Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you

Deacon Kevin Gingras

August 8, 2021

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080821.cfm

We have heard a lot of homilies about the “Bread of Life”, the Eucharist lately.  Well, sit tight, because here comes another one!

A while ago I read a book titled Hostile Witnesses: How the Ancient Enemies of the Church Proved Christianity.  It’s about people who were against the rise of the Catholic Church many years ago but how their persecution of the Church actually demonstrated the truths of it so long ago.  One story in it really struck me.  It was a letter written by Pliny the Younger. Pliny was the governor of the Roman province of Bithynia, located in Asia Minor. In the year 112 AD, he wrote to Emperor Trajan, asking how he should deal with those in his region who have been accused of being Christians.  Currently, Pliney would question people three times and if all three times they stood by their Christianity, they would be executed.

In the letter, Pliny describes the practices of these alleged “criminals”:

“They were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food–but food of an ordinary and innocent kind.”

What really stands out is that they partake of food, food of an ordinary and innocent kind, the letter states.   What could Pliny have meant by stressing that?  Back then Christians were thought to be cannibals because, well, they ate the flesh and drank the blood of Jesus Christ!  Pliny had investigated this, thinking he had a large group of troublemakers in his territory.  Yes, the early Catholics, just like we do today, eat the true flesh of Christ at the Eucharistic feast, most of you will do just that, and very soon, except we will do it in a sacramental and unbloody manner.

So what is the big deal, what does this Eucharist do for us?  

“Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!”

We hear these words from the angel speaking to Elijah in our first reading.  Elijah was ready to die; in the previous chapter of Kings, Elijah had all the prophets of Baal killed and now feared for his safety.  He sat under the broom tree asking for death.  God had other plans for him and was to set out on a 40-day journey to Mount Horeb, the mountain of God.  He needed food for this journey.

This is also why we need the Eucharist.  We are on a physical journey on Earth for sure, we need food for our bodies but, we are also, and more importantly, on a spiritual journey as well and it’s a difficult long journey and we need to nourish our souls too!  In the Eucharist, Jesus gave us Himself, the Bread of Life as true food for our souls.  This is our food for the journey towards Heaven!

Eleven times in this section of the Gospel of John entitled the Bread of Life Discourse Jesus calls himself the Bread of Life.  Eleven times!  Jesus is really trying to drive that point home, that He IS the Bread of Life.  As Catholics, like other Christians, we have our faith and our faith gives us access to eternal life but it is the Eucharist that makes that faith life grow within us with leaps and bounds.

Of course, there is a however here, and it’s kind of a big, however.  In the first letter to the Corinthians in chapter 11 Paul warns them:

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.

It can be hard to understand and realize that when it comes time to receive we aren’t getting in line for an ordinary piece of bread, we are getting in line to receive the full-body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ, the man who died for us, for our eternal salvation.

Fortunately, God has tried to help us.  The history of the Church is full of Eucharistic miracles.  Recorded miracles include hosts that survived fires, hosts that started to bleed during Mass, hosts that lost their appearance of bread and transformed into flesh.  

I would consider myself to be a Doubting Deacon, like Doubting Thomas.  Unless I see and touch it I can’t believe it!  I’m too logical so when I was struggling to believe in the true presence in the Eucharist I researched these miracles, lots of them.  I struggle to have the faith like a child that Jesus says we need.  Anyway, the Eucharistic miracles that have taken place and have been documented are fascinating!  All the miracles show AB-type blood, that they are heart tissue, and it is fresh living, and not old and decaying!

Blessed Carlos Acutis, was a young man who died in October of 2006 of leukemia at the age of 15. He was a man after my own heart, a programmer, a typical teen who liked video games and an all-around computer geek, but there was something else about him.  Blessed Carlos has actually documented and put together a website of Eucharistic miracles.  As a logical thinker, I sometimes have difficulty accepting things on faith alone.  I have to keep reminding myself that God supports our faith in many different ways and He understands the culture of this fallen world that works against us and our faith.  

The bottom line is this, receive the Eucharist, and when receiving do so in a worthy manner and it will help you to better understand what it really is you are receiving.

As Blessed Carlo Acutis said:

The more Eucharist we receive, the more we will become like Jesus, so that on earth we will have a foretaste of heaven.