I remember when I first encountered the True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. I was 17. My mother appeared to be dying in the hospital across the river from Good Shepherd, our one Catholic Church in Frankfort. A teacher encouraged me to go in the church to pray for my mother when I went to visit her at the hospital. I wasn’t Catholic, but I went to pray. I knew nothing of the True Presence, nor the Tabernacle, nor transubstantiation. But after a few days, I KNEW there was a Presence of God in that church which I did not perceive in my own church—which I dearly loved. My mother recovered, and life went on.
Three years later, I encountered the Catholic Church again. This time, by a rather circuitous path, I became Catholic. It was 1969, there was not yet RCIA, and I don’t remember anybody mentioning the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist during my instruction. After I went to the Eucharistic Congress in 1976, my love for the mass and the Eucharist deepened to full commitment—but I still did not understand transubstantiation or what happens at mass. Yet I KNEW God was there.
As I became involved in church, I loved Forty Hours Devotions. During some of my prayers before the Blessed Sacrament during Adoration, I KNEW the True Presence. Many times in many ways I tried to replicate the joy I KNEW during those prayers. I could never do it, and God was mostly distant from me for several decades.
That passed and I went to St. Meinrad to study. THERE, in 2014, when I studied the Eucharist in class with the transitional deacons, I came to understand that JESUS OFFERS HIMSELF ON THE ALTAR AT EVERY MASS EVERYWHERE IN THE WORLD. The words of the priest make God present in the offering and sacrifice. EVERY mass is not only the Last Supper of Holy Thursday. It is also Good Friday and Easter Sunday. I remember approaching Fr. Denis, who taught the Eucharist class. “Is this really what happens? Not only is God physically present, but He gives Himself in the same way for the same reason with the same result He gave Himself during the Passion?”
“Yes,” Father said. “Yes.”
“Why didn’t somebody explain it to me like that before?” I responded.
John 6:51-58
Because of those experiences, I have a real sympathy for the disciples who express their disbelief in today’s Gospel. Today’s Gospel is a selection in a much larger story. As John 6 begins, Jesus feeds the 5000 people who have followed him to a deserted place beside the Sea of Galilee. As night comes, Jesus goes off to himself. In the night, he sees some of his disciples in trouble in a boat out on the sea. He walks on water, calms the storm, and ends up the next day in Capernaum. People who were fed come looking for Jesus. When they find him teaching in the synagogue, they begin to ask him questions. Jesus’ answer is basically, “Don’t seek me because you have your fill of bread. Seek me because I am living bread.” The famous words we hear today include:
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.
For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.
Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.”
There had not yet been Holy Thursday or Good Friday or Easter Sunday. Those who questioned Jesus (and left him) did not understand. They had no logic with which to KNOW. Yet, they intuited something to follow Jesus to the deserted place. And there was the experience of the multiplication of the loaves and fish.
We are in the beginning phases of a Eucharistic Revival, which is a good, good thing. With all my heart and intuition, at this point in my life, I see the mass as the center, sum, and summit of Christian life and the Mystery of bread and wine becoming the Body and Blood of Christ as the central Mystery and Power of the Mass.
And God has become present in the Mass every day that I have been alive—every day I have been to mass. Every day God comes! Every day God has come.
Still, after 2000 years, the Mystery alludes us. We miss it. Even when we love it and seek it.
Much Ado about a Survey
Perhaps you have heard of the 2019 Pew Foundation Survey of Religious Knowledge that said that only about 1/3 of the Catholics surveyed said they know the Church teaches that God is physically Present in the Host and Blood and that they believe it. Looking at the data in a bit more detail, that survey showed that only 28% of those who identified themselves as Catholic correctly answered that the Catholic Church teaches that God is physically present in the Eucharist and that they believe that is true. Another 3% believed in the Real Presence but weren’t sure of Church teaching. 22% knew the Catholic Church teaches God is physically present in the Eucharist, but personally believe it is a symbol of God’s presence. 43% thought the church teaches the Eucharist is a symbol and believe it is a symbol. A final 4% were just unsure.
As I look at this information and consider my own experiences, it seems to me that It isn’t a survey that describes a failure of FAITH as much as it is a survey that describes a failure in education about faith. The statistics do show that only 28% of Catholics in the survey correctly know what the Church teaches and believe it. But what do the answers of the other 72% mean? There are those who know what the church teaches, but don’t believe it (22%) and roughly 50% who don’t know what the Church teaches about the Real Presence.
But then, there are other surveys that show that only about 1/3 of Catholics regularly attend mass. My guess is there is a high correlation between FAITH in the Eucharist and FAITH enough to go to mass.
Deuteronomy 8: 2-3, 14b-16a and I Corinthians 10:16-17
It is in light of that thought that the other two readings fill out my meditations this week, even if they don’t exactly provide answers.
The selection from Deuteronomy comes forty years after last week’s reading about the Exodus. The Israelites are about to finally enter the Promised Land. Moses will soon die. He is giving parting words to the people he has led for forty years. He is reminding them that it is God Himself who has given them food and water for forty years. Once they inhabit Canaan again, they will grow their food. They might be tempted to think they are feeding themselves now—they don’t need God so much.
Paul is reminding the Corinthians that when they partake in the Eucharist, they are to partake in unity, for they are all incorporated into this ONE BODY.
Questions
What does all this mean for us? How do we KNOW with solid education about the Eucharist? One thing that disturbs me in our current Eucharistic Revival is that I see little focus on that WE, too, are to join Jesus on the altar. We are not to be passive witnesses when God comes. We, too, are to offer ourselves to make Christ present as we leave mass in our personal ethics, our families, our communities, our world. We are to do this as communities and as Church. That is a theme of all sixteen of the core documents of Vatican II.
How do we KNOW? What difference does that knowledge make? Serious questions.
Prayer: Anima Christi
Soul of Christ, sanctify me.
Body of Christ, save me.
Blood of Christ, inebriate me.
Water from the side of Christ, wash me.
Passion of Christ, strengthen me.
O Good Jesus, hear me.
Within Thy wounds hide me.
Suffer me not to be separated from thee.
From the malignant enemy defend me.
In the hour of my death call me.
And bid me come unto Thee,
That with all Thy saints,
I may praise thee
