In the recent Gospel readings, we have witnessed the unfolding of Jesus’s discourse on the Eucharist.

Today, we reach the climax of his teaching, and we are able to meditate on his words about the Bread from Heaven, with which he longs to feed us. These words unveil how much God desires intimacy with each one of us.

In this Gospel, Jesus definitively teaches that he wants us to consume his Body and Blood in the Eucharist. This moment reveals something profound about Catholic doctrine, and indeed, it is a relational moment in which God reveals how he desires to be in communion with us. Even in the Garden of Eden, God promised to send a Savior who would bring us back into communion with him in a passage called the Protoevangelium— the First Gospel (Genesis 3:15). God made numerous covenants with the people of Israel, to bring them into deeper communion with him, and the fulfillment of these covenants is in the Eucharist.

If we read this Gospel with skeptical hearts, then we won’t be able to receive God’s gift. The Eucharist is a deep mystery that requires the eyes of faith. If we approach these verses with a faith-filled heart, we see that he desires us to consume his very Body and Blood. We will thereby have the deepest intimacy with him. Consuming the Eucharist enables us to share in God’s own life.

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First Reading Reflection

Wisdom has built her house; she has dressed her meat, mixed her wine, yes, she has spread her table (Proverbs 9:1-6)

The Book of Proverbs invites us to enter into the mystery of God’s wisdom. While the book is mostly composed of short aphorisms about wise living, if taken as a whole, it gives us insight into the very heart of what it means to be like God. Wisdom is no mere catalog of good advice, but rather a divine way of thinking, living, and perceiving. Wisdom is not a series of “life hacks” for an efficient daily routine. Rather, it is a kind of knowing that comes from within, an awareness and judgment honed by long experience and patient study of reality.

When one pays careful attention to the Creator and to his creation, he can learn and grow in understanding, not just “effective” living, but truly right living. In Proverbs, Wisdom is personified as a woman who invites all passersby to her banqueting table (see Proverbs 9:1–6). Nearby, her opponent, “Lady Folly” also sets up a lethal banquet of foolishness (see vv. 13–18). To each of us, then, is presented a choice. We can either submit ourselves to what is true and thus dine at the table of Wisdom, or we can lose ourselves in ignorant rejection of reality and die at the table of Folly. Both of the invitations are perpetually open and both sound the same: “Let whoever is naïve turn in here” (v. 4, 16). If we are willing to turn our back on the temptations that surround us and embrace God’s call, we will find ourselves sitting at Wisdom’s dining table for all eternity.

 

Second Reading Reflection

Be filled with the Spirit, giving thanks always and for everything (Ephesians 5:15-20)

St Paul, here in his Letter to the Ephesians, teaches us that our obligation to live a moral life does not merely flow from a sense of duty. Neither can we earn our way to Heaven on good behavior. Rather, our moral life comes from the fact that Jesus rose from the dead and brought us to share in his victory over our chief enemy, death. Through Baptism we participate in Jesus’s Death and Resurrection. Paul even quotes an early Christian hymn that calls out to each of us: “Arise from the dead!” 

(Ephesians 5:14). It is because of our resurrection-identity in Christ that we are to live “not as foolish persons but as wise” (v. 15). If we have risen from the dead then we ought to live like it, that is, live a good moral life infused with the glory of the Resurrection. In connection with this idea, Paul shows us that a certain kind of knowledge or intelligence goes along with resurrection life. Sin originates in ignorance, so he charges us: “Do not continue in ignorance” (v. 17). On the contrary, we ought to seek to understand the Lord’s will. He then compares two types of inebriation. While the world offers the “debauchery” (v. 18) of fleshly drunkenness, the Holy Spirit offers us what the Church Fathers call a “sober intoxication,” which overflows not in drinking songs, but in “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs”  (v. 19). If we truly enter in to our new identity in Christ, our hearts will brim with gratitude, our minds will be transformed as we seek true knowledge, and our lives will be characterized by Christlike action.

 

Gospel Reflection

I am the living bread that came down from heaven (John 6:51-58)

This short Gospel passage is the pinnacle of Jesus’s famous Bread of Life Discourse. After feeding the five thousand and dialoging with the Jews about the sign of manna, he boldly proclaims, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven” (John 6:51). He thus identifies himself with the manna that fell in the desert for the Israelites to eat. Just as that bread sustained them in the wilderness, so now the new bread of the Eucharist will sustain Jesus’s followers in the wilderness of earthly life. Beyond that, he says, “Whoever eats this bread will live forever” (v. 51). Eternal life is on the table—to enter in, we must partake of this sacred meal. The Jews respond to this teaching with indignation and incredulity, but Jesus does not back down. Instead, he further heightens his claim by insisting that they must drink his blood (see v. 53) and even chew his flesh (see v. 54). Before this point, in the original Greek, Jesus has been using the regular verb for eating, but now he switches to using a different word, trogo, which means to chew or munch (see vv. 54, 56- 58). While the Eucharist is a spiritual meal, Jesus is here emphasizing its physical dimension. In order to transform us spiritually, he will come to meet us in a physical form, under the appearance of bread and wine, which have actually been changed into his Body and Blood. Thus, we witness a miracle at every Mass.

 

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DISCUSSION:

What is your experience of the Eucharist?

When did you first understand that the Eucharist is not merely a symbol but truly Christ’s Body and Blood? Or do you still struggle with this?

How has your understanding of the Eucharist affected your faith in Christ?

Spend time with Jesus, present in the Eucharist, in the Adoration Chapel this week.

 

DIGGING DEEPER:
Eucharistic Adoration

Eucharistic Adoration The Eucharist is Jesus Christ fully present, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, under the appearances of bread and wine. Transubstantiation occurs during the Words of Consecration at the Mass. Unconsumed hosts are kept in the tabernacle in the Church. Eucharistic Adoration is the practice of placing one of those hosts from Mass in a monstrance so that people can come pray before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament outside of Mass.

This is a profound way of encountering Jesus in prayer. If we are desiring to grow in faith in Jesus in the Eucharist, visiting him in Adoration can be a real source of grace. Encourage participants to go to Adoration. You can perhaps even research nearby churches that have Adoration or even plan a time to go as a group.

 

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Reflections Reprinted with permission from  Opening the Word at Formed.org .
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