Fruit, Not Chocolate, Please

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Many people are surprised to hear that I’m not the biggest fan of chocolate.  I’ll eat the occasional Snickers bar, but for the most part I stay away from almost anything chocolate.  It all stems from a time in 3rd grade where I ate way too much chocolate in one sitting and almost got sick.  My last pastor. Fr. Mark Inglot, who said Mass here in November, would tell me from time to time that he would tell people that I loved to receive chocolate for Christmas and Easter, just so he could eat whatever the parishioners would give me.  Instead, I love fruit.  Berries and cherries are my favorite, but I’ll eat almost any kind of fruit, with the exception of papaya: yuck!!

What we eat effects us in many different ways.  Runners tend to eat a lot of carbs before they run long distances.  Apparently it helps give the body what it needs before a run.  Cross country teams often have pasta parties the night before a meet.  Some people don’t eat meat, others only certain kinds of meat for health reasons or other reasons.  But food changes us in one way or another. 

In our first reading, the angel tells Elijah that he has to eat the bread, “‘else the journey will be too long for you!’”  Elijah needs the energy that the bread is going to give him to continue his prophetic mission from God.  That bread gave him the strength to walk forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb, also know as Mt. Sinai.  

Whenever we hear bread in the Old Testament, we, as Catholics, should be reminded of the Eucharist, the bread that is not bread.  And Jesus speaks about that today in the Gospel.  He teaches the Jews that He is the bread of life, and that while the Jews in the desert ate manna and died, whoever eats the bread of life, that is, whoever eats Jesus’ Flesh, will not die, but will live forever.   

That is why the Church teaches, in fidelity to what Jesus taught, that the Eucharist is not merely a symbol of the Body and Blood of Christ, but truly is the Body and Blood of Christ.  We are not merely reminded about Jesus when we celebrate the Eucharist, but Jesus’ glorified Body and Blood becomes present in our midst under the appearance of bread and wine.  But substantially, what makes a thing what it is, we are not eating bread and drinking wine; we are eating the Body of Jesus and drinking the Blood of Jesus.  And this is the way that we can have eternal life.

The Body and Blood of Jesus, as supernatural food, is supposed to change us and change the way we live our lives because it conforms us to Christ.  St. Paul reminds us in the second reading that, for us who have received Jesus into our very bodies, there should be no more “bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling,” and that we are to be “kind to one another, compassionate, [and] forgiving one another as God has forgiven [us] in Christ.”  The Body and Blood of Jesus are meant to change us to become more like Him.  

We fast for 1 hour before Holy Communion from all food and drink except medicine and water because we don’t want to confuse the earthly food–which becomes part of us–with the heavenly food, which makes us part of Jesus.  We are called by St. Paul to discern the Body of Christ and whether we are in a state of grace–that is to say, unaware of any grave or mortal sins–so that we are not joining our grave or mortal sins, where we radically say no to God, with the Body and Blood of Jesus, which is always about making us more like God.  We need to go to confession first if we have grave or mortal sins before receiving the Eucharist so we don’t join our “no” to God with Jesus’ “yes” to God.  If we do receive the Eucharist in an unworthy state, not only do we not become more like Jesus, but we add the sin of sacrilege to whatever other grave or mortal sins we have committed by receiving Jesus unworthily.

That might not seem very welcoming to tell people they can’t come to Holy Communion.  And Pope Francis has reminded us how we are to welcome others.  Yet, we welcoming others is always at the service of giving people the opportunity to encounter Jesus.  To encounter Jesus means that we change for Him, not that He changes for us.  

So when we come to Mass, we should ask ourselves if we are aware of any major ways in which we need to change to conform our life with Jesus’ life and teachings, both in Scripture and through the Church’s teaching office.  If there are major gaps, then we should go to confession, or set up an appointment with me to discuss the situation and what we can do to remedy it, before receiving Jesus in the Eucharist.  I can promise you that I’ll do all that I can to provide God’s healing for whatever ways that are lives are not following Jesus.  That way, having dealt with those obstacles, when we receive the Eucharist, it will truly make us more like Jesus and give us the strength that we need to live as disciples of our Lord.