Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever
Our first reading today takes us to the conversion of Saint Paul on the road to Damascus. In the retelling of the even in Acts we have one of the funniest stories in the Bible around Ananias. I am sure he must be in heaven now, because he was an unsure servant of the Lord but His bidding anyway. Saul of Tarsus was persecuting the holy ones in Jerusalem. Poor Ananias asks the Lord something to the effect ” Are you sure ?” The Lord says Go for this man is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles, kings and children of Israel and I will show him what he will have to suffer for my name.
Because of our Baptism we are also chosen instruments as well but along the way we need nourishment and that brings us to the Gospel of John.
This Gospel John 6 begins the theological proof of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation which is the real presence of the Body and Blood of Jesus. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him on the last day. To paraphrase the rest of the chapter the crowd of listeners was turned away by the very thought of eating someone’s flesh let alone eternal life. Jesus’s divinity was not obvious. Many of the crowd turned away even though they saw Jesus’s miracles, the idea of eating human flesh was abhorrent. Jesus turns around and sees the crowd slipping away. All except Peter and some of the apostles. Jesus asks Peter, Why are you still here ? Peter answers, Lord you have the words to eternal life. Then in Luke 22 Jesus explains to the Apostles This is my Body and this is My Blood. At the Last Supper Jesus explained it all without the Apostles full understanding. The miracle of the Ressurection had not happened. However, in Luke 24 they recognized Jesus on the walk to Emmaus when they broke the bread. They were so excited that they ran 6 miles in the dark over unpaved roads, without street lights and in crude sandles back to Jerusalem just to say they saw the Lord. You have to laugh at their ardor. No one can say that scripture is not funny.
Ananias as all early Christians and believers of the “Way” did not have written scripture but they had Jesus’s words in their hearts. Ananias was a member of the budding Christian community which was fed by the Eucharist.
My takeaway is that we not only have the written word of the Bible in our heads but the written word in our hearts. We are instruments of the Lord, but along the way we need the nourishment of the Eucharist. 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. We have the promise of eternal life but in our time on earth we are the instruments of the Lord. Ananias had the Eucharist and the word of Jesus in his heart.
May the Gospel be in our Bibles but also in our head and hearts. May it be inspired by the eternal life represented by the Eucharist in us. We are His instruments.
God Love You Always
Bob Burford
Picture source :”bread” by thecmn is marked under CC PDM 1.0. To view the terms, visit https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/
