Pastor's Ponderings | August 7, 2022
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August 8, 2022This morning as I was returning the Blessed Sacrament to the tabernacle, after communion, my mind was taken over with thoughts of vanilla wafers. I had put some in my lunch bag and was thinking about how they would be so good in the yogurt I had also brought from home. It only took me a second to realize that the Food I had in my hand was the most important food that I would ever need. As good as those vanilla wafers were, and they were, they play absolutely no part in helping me become holy or extraordinary.
We sometimes forget that the Eucharist, the real presence of Jesus Christ, is given to us as food for our journey to eternal life. This “food” is given us so that we can have the strength to persevere in good times and in times of challenge. This food is given to us to remind us of the reality that, on the cross, Jesus gave his all, emptied himself, so that we could be filled with his grace and his mercy. This food, which we chew on, reminds us that through the destruction of His human body, Jesus restored dignity to our souls and made possible our re-entry, body, and soul, into paradise.
Unfortunately, survey after survey reveals that most Catholics do not believe that the Eucharist is the actual body and blood of Christ. I am not sure what they believe the Eucharist is; a symbol of Jesus? and icon of Jesus? A reminder of Jesus? Sadly, if we do not believe that what we are presented in the communion line is the real body and blood of Christ, if our “amen” is anything less than a declaration that we are receiving the very body and blood of Christ, than we are deceiving ourselves and robbing the Eucharist of its power to change our lives.
On the night before he was to be nailed to the cross, Jesus gathered his apostles for the most sacred meal of the year and declared that what he was giving his apostles was his body and his blood. He told them that this gift would be food for their journey to holiness and that they would become what they received. As such, these apostles, whose feet were now clean and whose souls were being nourished by the precious body and blood of Christ were energized to go and make disciples of the whole world.
The majority of those who were present for the last supper would indeed give their lives for the gospel of Jesus Christ. They had the strength and the courage to do this because they knew that the “food” Jesus gave them was powerful. They knew that the food that Jesus gave them did more than nourish their bodies. It gave them courage and hope, it filled them with mercy and love, it strengthened them with patience and perseverance. It gave them the grace they needed when they needed it. The apostles humble and faithful reception of the body and blood of Christ at the last supper has ensured that, thousands of years later, we too can share in this lifegiving meal.
As we, the new disciples of Jesus Christ, gather around the table of the Eucharistic meal, we too are being sent out into the world to share what we have received. We are being sent out into a world that is religiously under educated and becoming increasingly more hostile to people of faith. We are being sent into a world that continues to devalue life and family. We are being sent to a world where the search for Truth has been replaced with speaking my truth and seeking to be on the right side of history.
The Eucharist that Jesus gave at the Last Supper, and the Eucharist that we receive day after day from the holy altar of our churches is the same food that gave the apostles their strength and their courage. This is the food that will allow us to boldly proclaim, in word and deed, that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. This holy meal means that there is reason to hope because we know that good will overcome evil. The body and blood of Christ is the food that gives us the courage to face what otherwise would cause us fear and anxiety. The body and blood of Christ is what gives us the wisdom to pass on to the next generations the good news that in Jesus we have the food of eternal life.
A momentary distraction, caused by vanilla wafers, is enough to remind us all, that what we receive in the Eucharist is not of this world but gives us all we need to live well, to be happy, to strive for perfection as we live in this world. The real and awesome presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist is a gift Jesus has given to us as we follow him to our exalted destiny. If we think otherwise than we are missing out on the most nutritious and lifegiving food the world has ever known.
