Homily for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time

 

1 Kings 19:4-8

Ephesians 4:30-5:2

John 6:41-51

For the third consecutive week, Holy Mother Church places us in the sixth chapter of the Gospel according to St John, in what many Catholic scholars consider John's Eucharistic passage.  John's Eucharistic detail comes in the 6th Chapter of his Gospel, because it is here that Jesus recounts what the Eucharist really is and what it really means.

The Gospel of John, like the other three Gospels, contains an account of what happened at the Last Supper. In the other three Gospels, however, there is an account of the institution of the Eucharist, and Saint Paul reaffirms that account in 1 Corinthians 11:27-32. Interestingly, John's account of the Last Supper doesn't contain an account of the institution of the Eucharist itself on the first Holy Thursday, but instead it contains this lengthy exposition from Jesus in what we know today as the Sixth chapter of John. It's known as the Bread of Life discourse, and we've just heard in this passage why it's called that. Many Catholic biblical scholars believe that this is John's Eucharistic account, his passing along to us one of the most doctrinally important passages in the entire New Testament.

Jesus makes very clear what he means, and his listeners understood it also, which is why we will hear in a couple of weeks time in the Gospel at Sunday Mass the end of this chapter when so many of the people who are listening to Jesus here say "Lord, this saying is hard and who can hear it." (cf. John 6:60-71) Jesus said it very clearly in the Gospel today in our own hearing. "I am the living bread which came down from Heaven, and if any one eats of this bread he shall live forever, and the bread which I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."

Many of our separated brothers and sisters will take this entire passage of Scripture, indeed the entire 6th chapter of John to mean something purely symbolic. I won't spend time today giving the cliche arguments against that position, I'm going to presume you're familiar with them. If you are not, I will say that even though those arguments are very true, I don't think they're the most effective to prove the point that Jesus wasn't speaking symbolically. The reason that we can tell that Jesus was speaking literally was the reaction of the crowd, many of whom, the larger chapter tells us, had been disciples of Jesus before that day, they understood exactly what he meant, and many of them walked away. 

The reality of the Eucharist is so central to our faith that when he was teaching about it, Jesus was more than willing to lose followers over it, people who probably otherwise would have been fine disciples of the Lord. But the teaching of the Eucharist was too much for them, it was that serious for Jesus. At the end of the chapter we even get a hint that maybe the remaining 12 didn't entirely understand what Jesus meant, because he asked them if they would also go away, and you have to love Peter's response when he said "Lord, where shall we go, you have the words of eternal life." Considering the situation in the Church today, there have been many many times in recent years when I have had to remind myself of Peter's words, I would say that many of us probably have.

Our Lord took the teaching of the Eucharist so seriously that when we look at it in the Sacred Scripture today it takes up an entire chapter of the Bible with him explaining it and explaining it again. If it was serious enough to Jesus to spend that much time on one particular teaching of our faith, if we are going to live the way we are called to live and be like Christ then we need to take the Eucharist as seriously as Jesus did and does.

Some three weeks ago on July 16th, there were two Church documents released on the same day. One of those documents received a whole lot of attention in the Catholic media and it's continuing to receive attention. The other one should have gotten much more attention, because the contents of the second document are far more immediately important for the welfare of our immortal souls. The document that should have gotten far more attention and didn't was a pastoral letter by our own Bishop Richard Stika on the matter of sin and the worthy reception of Holy Communion. The Bishop released it to everyone, and you can find it on our diocesan website, but it didn't get a whole lot of coverage in the media. Because of that, you can be forgiven for not knowing about it, but if you want to see everything the bishop had to say, you can look on the website or you can email me. 

The topic of worthiness to receive Holy Communion is sometimes called Eucharistic cohesion. Those words have been in the Catholic news in recent months because the US Bishops are working on a document about it, but our own Bishop's pastoral letter highlights a number of things about worthiness to receive the Eucharist that Catholics ought to know and about which there should be no argument. The Bishop reminds us that of course no one is truly worthy, but that when we approach the altar of God to receive Holy Communion we should be in a state of grace. Unless we are exceptionally saintly, that means availing ourselves of sacramental confession as often as possible. I often remind myself that among humanity, only the Blessed Mother was immaculately conceived. (In his letter, the bishop recommended confession at least once a month or more).

His Excellency also spoke to the controversial issue of public figures who give grave scandal by making a very public profession of their Catholic faith before the world while supporting, promoting, and even publicly funding the terrible Holocaust of abortion. Bishop Stika very rightly says that those who use their public position to promote abortion "cannot be admitted to Holy Communion." (Pastoral 17)

The Church does not tell us these things in order to be unwelcoming or uncaring. It is for the good and the salvation of our own souls that the Church reminds us of the conditions whereby we can and should receive Holy Communion. St. Paul put it perhaps most bluntly of all when he said that those who receive the Eucharist unworthily "will be guilty of profaning the Body and Blood of the Lord." (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:27).

Jesus tells us that He is the living bread who comes down from Heaven, and that if anyone eats of this bread he will live forever, and the bread that Jesus will give is his flesh. Many of us might have heard of the consistent surveys which tell us that only about 30% of Catholics claim to believe in the real presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. I have always prayed that those numbers are untrue. It is not unreasonable, however, to say that many more people would believe in the truth of Christ's real presence in the Eucharist if more of the world could see us treating the Eucharist as if the Eucharist is the Second Person of the Trinity, God who is Holy. The Blood shed for us and the Body given up for us. For if we behave in such a way that shows the world that the Eucharist is Christ, we will understand what it means to receive Jesus worthily, and we will all want to do so.