April 24, 2015
Friday, 3rd Week of Easter
1st Reading: Acts 9:1–20
Gospel: Jn 6:52–59
The Jews were arguing among themselves, “How can this man give us flesh to eat?” So Jesus replied, “Truly, I say to you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood live with eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day.
“My flesh is really food and my blood is drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood, live in me and I in them. Just as the Father, who is life, sent me and I have life from the Father, so whoever eats me will have life from me. This is the bread which came from heaven; unlike that of your ancestors, who ate and later died. Those who eat this bread will live forever.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in
the Assimilated
Life Experience)
Those who heard Jesus offering his body as real food and his blood as real drink were provoked. They thought he was either talking figuratively or cracking a big joke. If he was talking figuratively, they could have taken his statements lightly. But even this they could not do; they walked out of the conversation, they just felt they had to. The offering of one’s body as food in public, was too disgusting even as a “by the way” topic. The culture of the Jews frowned upon contact with blood as unclean. “Out of his mind” Jesus appeared to all of them. Despite the big walk out, however, Jesus stood by the literal meaning of his words and did not flip over.
This same teaching is the basis our Catholic faith in the Eucharist. The species become Christ at the words pronounced by the priest. Yes their appearances remain earthly and not divine; bread looks real bread and wine looks real wine. From the practical side we see wisdom in this arrangement. The contrary would have put human beings in serious predicament. If the externals of wine and bread should change too, civilized people would consider lining up for communion a big taboo.
A thing can either change substantially or accidentally. When you were small you were cute and likeable. As a grown up person you have become “acute” and “like-a-ball”. But the change is only accidental. The species consecrated at Mass change substantially. The substance of bread gives way to the substance of Christ’s body. In this “transubstantiation”, the sacred species cease to be what we see. It becomes Jesus spiritually nourishing you and me. To an unbeliever this is too good to be true – God within reach of ordinary humans like me and you. But God had ordained it to be so. He wants to be there wherever we go.- Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: [email protected]. Website: www.frdan.org.
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