Just as churches reopen and parishioners return to the Eucharist, the Feast of The Body and Blood Christ will be celebrated on June 14. It is a reminder of a great gift from the Lord.
Jesus lost many of his followers over a truth that can be difficult to understand – people must eat his flesh and drink his blood. When many of his followers further challenged him on this, Jesus remained firm and let them leave “to return to their former lives.” He asked Saint Peter if he also wanted to leave, and Saint Peter said, “You have the words of eternal life.”
The late Archbishop Fulton Sheen added to the above by saying, “The Eucharist is so essential to our oneness with Christ that as soon as our Lord announced it in the Gospel, it began to be the test of the fidelity of his followers.”
Father Bill Casey, Fathers of Mercy, said “No matter where it is offered, how small the parish, how poor the parish, how ordinary the priest, the Mass is the greatest and most powerful act the world has known or will ever know.”
Since the early days of the Church, the Church has believed in “True Presence Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.” Saint Ignatius of Antioch, a direct disciple of Saint John the Apostle and martyred in 108 A.D., wrote, “I desire the Bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, who was the seed of David, and for drink I desire his blood, Jesus is the Bread of Life, the Bread of Angels, Medicine of Immortality.”
Father Casey further stated, as serious and as pressing as the issues are which face the Church today, they pale in comparison to the real crisis in the Church. The real crisis in the Catholic Church is loss of faith in the true presence of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.
For those who are unable to attend Mass during the next few months, Jesus also gives us the gift of his Holy Spirit. Deacon Dennis Fine of Saint Joseph Catholic Church in Ada recently reflected on this in a homily.
“The Holy Spirit that was given to us and stays with us and in us, can help. Paul’s letter to the Romans tells us how the Spirit can help us in our difficulty. Yes, we know that all creation groans and is in agony even until now. Not only that, but we ourselves, although we have the Spirit as first fruits, groan inwardly while we await the redemption of our bodies. In hope we were saved. But hope is not hope if its object is seen; how is it possible for one to hope for what he sees?’”
Charles Albert is a freelance writer for the Sooner Catholic.