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Homily of the Day

Title:	"I'll Always Be Here for You"
Author:	Monsignor Dennis Clark, Ph.D.
Date:	Sunday, May 29, 2005

Jn 6:51-58

A man was walking down the street when he passed a house and saw a child on the porch, stretching to reach the doorbell. No matter how hard the little fellow tried, he couldn't reach that bell. So the man called out, "Hey, there, let me give you a hand." And he came up on the porch and rang the bell.

"Thanks, mister," said the tyke with a huge smile. "Now, let's run.."

Running away is a temptation that comes to us all. Sometimes, just for a moment, even the bravest of us would like to run away as hard and fast as we can because life seems just too much: work, family, friends, tests, contracts, TV, our own selves. Some days all of them or any one of them can make us want to run far and fast and let someone else clean up the mess. "Forget love and duty. I don't care what happens, just get me out of here!"

We've all thought it or said it, and sometimes we've done it. The temptation to run is real, and because it is real, it gives birth to a powerful kind of fear, the fear of being abandoned and left all alone.

We know only too well our own temptation to run, so it's only a short hop to the other side of the equation. What if everybody gets fed up with me, and runs away and leaves me all alone? What if God finally gets fed up with me, and leaves me all alone forever and ever? What if...?

The eucharist is the Lord's answer to that terrifying "what if." In giving us his own body and blood to be eaten as often as we need it, Jesus is saying, "I'll always be here for you, and I'll never run away. Whenever you come to me, I'll nourish your spirit. I'll make you strong when you're weak. I'll be medicine for your heart, and I'll heal you on the inside when you've been wounded there."

That's the promise Jesus made when he first gave us his body and blood, and it's the promise he renews every time we receive the eucharist.

And what does he ask in return? Only that we not run away, not run away from our commitments or our challenges, not run away from ourselves or our need to change, and most especially, that we not run away from those who need us.

At the moment of communion, as the host is held up before us and the priest speaks aloud, "The Body of Christ," the Lord whispers to our hearts: "I'll always be here and always be enough for you. So promise me you'll never run away."

And we answer, "Amen. Yes, Lord. I know you are here; and you will always be enough for me. I promise I'll never run away. Amen, Lord. Amen."

		My son, who made his First Holy Communion this spring, had a very upsetting experience. His friend, who attends a different parish and who also was making his First Holy Communion, said to my son, "Oh, it’s just bread and wine." My son was crushed, because he has been taught that Holy Communion is the Body and Blood of Jesus. I reassured him of the truth, but am I missing something?

In This Article... Source and Summit of the Whole Christian Life Open Your Eyes and Recognize the Lord No Ordinary Food and Drink


