Tag Archives: Body of Christ

Aug 4 2012

Jesus: The true bread for life

Sunday XVIII B 2012

In previous weeks I’ve pointed out that most of the Christians of Ephesus would have come to the faith from pagan backgrounds. Different peoples had different gods and different beliefs. In the Greco-Roman world the gods were sometimes referred to as ‘the Immortals’ but there was no suggestion that every human being who died would go to join them. The gods had to be placated. The Romans believed in an underworld which was a place of reward or punishment according to how one had behaved in life. Certainly no one believed in resurrection from the dead to eternal life. We remember how St Paul was mocked in the Areopagus of Athens when he began to speak of resurrection.

Ancient societies had laws, and people who were caught breaking the law were punished. Even so, it is human to see what one can get away with. Some practices which horrify us were tolerated in the ancient world. For instance, the Greeks allowed an unwanted baby to be exposed on a hillside to die of starvation or be eaten by wolves.

We might ask ourselves how we would behave if we did not believe in the sequence: death → judgement → heaven / hell. Perhaps we would not be such upright people as we are today. And if we had been born in a society or a family without any religion, and come to the faith in adult life, we might at times be tempted to fall back into our old ways. I have seen it happen during my years in Africa. That being so, we can understand the earnestness of Paul’s words to the Ephesians today: I want to urge you in the name of the Lord, not to go on living the aimless kind of life that pagans live. Now that is hardly the way you have learnt from Christ, unless you failed to hear him properly when you were taught what the truth is in Jesus.

Do you know anybody who lives the aimless kind of life that pagans live? I doubt if any of them are here in church with us, but I do wonder about the young people who go binge drinking on Friday and Saturday nights. At times I have come across people of mature age who have no purpose in life and just seem to drift along. They are not evil but they visibly waste most of their life.

So Paul isn’t speaking to us in the passage we’ve heard today. Or is he? Listen to this: Your mind must be renewed by a spiritual revolution so that you can put on the new self that has been created in God’s way, in the goodness and holiness of the truth. I’m not perfect; are you? There’s generally room for improvement; we can do better if we try. As you know, we are living the Year of Grace. It’s a time to give thanks for all that we have received from God, and perhaps to refresh those gifts, put them to better use.

In today’s gospel, people whom Jesus had fed miraculously with loaves and fishes catch up with him in Capernaum. He tells them bluntly: I tell you most solemnly, you are not looking for me because you have seen the signs but because you had all the bread you wanted to eat. To them it was a one-off event that they would like made regular. It’s not even clear that all the more than 5000 people knew exactly what had happened. We’ve read the story so we know that the Lord started from 5 loaves and 2 fishes. Many of them may have just been aware that some of the Prophet’s followers told them to sit down on the grass, and then somebody started serving them food – as much as they could eat. A free meal is always welcome!

In St John’s gospel, Jesus doesn’t make many concessions to the ignorance of those who listen to him. Here, for instance, he says: Do not work for food that cannot last, but work for food that endures to eternal life, the kind of food the Son of Man is offering you, for on him the Father, God himself, has set his seal. I suspect that they would have had difficulty understanding this, and still more the Bread of Life discourse which is to follow. We are in the happy position of living long afterwards, in a time when most of the questions have been answered.

So when his hearers ask: What are we to do if we are to do the works that God wants? they are requesting clarification of his work for food that endures to eternal life. They are probably expecting some neat formula, an instruction to say certain prayers or to make certain sacrifices. Instead, Jesus introduces a new meaning for the word ‘work’ when he replies: This is working for God: you must believe in the one he has sent.

Given that these people had enjoyed the meal of loaves and fishes the previous day, it is strange that they should ask Jesus: What sign will you give to show us that we should believe in you? What work will you do? Our fathers had manna to eat in the desert. Traditionally, Moses was credited with obtaining the manna, and so these people are looking for another prophet of the stature of Moses. Without pointing out that he had already given them a sign, Jesus explains that it was really God who had supplied the manna to their ancestors. And God continues to act, for, he adds: It is my Father who gives you the bread from heaven, the true bread; for the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

At this point Jesus alters the subject of his discourse. If these people had listened carefully to the instruction they received each week in the synagogue, and to the sermons they might hear when they went up to the Temple in Jerusalem, they would know that the rabbis often used the word ‘bread’ as a symbol of wisdom. True wisdom, knowledge of God, is necessary for life. That is how he can say: I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never be hungry; he who believes in me will never thirst. Before the time of Jesus, a rabbi commenting on one of the Old Testament references to manna wrote that: “It has been prepared for the righteous in the age to come. Everyone who believes is worthy and eats it”. The rabbi might have been surprised by the way Jesus fulfilled that prediction. Not only did Jesus teach with authority, communicating true wisdom to us, but he continues to feed us with the soul-food that we quite literally eat.

