Take this, all of you, and eat of it, For this is my Body
Take this, and drink from it, for this is the Chalice of my Blood
The National Eucharistic Congress is this week – July 17-22! I will be attending Thursday & Friday (18 & 19, so no 8a Mass on Friday July 19). Here is my last look at some of the Scriptural precursors of the Eucharist from the Prophets.
Did you know that Jesus was not the first to multiply loaves for the hungry crowds? God worked through the Prophet Elisha to do the same thing. Elisha provides a foreshadowing of Christ’s own generosity in nourishing our bodies, which ultimately points toward Christ nourishing us with His BODY. “A man came from Baal-shalishah bringing the man of God twenty barley loaves made from the first fruits, and fresh grain in the ear. Elisha said, ‘Give it to the people to eat.’ But his servant objected, “How can I set this before a hundred?” Elisha again said, ‘Give it to the people to eat, for thus says the Lord: You will eat and have some left over.’ He set it before them, and when they had eaten, they had some left over, according to the word of the Lord.” (II Kings 4:42-44). Having loaves left over after its miraculous multiplication shows the overabundance of God’s goodness for us. His desire to fill us with His infinite love, grace, & mercy, more than we can hold.
Sometimes, I hear from correct & pious parishioners, if the Eucharist is truly Jesus Christ – Body & Blood, Soul & Divinity – then I don’t feel worthy to receive Him into me. Such persons are typically regular participants in the Sacrament of Confession. Theirs is not simply a consciousness of mortal sin but of the truth that none of us, even the moment we step out of a confessional newly absolved, is ever truly worthy of Christ in the Eucharist. It is true. We are not worthy. We cannot demand to receive. We have no rights before God. No claim can we make upon God’s generosity and benevolence, other than the claim God Himself provides. “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that He loved us (I John 4:10). This sense of unworthiness is nothing new. Isaiah shows us how God makes holy that which He desires to be in union & communion with Himself. “Then I [Isaiah] said, ‘Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!’ Then one of the seraphim flew to me, holding an ember which he had taken with tongs from the altar. He touched my mouth with it. ‘See,’ he said, ‘now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.’” (Isaiah 6:5-7). In this, we see how the Eucharist is in fact the Medicine of Life which absolves us of venial sins and purifies us for God’s holy labor. For serious sin, we must indeed ask for and receive forgiveness and reconciliation in the Sacrament of Confession where the Holy Spirit works through the ministry of the successors of the Apostles to bind & lose, to forgive & reconcile. There, God makes holy that which is unholy. But even when we are living ordinary lives of holiness & discipleship for the Lord, we must remember that it is still & always God that makes holy & sanctifies. As the Eucharist touches our lips, it purifies us. Not just our speech (although many of us need specifically that) but our thoughts & actions. We are purified now by the burning power of Christ Love provided us through the Spirit in the burning love of the Eucharist given to us.
Another incident in the OT points to the sweetness of God’s Word made Flesh to feed us. Ezekiel has a vision of God’s Glory. “[The Voice of the Lord] said to me [Ezekiel]: Son of man, eat what you find here: eat this scroll, then go, speak to the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat. Son of man, he said to me, feed your stomach and fill your belly with this scroll I am giving you. I ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth. Then he said to me, Son of man, go now to the house of Israel, and speak my words to them.” (Ezekiel 3:1-4) There he receives God’s Word in the tangible form of a scroll that when eaten is sweeter than honey – a delight, a wonder, a gift taken in, that is then meant to be given forth to the Children of Israel (and the world) by the thoughts, words, and deeds of the Prophet. Is anything less offered to us when we draw Sacramentally present to Heaven in the Mass? When the Word-made-Flesh, Jesus, is proclaimed in our hearing? And received in the Eucharist? We too are sent forth to “Glorify the Lord by our Life”.
Nothing Less than saints for the Holy Family of God.
Holy Family, Purified, Sanctified, and Sent forth for Christ in the Eucharist, Pray for us.
~ Fr Jeremy M. Gries