Host: Welcome to Saint Patrick Catholic Community Podcast. We're glad you're with us.
Fr. Stephan: We celebrate this great feast of the body and blood of Christ. But I think there's a deep understanding of what there where this mystery comes from. And it comes from, obviously, from God. But I think we just understand how it is, who God is, that we can celebrate this feast. God is the fullness of love.
This fullness of love loves us. Not if we do something. Fullness of God loves us. I know growing up, I didn't quite understand that. I kept thinking if I did something to prove that I was good, that God would love me.
That's a false understanding of God. God loves us completely. God can't love us any less or anymore because who God is, God is fully love. So always love us. No matter what we do and how or what we don't do, God will love us.
So you can understand this because it's in this context to know that God loves us so much, God wants to sustain us, to nourish us in our life, so we can be part of his life. So we look at the history of the Jewish people. The first reading, Moses about to go in The people about to go into the promised land. This came from Egypt, down into the promised land and Moses can't go. He's too frail, he can't go in the promised land.
So he's telling people, now, remember what happened. How God led us out of slavery and brought us here. How we struggled in the desert. It was terrible in the desert. But God was there sustaining us with water and this thing called manna.
Food from above. It was something that our ancestors never even knew about. Because God cares for us. God loves us completely, wants to sustain us. So, even the experience of Jesus, when he was in his life doing a lot of teaching, he always had the experiences of making sure he would gather up people around their dinner table and eat food.
But also, he would feed people who he would He could see they were really struggling. So every gospel, the four gospels, all have stories of Jesus feeding four or 5,000 people with multiplication of loaves. And actually, John's gospel, chapter six, we've just heard about is at the very end of the of the chapter six. But the beginning of chapter six is the story of Jesus feeding 5,000 with barley loaves and fish. So, it's my context of wanting to to nourish the people who he sees are just struggling.
He goes on to tell the story about he is the one. If you eat my flesh, my body, and drink my blood, you have life. You will remain in me and I will remain in you. You have eternal life. This was shocking to hear.
I mean, you can give us bread we could eat. Yeah. But you're the one? It was so shocking, they said in this in the scripture passage today, they began to argue. What does he what does he mean about this?
People argue to this day. No, it's just a sign. It's a simple Jesus really didn't do that. But actually, two verses after this passage we have today, two verses later, many of the disciples of Jesus left. They couldn't follow him anymore.
That was just too much. And Jesus didn't say, oh, you misunderstood me. Oh, I'm sorry. That's not what I meant. He meant it.
He said it twice in that little short passage. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood will have eternal life. I will remain with them and they will remain with me. They will It's a whole new life in Christ to be in his body and drink his blood. Do you understand that?
Why? Because he loves us so much, he wants us to have his life. To be sustained by who God is. God wants us to be sustained. But not just for ourselves, but for one another.
Because when we receive the bread and the water, the wine, the bread of Christ, the body blood of Christ, We become what we receive. We become the one body of Christ. Not many bodies. There's one body of Christ. Many parts, but one body.
That's what Paul says, a very short passage we have today in in the first letter to Corinthians. He's saying, you know, this cup of blessing that we bless, isn't that a participation in the blood of Christ? The participation, another way of saying it, sharing in Christ. Is the bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Do we share in Christ's body?
So, if Christ who gave himself for us by pouring all his blood for us, sacrificed himself for us, when we partake in the body and blood of Christ, we participate in that. We share in that life. So, we're inviting them to share that life by sacrificing for one another. By serving one another, especially those in need. By forgiving those who hurt us.
Even those on the on the driving on the roads, forgiving them. I mean, it's it's so easy to think, well, I just come here, I receive communion. What's, you know, I I get Jesus. And that's all we understand, that we're missing out on what we're invited to do is to participate in what's blessed. The blood, the wine and the bread become the body and blood of Christ.
And we become what we receive. It's not a nice thought, it's a reality. We become the one body of Christ. And look around, we're not all the same. So, we don't become all the barley loaf.
We all become the whole wheat loaf. We become the whole bread loaf with different parts. And we can't At the other places in the scriptures, you can't we can't live with each out each other. We need each other. Every part of this body, we need it.
So even though we're different, even though we come from different cultures, different languages, different opinions, different experiences, When we come to this table, we become the one body of Christ. That's by receiving the body and blood of Christ, but participating in that body and blood that we share. I was talking to someone recently who's really striving, really striving to do what is right for God. He's come back to the faith. He was baptized, but he's come back to the faith.
And he's he wants to do it. He wants to do it right. So, I'll write. And I said to him, guess what? You're gonna fail.
But father, I wanna do everything right. I know, we all do. But we're gonna fail. And he said, you know, I'm wondering if God's calling me, how God's calling me to be a good a good Christian. His his vocation in life.
And he goes, couldn't God just tell me? You know, do this. So, yes, God could tell us, do this. But most often, what God is saying to us is, enjoy the journey. Keep seeking.
Keep trying, and keep listening. Keep being my body. And you will learn what God wants. You will learn what I want. It's not just everything's hand out to us.
No. We are the body and blood of Christ, and we need to be on a journey together. And this journey isn't easy. But God hasn't abandoned us. God has sustained us with his own body and blood in Christ Jesus.
That's how much God loves us. That's something that we recognize today in this feast. God loves us so much. He wants to sustain us to become what we receive. And to share in his life.
So as we, today we're returning to having both species being offered to us. The body, the bread, and the wine. It's really the both are the body and blood of Christ, as we heard in video. No one's no one's gonna judge if you only receive one. The invitation of the Lord says, though, when Jesus says, take and eat, take and drink.
He wants us to have this fullness of of the body and blood of Christ. The full symbol of it. But he wants us to participate. So, if we're we're thinking to ourself right now, I don't know, I'm a sinner. I I don't think haven't got a confession for a while, so I probably shouldn't.
He is saying, come, take, eat, and drink, and let that change our life. Participate in his life. That's the invitation. The Eucharist that we celebrate is not a reward when we're doing good. Jesus came to help the sinners.
Jesus came because he knows that it's a struggle to live the life of Christ. But he's offering us his own body and blood to be transformed into the one body of Christ. That's he that called today because God loves us so much.
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