I suggested earlier that in the Year of Grace we might make more use of God’s gifts to us. Specifically, we might give more time to deepening our knowledge of Scripture. That’s the first thing. And the other is to pay more attention to what we are doing when we receive the Body of Christ in the Eucharist. In both situations, with fervour, let us give thanks to God! Q.Howard….

04 & 05-08-2012 

Jun 25 2011

Reflection on the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ

Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ [Corpus Christi Sunday]

One of the  few Australian TV programs that I follow is “Man Vs Wild”. This program is hosted by an ex military man Bear Ghryllis.  He would go for an adventure into different parts of the world, climbing up mountains and cliffs, swimming across dangerous rivers,  crossing deserts, climbing down dark caves and tunnels, etc. But no matter  where he goes,  he always follows one principle, i.e. how to survive through those difficult and challenging  places. Living out this principle, the first thing he does is to look for food and water, as he goes along to  find his way out to a safer place. In a process, he would look for anything edible, and look for anything that might contain water, such as coconuts and bamboo trunks. This just goes to show, food and water are necessary for a person to survive and to live.

Friends, God knows that we need food and water to live. So he provides us with food and drink everyday. Our First Reading today tells us, God provided ‘manna’[ to the Israelites in the desert when they complained for food. The word “manna” possibly comes from the Aramaic man hu, which means ‘what is this?’ which expresses the wonder of the discovery that God’s love and providential care kept is chosen people alive on this substance. Manna was a sticky sweet resin exuded by trees like the tamarisk which on hardening, could be eaten. And when they complained about water, God provided them with water from the rock.  But the manna and the water that the Israelites ate and drank did not assure them of eternal life. ‘They are dead’ as Jesus tells the Jews in our gospel today. However, Jesus did not say this to be cynical to the ancestors of the Jews, but to make them realize that in him, eternal life is offered and assured, as long as they eat his body and drink his blood. This self-proclamation of Jesus seems to have created a hiccup for the Jews. They asked ‘how can he give his flesh to be eaten?”

Our celebration today offers us an answer to this question. Jesus gives his very life to give us life. Through the Holy Spirit, Christ becomes truly present in the Eucharistic species. In the Consecration, the earthly species [i.e. bread and wine] are transformed substantially into a real body and blood of Jesus to become our spiritual food and drink-the special gift from God to us. This is how he gives his flesh for us to be eaten, and this is how he gives out his blood for us to drink. This is how he wants us to enjoy eternal life with him.

When we take communion then we not only receive this to survive or to live but we also welcome and accept God’s offer of eternal life. This Eucharist makes us one, in the body of Christ. This unity then sustains and strengthens us to go on  in our  mission of promoting the cause of God, the cause of  peace, justice, and unity.

Because of this Eucharist and because of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, more especially in the Eucharistic species, the church survives over the centuries amidst the challenges, difficulties, problems, scandals, etc. The Eucharist has been and will continue to be the lifeline of the Church. And being member of this body of Christ, we are  enjoying this very life as well. Because of the ever-continuing presence of Jesus, the Church survives and lives on. Let us therefore, not lose sight of him. For in Him, eternal life is sure and imminent. If we have not welcome Jesus yet in our lives, let’s pray he’d come and dwell in us, to guide and sustain us, and to give us life.

So as we continue to celebrate our solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, let us thank God for this great and special gift of the Eucharist, a gift that assured us not only to survive and to live but also of everlasting life. Let us make this solemnity then resolution to  be more active in our participation in every celebration of the Holy  Eucharist. Amen.

Jun 3 2011

The EUCHARISTIC SPECIES: The REAL body and blood of Jesus Christ

THIS IS POWERFUL!!!!! PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO READ IT AND PASS IT ON  TO OTHERS.

Dear friends this is a homily given by Father Jeffrey Montz, distributed by his friend. This is a very moving reflection on how real the body and the blood of Jesus that we always receive in the celebration of the Holy Mass. 

Here is Fr. Jeff’s Homily:

I am the bread of life. In the year 2009, I was distributing communion to the faithful when a young woman approached and extended her hands to receive the Eucharist. Almost as soon as I had placed the Host in her hands, she began moving away and in the process she dropped the host. Standing over the fallen Host lying on the ground, a slight giggle, shrug of the shoulders, and re-extended hands, her body language said to me, ‘Ooops, I dropped it. Can you give me another one?

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.

