Eucharist: Strength, Sacrifice, Scandal
Following is the prepared text from Bishop Olmsted’s homily for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever” (John 6:50).
In the Word of God today, for a third Sunday in a row, the Lord invites us to ponder the Eucharist, the mystery of Christ coming to us as the Bread of Life.
In the First Reading, the Prophet Elijah is fleeing from Jezebel who has ordered his death. Elijah rushes towards Horeb, the mountain of God. On the long trek through hot desert sands, feeling exhausted, physically and spiritually, Elijah prays for death, saying to God, “This is enough! Take my life.” He tosses his weary bones under a broom tree and falls asleep, hoping never to wake up. But, God’s love for Elijah is not exhausted. He sends an angel to wake him up and give him food from heaven. Elijah eats the food, drinks the water, and again collapses in sleep. But, God sends the angel a second time, wakes Elijah again, and orders him to get up and eat “else the journey will be too long.” Elijah obeys the Angel; and what he could not do by his own strength, he can now do because of the food from heaven. Elijah “got up, ate, and drank; then, strengthened by that food, he walked 40 days and 40 nights to the Mountain of God, Horeb” (1 Kgs 19:4ff).
This historic incident helps us to understand the Eucharist. Like the manna in Moses’ time, like the scroll of God’s word that Ezekiel was given to eat, like the sacrifice offered by the priest Melchizedek, and many more instances, God foreshadowed the Eucharist and prepared His people to understand the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever.”
The strength Elijah needed was not for his body but his soul. He had sunk to the depths of despair. He was certain that all his work for God was for naught, worthless. It was the darkest moment of his life; so dark that he prayed to die. But God’s mercy endures forever. The Lord gives bread from heaven to us who get tired, who want to run away. As Brother Randall told me, just before my ordination, “Thomas, the most diabolical of all temptations is discouragement.” A great obstacle to holiness is spiritual exhaustion.
Jesus says (Jn 10:10), “I came that you might have life and have it abundantly.” He gives us this life through His Body the Church, especially through the Eucharist. Still, why do we NOT feel like the Eucharist is enough? Why does our weariness continue? Why does God allow our faith to be tested? St. Paul answers (2 Cor 5:7), “We walk by faith and not by sight.” Through food from heaven and the help of an angel, Elijah found strength to walk 40 days and 40 nights to the mountain of God. The Lord restored Elijah’s reason for living. He refreshed his strength; in a way and at the time that God knew best. The gift of Jesus in the Eucharist does the same for you and me. At times, we too are overwhelmed, exhausted, worn down by temptation, tired in body and soul. These are the moments when it seems like the Lord is not listening. But He is.
The Eucharist is “viaticum”, food for our journey to heaven. Here on earth, we have no lasting city. We are pilgrims and strangers. Our trust is not in man. It is in “Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength” (1 Cor 1:23-25).
There is no greater power for love than Jesus. He is stronger than sin, more powerful than death. He is precisely what we need when, like Elijah, we think we cannot go on. The Eucharist strengthens the weary; it gives us the desire and the ability to love, to complete our work on earth.
Our Second Reading today reminds us that the Eucharist is born from sacrifice; it renews sacrifice and equips us for sacrifice. St. Paul writes to the Ephesians (Eph 5:2), “Christ loved us and handed himself over for us as a sacrificial offering to God.” The Mass makes present this “sacrificial offering to God.” At Mass and on the Cross, there is one and the same victim, one and the same priest, Jesus, who offers the gift of Himself to the Father through the ministry of a priest.
At the beginning of Mass and again at the end, the priest kisses the altar, because there, each day, Christ the Perfect Victim and the Great High Priest offers Himself in sacrifice to the Father for the Redemption of the world. This is the great mystery of our faith. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains it as follows (#1323, #1085):
“At the Last Supper, on the night He was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of His Body and Blood. This He did in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross throughout the ages until He should come again…
His Paschal event is a real event that occurred in our history, but it is unique; all other historical events happen once, and then they pass away, swallowed up in the past. The Paschal mystery of Christ, by contrast, cannot remain only in the past, because by His death He destroyed death, and all that Christ is… participates in the divine eternity, and so transcends all times while being made present in them.”
At the Eucharist, through Jesus, with Him, and in Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is given to the Father. At Mass, we are one with Jesus as He eternally offers the best possible gift that can be made to God, the holy sacrifice of His life. In this holy sacrifice of Jesus is found reparation for our sins and the sins of the world. In this mystery of love, we bring before the Father our needs and the needs of the world. There is no other sacrifice worthy of being offered to God except the one that Christ offered to His Father on Calvary and continues to offer in eternity. And in His mercy, Jesus makes us one with Him. No wonder we look upon the Eucharist as such a wondrous mystery, as a blessing beyond all other blessings. The Bread of Life and Cup of eternal Salvation make it possible for us to do what St. Paul urges the Romans (12:1):
“Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God… your spiritual worship.”
One final point from today’s Gospel — we are told (John 6:41): “The Jews murmured about Jesus because He said, ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven’.” Those who had the privilege of being with Jesus as He multiplied the loaves and fish, those who for the first time, heard Him teach about this greatest of mysteries, were scandalized by the Eucharist. They thought they had “good reasons” to walk away from Jesus. We do well to remember this fact. In every age, certainly in our own, people find reasons to stop worshipping God: controversies and scandals occur, and Satan uses these moments to lead people away from the most profound way we can be one with Christ. We need, as Jesus urges, to be (Mt 10:16) “wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.” We need to ask ourselves: am I scandalized by something that is really scandalous? Or am I caught up in unhelpful criticism, losing sight of the amazing mystery that occurs each day at Mass?
Human weaknesses and sins always abound – should we be scandalized by them, or should we heed the advice found in the Letter to the Hebrews (12:2)? “Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, who inspires and perfects our faith.” Indeed, what a blessing it is, through thick and thin, in good times and in bad, day after day, to give glory and honor to God, and with a grateful heart and strong faith, to eat the Body and drink the Precious Blood of Jesus, our Lord.
