During the summer months, the Diocese of Bridgeport will be sharing homilies from pulpits all over Fairfield County in an effort to showcase our diversity and our communities of faith.
This week’s guest homilist is Deacon Anthony Cassaneto of St. Lawrence Parish in Shelton.
St. John’s Gospel has rightly been called the “Eucharistic Gospel.” This is so because it is filled with Eucharistic images and language intended to help us go deeper into that mystery of Christ’s Body and Blood. It is the fruit of decades of spiritual reflection on this gift by Jesus’ beloved disciple.
In the Bread of Life discourse, the focus early on in chapter 6 is on faith. Jesus is confronted by the crowd who ask him, “What can we do to accomplish the works of God? Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God that you believe in the one he sent.”
We must first truly believe in Jesus’ divinity and that Jesus is sent by the Father in order to be open to the message that Jesus explicitly teaches us in today’s Gospel: “I am the living Bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will have life forever, and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
The Jewish religious leaders of Jesus’ day quarreled among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat? They were appalled at the idea of eating Jesus’ flesh. Jesus stood his ground against these Jewish religious leaders who were self-righteous, arrogant, and close-minded. Jesus said to them, “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.”
The first reading from Proverbs sees Wisdom calling to her followers: “Come, eat of my food, and drink of the wine I have mixed.” We have a similar invitation in the Holy Eucharist. The food and drink offered to us by Jesus are not symbols or magic. They are truly his Body and his Blood. The person who receives them remains in Jesus, and Jesus in him.
Let me be clear about the effects of receiving the Body and Blood of Christ. When we receive the Lord in Holy Communion we are in an intimate relationship with him. During these sacred moments, we speak to the Lord from our hearts. Thanking and praising him for all the blessings he has bestowed on us. We submit our will to his and grow in the love of the Lord. The transformation of mind and heart occurring as a result of our encounter with the Lord, may be gradual, but in time and through God’s graces, it becomes more significant since it has the potential to change our disposition, attitude, and our persona to be more like Christ. We will then be recognized not so much by what we say, but rather by what we do for each other in love.
“Eucharist,” as you may well know, means “thanksgiving.” Filled with the Holy Spirit, we give thanks to God for inviting us to share in his wisdom, and to partake in the reception of his Body and Blood. The Eucharist is one of the most critical and fundamental beliefs that we hold as Catholics. But accepting and believing in it is not universal.
Many Protestants vary in their understanding of the Eucharist. Several denominations doubt or do not believe in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Rather, they believe that the bread and wine are symbolic and do not change during communion. They view communion as a memorial of Christ’s death and suffering, Recent C.A.R.A. (Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate) surveys of Catholics indicates that 49 percent of Catholics correctly identify what the church teaches, “Jesus Christ is truly present under the appearance of bread and wine.” But 51 percent of Catholics believe, incorrectly, that the church teaches that Jesus is “only symbolically present.” This, my sisters and brothers, is not only troubling but disheartening.
Bob and Penny Lord in their book, This is My Body, This is My Blood: Miracles of the Eucharist, present a powerful story of a Basilian monk from Lanciano, Italy, who was wise in the ways of the world, but not in the ways of faith. He was having a trying time with his belief in the real presence of Our Lord Jesus in the Eucharist.
One morning, while he was experiencing a strong attack of doubt, there was a miraculous moment at the time of consecration. What he beheld as he consecrated the bread and wine caused his hands to shake, indeed his whole body. He gazed at the host in his sacred hands and then slowly turned around to his congregation and said, “O fortunate witnesses to whom the Blessed God, to confound my disbelief, has wished to reveal himself in this Most Blessed Sacrament and to render himself visible to our eyes. Come and marvel at our God so close to us. Behold the Flesh and Blood of our most beloved Christ.” The Host had turned into flesh. The wine had turned into blood.
This miracle occurred in AD 700. As a result of the miraculous event, the monk no longer doubted. The people, having witnessed the miracle, went down on their knees in respect, and thanksgiving for the gift the Lord had bestowed on them. Pilgrims flocked to Lanciano, Italy, to venerate the host turned flesh. We might call this supernatural event the very first Eucharistic revival because belief in the Eucharist had been reborn.
In 1970, an extensive scientific research, using the most modern scientific tools available, was conducted. The results of that analysis were quite stunning. The flesh was real flesh. The blood was real blood. The flesh and blood belong to the human species and have the same blood type (AB). To this day, you can visit Lanciano and can still see the Host-turned-Flesh and the wine-turned-Blood present in the reliquary above the tabernacle on the main altar. Despite this evidence, there are some who still refuse to believe.
Jesus gives us his Blood with his Body in the Eucharist every day to heal us and nourish us.
The real presence in the Eucharist is both a mystery and a gift. If we believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and if we believe that what Jesus said is true, then we must take his words at face value and believe in the Real Presence. It is only by faith that we come to understand the Real Presence in the Eucharist, but it is only through the Eucharist that we come to the fullness of faith.
Christ is present in other ways during the Liturgy: in the words of Sacred Scripture, in the moments of silence, in the hymns and prayers. He is present in the tiny hands of an infant, in the dim eyes of an elderly man or woman and in the sign of peace. In the Holy Eucharist, however, Jesus is present in a unique way. When we approach the priest, deacon, or extra ordinary minister of the Eucharist to receive the Body of Christ we respond to their proclamation, “The Body of Christ” with an audible “Amen” (I believe). How privileged are we who come to the banquet prepared for all who believe in Jesus.
There may be some whom we may know either in our own family or among our neighbors and friends who may have many reasons for staying away from church and the Holy Eucharist. However, the truth is that, no reason is good enough not to respond to God’s invitation to share in His banquet of life and true wisdom. No reason is good enough not to accept the life that Jesus offers us through his Body and Blood. Invite those who have marginalized themselves to come back to church and to the sacraments, most especially the Sacrament of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.
Henri J. M. Nouwen, author of Bread for the Journey writes, “When we gather around the table and break bread together, we are transformed not only individually, but also as a community. We are people from different ages and races, with different backgrounds and histories, who become One Body.” St. Paul also reminds us, “As there is one loaf, so we, although there are many of us, are one single Body, for we all share in the one loaf.”
Not only as individuals but also as a community, we become the Living Christ, taken, blessed, broken and given to the world. May our presence in the world become a living witness of God who is Love.
