The Holy Eucharist is at the root of all holiness. How many
saints have advanced to holiness through the Eucharist? Holiness has always
found its center in the Eucharist. Today we are celebrating the Solemnity of
the Body and Blood of Christ. God recognizes the fact that we are material
beings in embodied souls. God uses sensible signs to lead us to spiritual
realities. This time, God did not just use a sign or symbol. Jesus offered
bread and wine and turned it into His own body and blood. We remember the Holy
Eucharist models, martyrs and saints who discovered the secret in the Body and
Blood of Christ. We can not live without the Holy Eucharist. It is only through
it that we can cope with the toil and exhaustion of this life journey. God is
the source of every good thing and He pours it out on us from the moment of
creation up to the present time. When we receive the bread and wine turned into
the body and blood of Christ during the mass, He becomes a part of us. It is a
call to love Him and be attached to Him. This invitation of God to all of us is
not exclusive and in fact has already been started since the time of Genesis at
the time of Abraham in today's 1st reading. Amen. Hallelujah!
Book of Deuteronomy 8,2-3.14-16.
…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 man live, but by every word that comes forth from
the mouth of the LORD. 14 Do not forget the LORD, your God, who brought you out
of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery; 15 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 16 and
fed you in the desert with manna, a food unknown to your fathers.”
No matter what we're going through we can always rely on God
to uphold and defend our cause. If we claim to be true followers and believers
of our Lord Jesus Christ then we can put a claim on these same blessings and
privileges bestowed on the chosen people of God. His covenant with His people
is everlasting. There is a big difference between a covenant and contract. A contract
is an agreement which is all about an exchange of goods while the covenant is
an exchange of relationships. God wants to have a relationship with us first
and foremost and through it everything else will follow. No poet, writer or
artist can ever describe in words or paint in canvass the love of God. For the
immensity of its beauty and glory is immeasurable and beyond
understanding. The readings for today
point to the fact that we have a responsibility in our hands if we truly claim
that we are a people of God. We have to follow and obey God at all times which
can only be done and fulfilled if we have full knowledge of what God wants us
to do. We’ve got to realize the most essential and important things in life
that we sometimes lose sight of and tend to neglect. Let us not be dissuaded
nor distracted by the allurement of this world and end up losing what really
matters most. Our God is Perfect but we are still part of this imperfect world
thus we are bound to experience the daily struggles of life. This reminds me of
this incident when this lady who was already very careful in her movements
still ended up scraped in her arm. She didn't even figure out how it could have
happened. When we bump into something we usually develop a bruise but we would
sometimes find one without knowing how it came to be. We sometimes get wounded
and bruised even before we know it. Take the example of those people who are
taking medications (anticoagulants) that predispose them to bruise easily.
Well, things happen even if we do not want or expect it but we can always draw
strength and inspiration from today's psalm knowing that God is our Mighty
Healer and Savior. There are times when we are in a hurry to work things out on
our own and forget to peacefully surrender all our concerns to God. That's when
we end up tired and beaten because we've used up all the energy of our mind,
body and soul. It's what usually happens to most of us when we are confronted
with dilemmas. If we have learned how to
truly wait for the Lord then we are not far from that place of peace where God is
leading us. If we look back at what we've been through especially our trials
and difficulties, then we can only feel so blessed and find gratitude in our
hearts for all the things that lead to now. It will always be good to undergo
trials and hardships in life and remain steadfast in the Lord for everything
will pay off in the end. Not a single thing that we've been through for the
glory of God will ever be in vain. Victory is indeed for those who acknowledge
the Son Of God, Jesus Christ. It is only right that we give all glory, honor
and praise to God. Amen. Hallelujah!
Psalms 147,12-13.14-15.19-20.
R: Praise the Lord, Jerusalem .
...Glorify the LORD, Jerusalem; Zion, offer praise to your
God, Who has strengthened the bars of your gates, blessed your children within
you, Brought peace to your borders, and filled you with finest wheat. The LORD
sends a command to earth; his word runs swiftly!... (R) 19 He has proclaimed his word to Jacob,
his statutes and his ordinances to Israel . 20 He has not done thus for
any other nation; his ordinances he has not made known to them.
What a strong statement from Paul in today's 2nd reading. He
reminds us not to become 2 face or in tagalog "doble kara" We've got
to make a stand on which side we really are. Sometimes we have this notion that
we can continue doing what we do even if there is something wrong with it and
just compensate by offsetting it with something good. Eventually things will
toll up on us and would have to make a stand so that we don't end up losing
everything. We must consider everything that we do as an offering to God just
like bread and wine. We offer to the Lord the work of our hands and consider it
a communion and participation in the Body & Blood of Christ. We go through
life without realizing this truth in today's 2nd reading. We end up missing the
whole point and not reaping the benefits that we are supposed to get from it.
The Bread of Life should be understood literally and
sacramentally. If we are to read the previous gospel from John we would see
that Jesus makes a noticeable shift and used the verb "eats",
"drinks" and "feeds". The reaction of His followers in the
gospel of John 6 explain and attest to this. Jesus really meant it when He said
to eat and drink His blood. It is indeed a very hard teaching that we ought to
accept and believe. Take note of John 6:66 (which has the #666) " As a
result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and
no longer accompanied him." We need to be clear of this truth and be
united with Christ in Holy Communion. We must receive with the proper
disposition for this to take effect in our soul. Anyone aware of mortal sin and
receives Communion is receiving unworthily. We must receive worthily otherwise
we are putting judgment on ourselves as St. Paul says"...whoever eats in
an unworthy manner is guilty of profaning our Lord..., he who eats and drinks
without discerning brings judgment upon himself..." (1 Corinthians 11:29) We
have to receive Christ in a state of grace. According to St. Justin, no one may
take part in the Bread and Wine, the Eucharist unless he believes what the
Church teaches is true and lives in keeping with what Christ taught. Unworthy
Communion is a sacrilege. It outrages God more than all other mortal sins
because it attacks not just the 10 Commandments but the Person of Jesus Christ.
