Daily Retreat 05/06/06

2006 May 6 Sat: Easter Weekday

Acts 9: 31-42/ Ps 115(116): 12-13. 14-15. 16-17/ Jn 6: 60-69

From today’s readings: "The Church throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria was at peace.... O LORD, I am Your servant; I am Your servant, the son of Your handmaid.... "

Can You Accept a Hard Saying?

At the Last Supper, Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to His disciples, saying, "Take and eat - this is My Body!" And similarly, taking up a chalice of wine, Jesus instructed, "Take and drink - this is My Blood!" And He commanded His disciples to "Do this in memory of Me!"

At the Last Supper, what did Jesus give His disciples - His Body and His Blood, or just a morsel of bread and a sip of wine? For nearly 2000 years, the Catholic Church has unswervingly maintained that the divine words of Christ were surely efficacious, for reality always necessarily conforms to His divine commands. Thus, in spite of the manifest impossibility, when He unequivocally ordered, "Lazarus, come forth!" a dead man was instantaneously changed into a living man, in order for reality to comply with the word of the Lord. So, there can be no doubts about what happened when the mouth of the Lord declared, "This is My Body.... This is My Blood!" At that instant, reality again obeyed the command of divinity, and so, despite the apparent impossibility, the lowly bread miraculously became the Body of Christ, and the common wine was likewise transubstantiated into the Blood of Christ.

Exactly one year before the marvelously acquiescent reality of that Last Supper, Jesus taught His disciples thoroughly so that they wouldn’t miss the miracle - in Chapter Six of the Gospel of St. John, the Bread of Life discourse, Jesus insisted, "I am the Bread of Life.... The Bread that I will give is My Flesh for the life of the world.... He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood has life eternal.... My Flesh is real food, and My Blood is real drink." These are hard sayings, but every faithful disciple is conformed, as is reality itself, in order to accept the word of the Lord!