Bishop reflects on Gospel of St. John

Homily 4: 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

August 14, 2003

The verses we read today in chapter six of the Gospel of Saint John are the very heart of Christ's sermon to the people at Capernaum. He has already spoken of himself as Divine Wisdom, as a new kind of manna. By faith we come to eternal life in him. But Jesus wants to abide with us always.

Like the Personified Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs, he prepares a banquet for us, so that we can abide in him and he in us. In particularly strong and vigorous language, Jesus emphasizes that the bread he gives is his flesh for the life of the world. That same Body and Blood are available through the Eucharist. "My flesh is real food and my blood real drink." There is nothing mechanical about this; when we participate in the Eucharist we receive and enter into deep intimacy with the Lord Jesus, and thus, into communion with one another in the Lord. Further, this food is a pledge of the life to come.

In his recent encyclical on the Holy Eucharist and the church, the Holy Father addresses an important aspect of the Eucharist. There is a future thrust to the Eucharist: we celebrate it "until he comes in glory." It is in some way an anticipation of the heavenly kingdom, a kind of confident waiting. Those who feed on Christ in the Eucharist need not wait until eternity to receive eternal life; they already possess it on earth as the first fruits of a future fullness that will embrace humanity in its totality.

The Eucharist is the pledge of our bodily resurrection at the end of the world. A saint of the early church, Ignatius of Antioch, rightly called the Eucharistic Bread as "a medicine of immortality, and an antidote to death." We are thus reinforced in our communion with all the saints in heaven, beginning with the Mother of God, a fact that is clear in every Eucharistic Prayer.

Proclaiming the death of the Lord until he comes also entails that all who participate in the Eucharist are committed to changing their lives and conforming them to Christ, i.e. making their lives "eucharistic." This increases our sensibility and responsibility for the world today.

The Eucharist, in its future thrust, does not turn us away from our duties in family, work and world. It actually intensifies those duties. Particularly as citizens, we need to dedicate ourselves to a culture of life and integrity, to a building up of the world in solidarity, most especially with the poor and the oppressed. The Eucharist transforms us and allows us to bring hope to those who are hopeless and dedicate ourselves to a more human society.

The saving efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross and his Resurrection is fully realized when the Lord's Body and Blood are received in Communion. This is no metaphorical food. Today's Gospel emphasizes the reality of Christ's Body and Blood.

May we eat and drink worthily, show the deepest reverence for the Eucharist, and celebrate its power in us by transforming our lives and the world into a fitting dwelling place for the kingdom of Christ -- "until he comes in glory."