and wine still look like bread and wine after the consecration at mass.  The Church offers the doctrine of transubstantiation to explain how the change takes place.  Fine, we accept that.  But we also something else.  The Old Testament tells us that God’s ways are not our ways.  What God has revealed is greater than our imaginations can conceive.  Saying that bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus Christ goes hand-in-hand with the other great truths of faith.  That we take sustenance from his very body is as consoling as God becoming human to accompany us on the sojourn of life.  That we imbibe his very blood is as hopeful as knowing that we are Jesus’ brothers and sisters destined like him to rise from the dead.

Friday, May 1, 2020

(Optional) Memorial of Saint Joseph the Worker

(Acts 9:1-20; John 6:52-59)

Today much of the Church celebrates St. Joseph the Worker.  The feast reminds Christians of the dignity of human work.  Just as Joseph plied his trade to provide for his family so do billions of workers today.   The gospel suggests that Jesus too put food on the tables of his followers.

The gospel is unequivocal.  Jesus provides true food with his body and true drink with his blood.  These elements can hardly be considered ordinary food and drink.  They represent Jesus’ total sacrifice of self.  The also nourish one not just to live today but to thrive eternally.  The difference here is monumental.  It is like that of an entertainer saying, “I love you all” and a spouse saying to his bride on their wedding day, “I will love you until the day I die.”

We will see if the pandemic’s closure of churches results in a greater longing for the Eucharist.  Many people have commented how much they miss receiving Communion.  Hopefully, this longing will translate in regular reception of Communion when public masses resume.  May it all bring about a closer imitation of Jesus’ sacrifice of self for others.

Friday, May 5, 2017

Friday of the Third Week of Easter

(Acts 9:1-20; John 6:52-59)

Many people today are concerned about quality of life.  The elderly worry about having good health in retirement.  For them quality of life is not to have to live with chronic pain and, even more critical, not to lose their minds.  Meanwhile, young people consider quality of life in economic terms.  For them to have a high quality of life means to have the money to buy season tickets to their favorite sports team’s home games and to take a cruise every other year.  In today’s gospel Jesus has an alternative conception of quality of life to consider.

Of course, Jesus does not use the term quality of life at all.  Rather he speaks of as having his life within.  His life is much more than biological life, which bread and wine by themselves can sustain.  No, he means eternal life or life in abundance which comes from participating in God’s love.  It is a life of gratitude because one is assured of God loves for her or him.  The Eucharist, Jesus’ gift of his body and blood, depicts this perfectly.  Derived from the Greek language, the word means to be thankful. 

We are a Eucharistic people -- a people who continually give thanks to God.  Yet we strive to become ever more so.  We see the efforts people make for us and thank them.  We recognize how we have benefitted from the work of people in times past and feel a sense of gratitude for them as well.  Even if our quality of life is not that great in the eyes of others, we know differently.  Sick or well, poor or rich, we enjoy a high quality of life because we know of God’s love for us and are thankful for it. 

Friday, April 24, 2015

Friday of the Third Week of Easter

(Acts 9:1-20; John 6:52-59)

Fifty years ago Catholics were strictly forbidden to participate in Protestant services.  Today they may enthusiastically sing Protestant hymns, listen to Protestant preaching, and join hands with Protestants for prayer.  But Catholics should never receive Communion from Protestants.  The reason for this strict prohibition is implied in the gospel today.

Jesus tells the synagogue assembly that his Flesh is real food and his Blood, real drink.  He is referring to the Eucharist which he will leave for his disciples.  The Flesh is real food because it is made from bread.  The Blood is real drink because it is produced from wine.  Yet it is not bread and wine that his followers consume but, again, his Flesh and his Blood.  Protestants generally do not accept the new substances that the bread and wine become.  But even if they do, there has been a breach in the line of their ministers receiving ordination from Jesus’ apostles.

In some ways relations between Catholics and Protestants have never been better.  Still serious differences exist, and at times the rivalry between us and them is intense.  Because we all claim Jesus as Lord, we should cooperate as much as possible.  We should also pray for the day in which we can partake with integrity and together of Jesus’ Flesh and Blood.

Homilette for Friday, May 1, 2009

Friday of the Third Week of Easter

(Acts 9:1-10; John 6:52-59)

St. Thomas Aquinas uses Aristotelian categories to answer the question of the Jews, “’How can (Jesus) give us his flesh to eat?’” He explains that the substance, or underlying nature of bread, is changed into the substance of Jesus’ flesh while the accidents, or qualities that we see and touch, remain those of bread.

This process of change, called transubstantiation, has served the Church through the centuries. Still some people do not accept Aristotelian categories and others cannot comprehend them. Even those who can understand and do accept the explanation must admit that the change takes place miraculously. It is a matter of faith in Scripture. Three of the gospels and Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians testify that Jesus told his disciples to offer the bread as he did at the Last Supper when he said, “This is my body.”

We believe that Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist is an act of God. Like resurrection from the dead, it defies ordinary experience. Yet it does help us appreciate our need to attend mass on Sunday or, for many of us, every day. We participate in the mass with others so that we might be brought together in Christ and with these same companions might experience the eternal life eating his flesh promises.