Source and Summit of the Whole Christian Life As Catholics, we firmly believe that the Real Presence of Christ is in the Holy Eucharist. The Second Vatican Council's Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests (Presbyterorum Ordinis) asserts, The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate are bound up with the Eucharist and are directed towards it. For in the most blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ Himself, our Pasch and the living bread which gives life to men through His flesh — that flesh which is given life and gives life through the Holy Spirit" (#5). For this reason, the Council referred to the Holy Eucharist as the source and summit of the whole Christian life (Lumen Gentium, #11). Our belief in the Holy Eucharist is rooted in Christ Himself. Recall the beautiful words of our Lord in the Bread of Life Discourse in the Gospel of St. John: I Myself am the living bread come down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread he shall live forever; the bread I will give is My flesh, for the life of the world. Let Me solemnly assure you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. He who feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood has life eternal, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is real food and My blood real drink. The man who feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood remains in Me, and I in him. Just as the Father Who has life sent Me and I have life because of the Father, so the man who feeds on Me will have life because of Me (Jn 6:51, 53-57). Note that none of this language is symbolic — Jesus meant what He said. Moreover, even when there was grumbling and objections, and even after some disciples abandoned our Lord because of this teaching, Jesus nowhere said, "Oh please, stop. I really meant this symbolically." Our Lord stood by His teaching. The meaning of Bread of Life Discourse becomes clearer at the Last Supper on the first Holy Thursday. There Jesus gathered His apostles to share what was literally His last supper. According to the Gospel of St. Matthew, Jesus took unleavened bread and wine — two sources of basic nourishment. He took the bread, blessed it, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to the Apostles, saying, "Take this and eat it; this is My body." He took the cup of wine, gave thanks, gave it to His Apostles and said, "All of you must drink from it for this is My blood, the blood of the covenant, to be poured out on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins." If we extracted the words of consecration recorded in the Last Supper accounts of the Gospels and distilled them, we would have the words of consecration used at Mass. (Cf. Mt 26:26-30; Mk 14:22-26; and Lk 22:14-20.) Think of those words! Jesus was not just giving to the Apostles blessed bread and wine. He was giving His whole life — Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. He was giving His very self. How true that was! The next day, Jesus's body hung upon the altar of the Cross. His blood was spilled to wash away our sins. As priest, He offered the perfect sacrifice for the remission of sin. However, this sacrifice was not death-rendering but life-giving, for three days later our Lord rose from the dead conquering both sin and death. Yes, the perfect, everlasting covenant of life and love with God was made by our Lord Jesus Christ. Open Your Eyes and Recognize the Lord This whole mystery is preserved in the Most Holy Eucharist and the Sacrifice of the Mass. We too take unleavened bread and wine, two sources of nourishment. By the will of the Father, the work of the Holy Spirit, and priesthood of Jesus entrusted to His ordained priests, and through the words of consecration, that bread and wine is transformed into the Body and Blood of Jesus. Yes, the bread and wine do not change in characteristics — they still look the same, taste and smell the same, and hold the same shape. However, the reality, "the what it is," the substance, does change. We do not receive bread and wine; we receive the Body and Blood of Christ. We call this "change of substance" transubstantiation, a term used at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and asserted again by our Holy Father in Ecclesia de Eucharistia (#15). Therefore, each time we celebrate Mass, we are plunged into the whole everpresent, everlasting mystery of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter, and share intimately in life of our Lord through Holy Eucharist. In Ecclesia de Eucharistia, John Paul highlighted these very points: At every celebration of the Eucharist, we are spiritually brought back to the paschal Triduum: to the events of the evening of Holy Thursday, to the Last Supper, and to what followed it. The institution of the Eucharist sacramentally anticipated the events which were about to take place, beginning with the agony in Gethsemane (#3). Moreover, in and through the Holy Eucharist, our late Holy Father taught that we can contemplate the face of Christ because He is truly present: To contemplate Christ involves being able to recognize Him wherever He manifests Himself, in His many forms of presence, but above all in the living sacrament of His Body and Blood. The Church draws her life from Christ in the Eucharist; by Him she is fed and by Him she is enlightened. The Eucharist is both a mystery of faith and a "mystery of light." Whenever the Church celebrates the Eucharist, the faithful can in some way relive the experience of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus: "their eyes were opened and they recognized Him" (#6). The Catholic Church has always cherished this treasure. St. Paul wrote, I received from the Lord what I handed on to you, namely, that the Lord Jesus on the night in which He was betrayed took bread, and after He had given thanks, broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, after the supper, He took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." Every time then you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes! (I Cor 11:23-26). No Ordinary Food and Drink During the days of Roman persecution, to clearly distinguish the Eucharist from the cultic rite of Mithra and to dispel Roman charges of cannibalism, St. Justin Martyr (d. 165) wrote in his First Apology, We do not consume the Eucharistic bread and wine as if it were ordinary food and drink, for we have been taught that as Jesus Christ our Savior became a man of flesh and blood by the power of the Word of God, so also the food that our flesh and blood assimilate of its nourishment becomes the flesh and blood of the incarnate Jesus by the power of His own words contained in the prayer of thanksgiving. Later, the Council of Trent in 1551 addressed the heretical views of the Reformers. Remember Zwingli and Calvin believed that Christ was present only "in sign"; Luther believed in consubstantiation whereby the Eucharist is both body and blood, and bread and wine; and Melancthon believed that the Eucharist reverts back to just bread and wine after Communion. Trent's Decree on the Most Holy Eucharist specified, In the Blessed Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, after the consecration of the bread and wine, our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and man, is truly, really, and substantially contained under the appearances of those perceptible realities. For there is no contradiction in the fact that our Savior always sits at the right hand of the Father in Heaven according to His natural way of existing and that, nevertheless, in His substance He is sacramentally present to us in many other places. Therefore, no faithful, knowledgeable Catholic would say that the Holy Eucharist is just bread and wine or even just symbolizes the Body and Blood of Christ. Yes, we pray for grace that we may believe more strongly each day in this precious gift of Christ Himself. Perhaps we should dwell on the words of Thomas Aquinas in Adoro Te Devote, Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore; masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more. See, Lord, at thy service low lies here a heart: Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art. Fr. Saunders is pastor of Our Lady of Hope Parish in Potomac Falls and a professor of catechetics and theology at Notre Dame Graduate School in Alexandria. If you enjoy reading Fr. Saunders' work, his new book entitled Straight Answers (400 pages) is available at the Pauline Book and Media Center of Arlington, Virginia (703/549-3806). (This article courtesy of the Arlington Catholic Herald.)