Discover the Faith

As the Eucharist is a key distinguishing doctrine that separates Catholics and Protestants, today’s readings at Mass drive home the importance of the doctrine. Let us look at the readings individually and then try to tie them together.

The first reading: Dt 8:2-3, 14b-16a
Moses said to the people:
“Remember how for forty years now the LORD, your God,
has directed all your journeying in the desert,
so as to test you by affliction
and find out whether or not it was your intention
to keep his commandments.
He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger,
and then fed you with manna,
a food unknown to you and your fathers,
in order to show you that not by bread alone does one live,
but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the LORD.

“Do not forget the LORD, your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
that place of slavery;
who guided you through the vast and terrible desert
with its saraph serpents and scorpions,
its parched and waterless ground;
who brought forth water for you from the flinty rock
and fed you in the desert with manna,
a food unknown to your fathers.”

In this reading we see a foreshadowing of the Eucharist in the manna that God gave to the Israelites during their journey to the Promised Land. Here we see that this manna will not give life but the word of God will ultimately give life. This points to Jesus who is the word of God who will give eternal life.

Let us now look at the second reading: 1 Cor 10:16-17

Brothers and sisters:
The cup of blessing that we bless,
is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?
The bread that we break,
is it not a participation in the body of Christ?
Because the loaf of bread is one,
we, though many, are one body,
for we all partake of the one loaf.

Here we read Paul exhorting the Corinthians to recognize that the bread and wine that the partake is the body and blood of Jesus Christ.  There is no allusion to a symbolic meaning. This is the real presence he is talking about!

Now let us look at the Gospel: Jn 6:51-58

Jesus said to the Jewish crowds:
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
whoever eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give
is my flesh for the life of the world.”

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying,
“How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
Jesus said to them,
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,
you do not have life within you.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
has eternal life,
and I will raise him on the last day.
For my flesh is true food,
and my blood is true drink.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
remains in me and I in him.
Just as the living Father sent me
and I have life because of the Father,
so also the one who feeds on me
will have life because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven.
Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died,
whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

Here we have Jesus clearly saying that unless you eat his flesh and drink his blood you will not have life in you! This is the fulfillment of the first reading. Jesus is the word of God and whoever eat his flesh and drinks his blood will have eternal life. That is the plain sense of the readings, so why do many Protestants have such difficulty taking the word at face value? Could it be that they see it as a hard teaching much like many of the earlier followers did?

This gift that Jesus gave us was the ultimate gift and it is one that many Christians miss out on. The one thing that troubles me,  as a Catholic, is what Jesus says:

“unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,
you do not have life within you”.

I do truly pray that in some mysterious way the Christians who choose not to believe in the real presence will have eternal life because passages like this give me pause. We as Catholic should see it as our duty to bring as many non Catholics to the table of our Lord Jesus Christ, for it is only in him that we will have eternal life!