Today we continue with the Bread of Life Discourse.  This is no doubt a difficult teaching, just as it was then for the Jews who murmured in today’s reading, and even some of the disciples who walked away later in the chapter.

This teaching of Jesus, along with many other passages, help to form our doctrine of Transubstantiation, the teaching that during Mass, the bread and wine used for Communion become the body and blood of Jesus Christ, and is central to the Catholic faith. Indeed, the Catholic Church teaches that “the Eucharist is ‘the source and summit of the Christian life.’”

But a 2019 Pew Research Center survey found that most self-described Catholics don’t believe this core teaching. In fact, nearly seven-in-ten Catholics (69%) say they personally believe that during Catholic Mass, the bread and wine used in Communion “are symbols of the body and blood of Jesus Christ.” Just one-third of U.S. Catholics (31%) say they believe that “during Catholic Mass, the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus.”

It is probably not a coincidence then that only about a third of Catholics actually go to Mass.  That figure is pretty close here at Nativity, we have 1850 registered parishioners and last weekend 668 came to Mass, or 36%, which is pretty typical for a weekend recently, even before Covid it was 700 or 37%.

But this makes sense, right?  How could someone believe in the True Presence, that Jesus was really truly present in the Eucharist and available every week, and choose not to attend Mass and encounter Him here?

Today’s Gospel was difficult then, and is still difficult now, but it doesn't change the truth of what is happening, what Jesus said then, and what the Church has taught ever since.

Now, normally, in the verses following this reading, we would hear Jesus teach this even stronger.  Despite people’s concerns of cannibalism, and just straight up impossibility, Jesus did not want to leave any doubt that He was not speaking symbolically as 69% of US Catholics today seem to believe.

We need to situate this again, Jesus has just shown he was God through doing the impossible, by feeding 5,000 with five loaves and two fish, and also by walking on water, and then He gives this teaching where He promises us the Eucharist, He promises to give us His body and blood to eat.

Today’s gospel stopped with Jesus saying, “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.”

Now I could continue this next week, however, there is a Feast Day of Mary, the Assumption, which trumps these readings, so I am going to read the Gospel from the Bread of Life Discourse that we miss next week.  It says:

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 phago the soma of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.
54 Whoever trogo my sarx and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.
55 For my sarx is true food, and my blood is true drink.
56 Whoever trogo my sarx‌ ‌‌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 trogo this bread will live forever.”
59 These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

So here is what is really interesting is that in this passage, Jesus actually changes his words, changes the tone to make it even stronger and impossible to think of this symbolically. You can see this on the handout in your pews, those handouts are for you to take home.

Mind you, it would have been easy for Jesus to soften His teaching, to say this was only symbolic or something easier, but He didn’t, He made it more challenging.

So the first several times the word eat is used, through verse 53, it is the common, socially acceptable use, the Greek word, phago.   

But from 54 on, after the Jews begin to fight, Jesus changes the verb and says, you must trogo the flesh of the Son of Man. In the dictionary, phago is just simple eating, I imagine it is polite, like eating with a fork and a spoon.  But this word trogo is defined as to gnaw, crunch or chew.  

When we hear the word gnaw it really makes us think about eating meat off the bone, doesn't it?

So trogo was the word that Jesus began to use to intensify his teaching and he did it to emphasize the reality of physically consuming the Bread of Life that He was promising to give, His flesh.

Furthermore, Jesus had at least two options for the word “flesh” also, but He used the Greek word sarx which could mean nothing other than the physical corporeal reality of His very body, as opposed to using the word soma, which could be interpreted symbolically.  

Jesus wanted to be very clear that the Eucharist was not “just a symbol,” it is His true flesh and true blood, given to us mystically as only God could.

Now when I first heard this, I was completely shocked . It was something I had missed for the first twenty-five years of my life.  

The belief in the real, true presence of Jesus is such a uniquely Catholic belief and I was so shocked because I had almost left my Catholic faith in college, and almost walked away from the pure gift and grace that it is to receive the true presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, to receive His body, blood, soul and divinity.

It’s hard to explain how much this meant to me, just knowing this detail made me dive so much deeper into my faith, because it is like, what else could Jesus have said to us to get us to believe this? What more could He have said, this is just such a powerful teaching that I never knew.  And what else had I been missing all of my life because I was only seeing the scriptures in English?

And I believe this is why many people have walked away from the practice of their faith as well, why they aren’t at Mass, because they can’t believe this particular teaching.

It is no doubt a challenge, and in the early Church Catholics were challenged by this and questions put to them by others, but we have replies from some early saints, Church Fathers and I put them on the handout. St. Justin Martyr said in a letter to the emperor, “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.”

He also emphasized Sunday as the day to pray and worship as a community as did one of my favorite saints, Ignatius of Antioch, who said this in a letter the year 107, “They [heretics] abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again. Those, therefore, who speak against this gift of God, incur death in the midst of their disputes.”

St. Ignatius was put to death that year, 107, and St. Justin Martyr was put to death in 165.  Talk about a strong faith in the Eucharist, and would they have died for a symbol?  Would they have written that strongly in those early documents if it was just a symbol?

And here is what we should remember, Jesus said He is the living bread!  When we receive His flesh, it is from His resurrected body.  Jesus is alive, and He gives us His living flesh supernaturally.

Last week I talked about Eucharistic Miracles and I included it in the handout in case you want to find more info, but, one of the interesting things is that many of these samples tested scientifically have white blood cells present which means they are still living, not dead, because white blood cells die immediately when the organism dies.  This was shocking for the scientists to see as well!

So we still may have questions, others may question us even, how? Why? Questions might remain, and no good or sufficient answers might be given, but this is where our faith kicks in.  We have lots of evidence.  We have lots of witnesses. Will we live it?  Will we attend Mass and worship God truly present to us?

He loves us, this is a sign of His love, the normal way that we encounter Him, a great gift to us.  It is our encounter with the living God who gives us life, life now and life for eternity.  May God give us all the faith to truly say “Amen” or “I believe” when receiving Him at communion.