It is a profanation, crucifies Jesus Christ in our hearts and brings to
ourselves chastisement. It is a greater crime than in Mt. Calvary
First Letter to the Corinthians 10,16-17.
...Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are
one body, for we all partake of the one loaf...
If we've become too knowledgeable and badly influenced by
this world then time will come when we'll find ourselves totally convinced of
its ideals and truths. It would come to a point whether we like it or not when
we'll find it hard to accept what God is telling us. We'll end up proclaiming one
truth about God but end up doing something contrary to it. There is a battle
being waged at all times for the pledge of our allegiance and we constantly and
continuously become disloyal to God by not totally committing ourselves to Him.
If we do not keep watch then we'll also find ourselves like the Jews in today's
gospel. We have to be totally convinced of the entire truth of who God is, what
God can do and how God can work in our life. Nowadays, people are starting to
become more health conscious. We are very cautious of the kind of food we eat
so that we can properly care for and maintain our physical body. We should have
the same attitude when it comes to our spiritual well being. Today's gospel in St. John is a very hard
teaching. We have to accept, believe and not walk away. The truths of the faith
can only be taught and understood if we have received the Holy Spirit. The
gospel reveals more and more passages pointing to the Mystery of the Trinity
and the Holy Eucharist especially the oneness of God the Father, God the Son and
God the Holy Spirit. St. Francis of Assisi
is a saint that is well known and admired for his holiness during his time and
up to this present day. It was said that for his way of life he followed the
words of Jesus in the Synoptics (Gospel of Matthew, Mark and Luke) but it is in
the Gospel of St. John that he patterned his spiritual life and manner of
prayer. His prayers to God sounded as if he were Jesus Christ speaking to God
the Father Himself. Our prayer should be identified with Jesus our Savior. We need
to have a profound love of the Eucharist and be united and transformed by Holy
Communion. In the feeding of the 5,000, those who were hungry were
satisfied. The faith required of the
believer is more than just being fed physically and satisfied but has to go
beyond it. How long will we be hard of heart? The nature of Jesus’ death on Calvary is a sacrifice. All Christians recognize this
sacrifice as a mystery. That Jesus offered His life on the cross as a supreme
sacrifice but most Christians don’t realize how difficult it would have been
for 1st century Jewish Christians to come to that conclusion. Why?
If we were there on Calvary on Good Friday
even the most devout Jewish disciples would have been unable to describe that
experience as a sacrifice because for them there’s really nothing more to it
than a Roman execution. It took place outside of the walls of Jerusalem , far from the place where there
were no burnt offerings, odors and no priests and thus there is no sacrifice.
And yet in one generation all Christians came to conclude that indeed what
Jesus suffered on the cross was the supreme sacrifice. How did they reach such
a conclusion? Only by looking at Good Friday in a light of what Jesus did on
Maundy Thursday. When He instituted the Eucharist He didn’t simply celebrate
the feast of the Passover He established the Passover of the New Covenant and
it was more than just words. He took bread and said, this is my body which is
given up for you and then he took the chalice and spoke about how this blood of
the new and everlasting covenant will be poured out for the remission of sins
do this in remembrance of me. Was this just a rhetoric and ritual or is there a
reality and truth to what Jesus said and did? The proof that Jesus really gave
us His body and allowed his blood to be poured out for the remission of sins is
precisely given to us there on the cross. But the nature of Jesus’ death on the
cross is illuminated as a sacrifice only by retracing and looking at it in the
light of the Passover of the new covenant. The Eucharist and Calvary
are inseparable. There are 2 sides to
the same sacrifice. Jesus shows us that in His death He did not lose His life
for in the Eucharist He already made His life a gift of love. This love is what
conquers death and the conquest of death is what occurs on Good Friday. As
Catholics we have a lot to teach other Christians who do not understand the
mystery of the Mass.
For indeed it’s the Eucharist that illuminates the mystery of Jesus’ death as a
sacrifice just as Jesus’ death shows us that the Eucharist is more than just
mere ritual but is the mystery of Jesus high priestly act of self giving
love. God is humbling Himself daily in
the altar in the hands of the priest. As we see bread and wine with bodily eyes
we should see it as the Holy Body and Blood, living and true while we remember
what He said in the scripture, "Behold, I am with you even to the end of
the world." We should be always reminded of how blessed we are that we can
eat the body of Christ and drink of His blood everyday if we will it during the
daily masses being offered throughout the world. There is nothing more
rewarding than being able to attend Holy Mass and receive the Holy Communion
everyday. For those who are unable to do this, we ask God for the grace to be
able to do so and for those who are already enjoying this special privilege may
they cherish every moment and continue to persevere. Nothing can beat this
bread, tastes so delicious and filling to the soul! Thanks to God for the Most
Blessed Sacrament. Amen. Hallelujah!
John 6:51-58
“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." 52 The Jews quarreled among themselves,
saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53 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. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks
my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. 55 For my
flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and
drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. 57 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. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven.
Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live
forever.”
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