Truly a Miracle

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    Last Sunday concluded the National Eucharistic Congress, a great gathering from Catholics from all across the United States, some 50,000 people who assembled to witness to their faith in our Eucharistic Lord, and be strengthened by confession, Mass, and talks by world-renown speakers.  How fortuitous and providential it is that, coming off the this great witness of the Church in the United States of our belief that the Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord, Jesus Christ, we now, this weekend, begin a few weeks away from our usual Marcan Gospel accounts, and look towards John and His Eucharistic writings in the sixth chapter of his Gospel account.

From the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves

    It’s funny (perhaps funny is not the right word) that a drop in faith in the Eucharist has happened as priests wrongly interpreted this passage of the multiplication of the loaves and fish as a story about the “miracle” of sharing.  Perhaps you have heard it preached that the boy gives what little amount he has to Jesus, but then the people feel bad because they, too, have food, and so there is enough food because Jesus gets everybody to share.  It’s an interesting hypothesis, but one that is totally implausible if you actually read the Gospel passage.  You basically have to start with the premise that miracles don’t happen, and then read that thesis into this Gospel to create the rather unintelligent explanation that what we heard today was the miracle of sharing.
    How can I say this?  Well, Jesus clearly prays over the bread and the fish, which were not enough for everybody, but then John says that they distributed as much as they wanted, enough for 5,000 men, not counting women and children.  Secondly, after this, the response of the crowd is twofold: they think He is the Prophet (with a capital P), and they want to make Him king.
    The term “The Prophet” refers back to Deuteronomy, chapter 18, where Moses says, “A prophet like me will the Lord, your God, raise up for you from among your own kindred; that is the one to whom you shall listen.”  What did Moses do that a prophet like him would do?  Moses asked God for miraculous bread, and God gave them manna, a bread that they did not anticipate, and which they could only collect the amount they needed; any extra would waste away.  So the people recognize that Jesus is giving them miraculous bread (and we’ll hear more about this in the coming weeks), but not just enough for what they needed; there was some left over.  Jesus went beyond what Moses could do.  
    In seeking to make him king, they recognized some greatness in Him.  Sharing, while we might think it is tough at times, and something which people do not do of their own accord, is not something which would make people want to make Jesus a king.  If anything, it simply shows that they have the power.  They wanted to make Jesus king because they realized that if He could multiple bread and fish, He could be the Messiah, the Davidic ruler of Israel.  So they knew this was not mere sharing.  

    So, too, more Catholics, though not at this parish as much, have started to think of the Eucharist as simply a reminder of Jesus’ presence, or a sign of His presence.  They have abandoned the faith of the Apostles, the Church Fathers (those who came immediately after the Apostles), and the unbroken faith throughout the two millennia of the Church, that the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ.  St. Ignatius of Antioch, who died around the year AD 112 talks about the Eucharist truly being the flesh of Christ.  St. Justin Martyr, who died around the year AD 165 said that while it looks like bread and wine, it “is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.”  Indeed, the first Christians were accused of cannibalism because of these rumors that they were eating the flesh of Jesus.
    There were arguments around the year 1000 about the Eucharist, but it was around how we could understand that we truly received the flesh of Jesus.  In the year 1215, during the Fourth Ecumenical Lateran Council, Pope Innocent decreed that, “[Jesus Christ’s] body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine, the bread and wine having been changed in substance [transsubstantiatis], by God’s power, into his body and blood.”  This word, transubstantiation, is adopted by the Church and echoes throughout the rest of the centuries as our understanding of how what looks like bread and wine actually are, in substance, the Body and Blood of Christ.
    This is no less a miracle than the multiplication of the loaves and fish.  If God can make something out of nothing, whether at the beginning of creation or when Jesus creates bread and fish from fives loaves and two fish, He can certainly change bread into the flesh of Jesus and wine into His blood.  We see this miracle take place each time we come to Mass.
    So how do we respond?  Do we, like the people, acknowledge Jesus as someone special because we encounter this miracle?  Do we want to make Him king of our hearts and lives because He gives us His flesh?  There are more and more stories coming out of the National Eucharistic Congress of the way that the encounter with the Eucharistic Lord changes lives, whether of devout Catholics, lukewarm Catholics, Catholics who had suffered sexual abuse at the hands of priests, or even non-Catholics who met people alive in their faith and wanted to know how to have that joy in their life.  But even though we’re not 50,000 strong here at St. Matthew, it’s the same Lord who makes Himself present on the altar that made Himself present in Indianapolis last weekend, and that multiplied loaves and fish some 2,000 years ago.
    Allow this weekly miracle to change your lives, as God wants it to.  We don’t have to wait for a Eucharistic Congress to know that God is real, and He gives Himself for us in the Sacrament of the Altar.  Have faith in the miracle of the multiplication; have faith in the miracle of transubstantiation.  And let that faith open you up to the graces that God wants to send to change your life!