August 15, 1996 an elderly Eucharistic minister was distributing the Precious Body of Christ to the faithful in a parish in Buenos Aires , Argentina when a similar accident occurred. Not wanting to consume the Host because it was dirty after falling to the ground, he asked the priest to pick it up. Reverently the priest placed the Host in a receptacle of water and put it into the Tabernacle where it would dissolve with time. Six days later when the priest examined the Host that should have been dissolved by now, he was perplexed by what he saw. The Eucharist seemed to have grown in size and was covered with red splotches. 

Leave it for a few more days, he thought; it’s just a matter of time. But then with each passing day the Sacred Species took on the appearance of coagulated blood, until eventually the Host looked like a piece of flesh. The bread that I will give is my flesh. A miracle! Perhaps, but first this had to be investigated. A lab in Buenos Aires examined a sample from the Host. The scientist discovered red blood cells, white blood cells, and hemoglobin, but what perplexed him the most was that the cells were moving and beating. 

Three years later Dr. Ricardo Gomez was called in to perform a more thorough examination. He sent a sample from the Host to a lab in New York but didn’t tell them what it is; he wanted them to tell him what it is. They did. It’s a  living muscle from a human heart.

Now the year is 2004, Dr. Gomez had located a unique doctor named Frederick Zugibe whose expertise in examining the heart of a dead person allows him to know the nature of the person’s death. He too was given an opportunity to examine the Host without knowing that this heart was formerly a round wafer of wheat bread. His findings? 

The heart belonged to a person who had been severely tortured. So Pilate wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified. 

After his examination, Dr. Zugibe passionately said to Dr. Gomez, You have to explain one thing to me, if this sample came from a person who was dead, then how could it be that as I was examining it the cells of the sample were moving and beating? If this heart comes from someone who died in 1996, how can it still be alive? When Dr. Gomez explained to Dr. Zugibe that it was the Eucharist, he nearly pulled his hair out of his head in shock. 

Backtrack to the 8th Century in Lanciano, a town in southern Italy where a priest was celebrating the Mass doubting that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist. As he raised the Host, it instantly transformed into a piece of flesh in his hands. In the 1970′s this piece of flesh, which remains available for veneration to this day, was tested by a leading Italian doctor. His findings? It is living muscle from a human heart. Dr. Gomez decided to cross examine the Host from Buenos Aires with this Host from Lanciano.

Amazingly, both hearts were found to have come from the same person. 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. My brothers and sisters, our faith proclaims to us the wondrous mystery that Jesus Christ is truly, really, and substantially present in the Eucharist, the Bread of Life. It’s no mere symbol, no mere reenactment. It is the Precious Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ! What I place in your hand or upon your tongue is not a ritual piece of bread. I place God in your hand! I place God on your tongue! 

I know that even after telling you the story of the Eucharistic miracle in Buenos Aires , I haven’t proven this. I can never prove this truth, because it’s a matter of faith. However, all I’m asking my brothers and sisters is that you ponder the story I shared with you this morning. 

Perhaps, the skeptic in you calls it all a bunch of lies. Perhaps, the unimpressed call it a coincidence.  

Perhaps you’re a person of faith and you’re in awe at what I’ve shared with you. All I ask is that if there’s the slightest inkling in your hearts that what you receive in the Eucharist is the flesh of God, then please my brothers and sisters, never let the lance that pierced my heart in 2009 when that young woman stood carelessly over God’s fallen Body pierce my heart again. Please treat this mystery which you receive with the reverence God deserves. 

HERE IS FR. JEFF’S RESPONSE TO ME WHEN I ASKED PERMISSION TO PASS HIS HOMILY ON TO YOU. Hey, I’ve heard it said that in any good homily we’re really preaching to ourselves. That being said, as familiar as I was with the homily before I delivered it, I found that in delivering it to the people it still had an effect upon my heart. For lack of better words it stirred me. Afterwards, I found that my celebration of the Eucharistic Prayer was even more meaningful. I can’t express how moved my heart was as I said those words, “This is my body.” Those words seemed to flow from my heart as if they were flowing directly from the Heart of Christ. The tone of those words almost became a tone of pleading on Jesus’ part, “This is my body,” “please believe me; this IS my body and I want all of you to believe and to receive my Heart of Love!” We are so blessed to have the Eucharist!!! Anyways, I’d be happy if you should share this homily with others; these are the miraculous stories that God wants us to share so that our faith can be strengthened. As it says in the Scriptures, “Encourage one another while it is still day.” It’s sort of like the Transfiguration which was revealed to Peter, James, and John so that they could persevere through the Passion and death of Jesus. And I wouldn’t even mind if you didn’t give me credit. After all, it is God who deserves all the credit on this one; I just did the typing. Blessed be the Name of the Lord now and forever!