First reading: Proverbs 9:1-6—¨
Psalm: Ps 34:2-7
—¨Epistle: Ephesians 5:15-20
Gospel: John 6:51-58—¨

—Come, eat of my food,—¨and drink of the wine I have mixed!—¨Forsake foolishness that you may live;—¨advance in the way of understanding.—

  

Choices:

Proverbs says that we have a choice between foolishness and the food and wine God gives us. Today we learn that Jesus is the food and wine. In reality our life giving food is His body and blood. Now we have a choice, we can get up, run out of here, and throw-up, we can feast on Jesus’ body and blood, or we can play pretend. Which are the foolish choices, which is the wise one?

Run away:

Running away wouldn’t be unheard of. As Catholics we do things that people think are rather disgusting.

The early Christians were faced with a great amount of criticism because of all that. Justin the Martyr, writing in about 150 to the Roman Emperor, his sons, philosophers and the whole Roman people made defenses of all that Christians do. Writing on the Eucharist to refute the claim that Christians were cannibals he says:

And this food is called among us the Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.

Everything we do was criticized at one point or another. Even the exchange of the sign of peace was once purported to be an exchange of immoral sexual acts.

The funny thing is that the life we are called to is far harder, far more difficult, because its demands are exacting. We abstain from immoral behavior, we sacrifice, we love those who hurt us, we get slapped on both cheeks, we choose to die for the faith, we eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ so as to be, as Justin said, transmuted, that is changed by it.

If anyone were to run away they would run because they are called to take up their cross and follow Christ. If our goal however is eternal life, to live forever, running away would be a foolish choice.

Pretend:

I’ve often wondered about the pretend exercise the Protestant Churches go through. They hand out cups of wine or grape juice and chunks of bread and say that their followers should remember what Jesus did. What’s the point of this pretend exercise?

I can imagine a big sign up front saying: —Come in and let’s play pretend.— In my book this impeaches the Gospel they preach. It allows people to think that the Gospel is a series of choices, I like the loving and happy stuff, the Jesus fish fry, the walking on water, the wine into water, and the partying Jesus but I think I’ll hold off on the suffering, sacrificing, turn the other cheek Jesus. Oh, and definitely, I’m not eating this flesh and blood stuff, He didn’t mean it, just give me a hit of that grape juice.

One might think that they get to eat with no unpleasant body and blood aftertaste. The funny thing about the pretend game without the body and blood aftertaste is that it leaves no memory, makes no change at our core.

If our goal however is eternal life, to live forever, we have to consume Jesus’ flesh and blood. Pretending would be a foolish choice.

Eat:

So we are faced with eating as the wise choice. We choose to forsake foolishness and to eat in all its reality. In eating we are changed and by that eating we obtain everlasting life:

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
has eternal life

A long way from May:

We are a long way from May when first communions remind us of the reality of what we are eating and drinking. The Holy Church is taking this opportunity to remind us of this reality and to assist us in answering the question of why we eat.

From time to time we need to explore these choices and the alternatives to partaking in the Bread of Life. We can run from it, we can pretend its not real, but if we are true to ourselves, to what we know, then we eat.

What to we know:

I think if we are true to what we know, to what we experience, we must say that this eating has changed us. Let’s sit back and think of our first communion, the first time this grace of God infused us. We suddenly experienced an onrushing joy, a closeness to the awesome majesty of God, and a partaking in the eternal banquet. That rush of experience, although it is far away, is as true today as it was then. This is an opportunity to re-experience the reality of what we do every week.

In our Canon we pray that the angels take our offering to God’s altar in heaven and bring down from it the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Picture that. The bread we present, we make, we offer being carried from this altar to the heavenly altar. In return we receive from that altar the perfect bread and the perfect cup and from the eating of that bread and cup we are made new.

Advance:

Proverbs asks us to advance in the way of understanding. By making the right choice, by rejecting foolish choices we advance in understanding. We don’t run, we don’t pretend, we eat and by eating we become more and more human, more in line with the person of Jesus Christ. By eating we find the hard road of the Church to be a happy road and the hard choices become joyful choices. By eating we gain this understanding and clarity. We understand because the eating imparts the grace necessary for understanding.

In eating we advance, we are transmuted, changed by the eating. Jesus tells us that by eating we have life in us. By eating we have Jesus in us and we become in Him. That is a joy filled advance on our road to heaven — the whole reason we eat. Amen.