Showing What We Believe

Solemnity of Corpus Christi
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen].  Recently, pilgrims from across the US started a walking pilgrimage from the four corners of our country: the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Lake Itasca, Minnesota; New Haven, Connecticut; Brownsville, Texas; and San Francisco, California.  The idea is that all of the pilgrimages will leave in time for the Blessed Sacrament to arrive in Indianapolis for the National Eucharistic Congress in July.

Eucharistic Procession at St. Pius X, Flint

    Why would Catholics walk all that way for a piece of bread?  The answer is simple: it’s not a piece of bread.  It is the Lord.  It’s not just a reminder of the Lord.  The Lord doesn’t simply come in and dwell inside the bread.  By the power of the Holy Spirit and the ministry of an ordained priest acting in the Person of Christ the Head (in persona Christi capitis), bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ.  And walking across the country with Christ makes a lot of sense, because the Lord always walks with us on our pilgrimage of life, and at times [like tonight] when we have a chance to walk with our Eucharistic Lord, we take advantage of the opportunity to be with Him.
    But it’s not just about walking with Him.  Our attitude around the Blessed Sacrament, whether walking on the road or even here in the church, says a lot to people about what we truly believe.  I remember hearing a story about a Catholic interacting with a Muslim man.  The Muslim asked the Catholic if he really believed that the bread becomes the Body of the Lord.  The Catholic said, “Of course I do!”  The Muslim man said, “Then why don’t your actions show it?  If Allah [the Arab word for God] were to be in the flesh in front of me, it would change the way I acted in His presence.” 
    Or I recently read in a Matthew Kelly book on the Eucharist a story that Fr. Mike Schmitz told about his days in college.  Fr. Mike related how, during his time in college, he wasn’t as strong in his faith.  He went to Mass, but many things didn’t click.  It was vogue at that time for parishioners to make the unleavened bread which was used for Mass.  When the eucharistic bread is made that way (even according to Church law), it tends to be crumbly.  And crumbs would inevitably fall around the altar.  After Mass, another young college student would gather the crumbs up and reverently consume them.  And college-student Mike Schmitz eventually asked him why.  The student told this story.
    When Communism first started in China, there was a great persecution of the Church.  The government soldiers went to a Catholic Church and beat up the priest, and then locked him in his house, and forced him to watch as they desecrated and destroyed the church at which he served.  They eventually threw out the tabernacle, and and it burst open, consecrated hosts spilling all over the ground.  But the guards wouldn’t let the priest out to tend to the Lord scattered on the ground.  At night, the priest looked out and saw a little Chinese girl slowly approach the place where the consecrated hosts were.  There were still no permissions at this point to receive the Eucharist in the hand, so she crept up to a host, and picked it up the ground on her tongue, reverently receiving it.  Then she scurried back to the darkness, never being noticed by the guards.  She did this night after night, until there was one consecrated host left.   She reverently received the Lord one last time, so that there was no more Eucharist on the ground.  But as she returned this time, she slipped and made a little noise.  The guards noticed her and shot and killed her.  That, the student related, is why he gathered the crumbs, because each crumb was still the Lord.
    How do we approach the Lord?  Would an outside recognize what we believe, Who we believe the Eucharist is by the way we act in church, by the way we receive the Lord, by the way we act outside of church, having just received the Eucharist?  I have been thinking about this a lot over the past few years, and it changed me.  Before, when transferring hosts between two ciboria, the containers that hold the consecrated hosts, I would pour them one into another.  But I was convicted that the way I transferred the hosts was more like pouring out a bag of chips into a serving bowl, not the way I would handle my Lord.  I don’t say that to condemn or criticize other priests; simply to say that I want people to know what I believe by how I act.
    I recently added the chalice veil and burse to our set-up before Mass.  And we have been using for some months the hand patens when I distribute Holy Communion at Sunday Masses.  I know that sometimes it takes a little more time, and sometimes the placement of the paten is a little awkward, but I hope it demonstrates that this is not like standing in line to pick up a snack or even an expensive bottle of bourbon.  During Communion, the Lord of Heaven and Earth is present for us in a unique way, and so we treat everything surrounding it differently to remind ourselves of this great miracle that takes place on millions of altars around the world each day.  We elevate our language and we elevate what we use to communicate just how precious the gift of the Eucharist is.
    As we come forward for Holy Communion today, if we have fasted for at least an hour, if we have gone to confession if we have previously committed a mortal sin, and if our lives conform to the major teachings of the Church in terms of moral theology, I would invite us to think about how we receive?  Am I doing so reverently?  I do not change my behavior to be seen and admired by others, but I change my behavior to reflect the Other who gave His life for me, our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit live and reign for ever and ever.  Amen.