Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, C August 11, 2019
Fr. Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
We have failed you. Three generations of Catholics failed by the clergy. Rather than being the “faithful and prudent steward[s]” Jesus talks about, we priests and bishops have been careless and foolish. Just yesterday (Friday), a study was released that showed that 70% of Catholics do not believe the Eucharist is the actual Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ. Even among those who go to Mass every week, 30% say they think the Eucharist is just a symbol.
I’m not here to shame the people in the pews and the numbers are probably better in Acadiana. The point is that it’s our fault – the fault of priests and bishops. We failed to teach you. Even worse, our example taught you the opposite. Over 50 years of casual and silly Masses, treating the Eucharist like it’s no big deal. Over 50 years of not being holy. If the Eucharist is really Jesus, shouldn’t the priests who make the Eucharist be extra holy? We should! But we haven’t been. And, sadly, over 50 years of lies, cover-ups, and abuse. It’s hard to blame anyone who sees that and says “yeah, we don’t believe what you say about the Eucharist because you lied to us about our own children.”
So, I am sorry. I am sorry for my brother priests and I am sorry for the ways I have failed to teach you by word and example that the Eucharist is way more than some symbol. If the Eucharist is just a symbol, why would I throw my life away? No wife. No kids. No control over my future. Why would I agree to the sacrifices of the priesthood just to celebrate some symbol?! If my words or actions suggest to you that I don’t really believe in the Eucharist, please stop me! I owe it to God, I owe it to myself, and I owe it to you to “distribute the food allowance” of his Body and Blood. I’m sorry for the ways the Church has failed you. Now, let me try to help make this right.
To be Catholic means that you believe what the Church teaches. The Church has always taught that the Eucharist is literally Jesus’ Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. When Jesus taught this in John chapter 6, people left. He didn’t stop them. He didn’t say, “wait, I was just being symbolic.” Instead, he admitted that this teaching was “hard to accept” and tells the Apostles that “no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.” In other words, this teaching cannot be accepted unless you have the supernatural gift of Faith. Faith is not some vague, comforting word. Faith, Hope, and Love are literally super-powers. They are beyond nature. They are “granted by… [the] Father” to us so we can follow Jesus, which would be impossible without these super-powers.
Today, the letter to the Hebrews tells us “faith is the realization of things hoped for and evidence of things not seen.” Evidence of things not seen… it is this deep-down conviction, the ability to know what you cannot prove. How do we know God is a Trinity? Faith. Where is the evidence of heaven? Faith. How can you prove the Eucharist is literally Jesus? Faith.
If someone doesn’t have faith, I don’t blame them for disagreeing with the Church. Many Christians don’t even try to believe it. Baptists, Pentecostals, Lutherans, Methodists, Non-Denominational, and Anglicans all reject our teaching on the Eucharist. Fine, let them be honest and consistent. But the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church believe this and always have and always will. It is an act of faith.
And just what exactly do we believe? It starts with the priest. Only a priest can make the Eucharist. Not just anyone who calls themselves a priest, but someone validly ordained by a Catholic or Orthodox Bishop. There has to be a real connection – not just an arbitrary decision to say, “I’m a priest now.” We believe that when a validly ordained priest says the words of consecration over real bread and real grape wine – that they change into Jesus’ Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.
It doesn’t look like it, taste like it, feel like it, or smell like it, but there is no longer bread and wine there. Everything that exists has this kind of layered reality. There’s the part you touch, taste, and smell. Then there’s the deeper part, the substance. From the time I was born until now I’ve been the same person – I’ve had the same substance. Growing this beard or shaving it doesn’t change the substance of who I am. In nature, the outside stuff changes all the time. In the Eucharist however, it’s just the opposite.
We call it “Transubstantiation” which literally means “a transition of substance.” By a very real miracle, God takes out the substance of bread and wine, but leaves the outside stuff: taste, smell, feel of bread and wine. He takes that visible shell and inserts himself: body, blood, soul, and divinity. You don’t have to be able to explain and pronounce all that. Just know that deep down, the substance, the reality of what you eat is actually Jesus, no matter how much it tastes like bread. Again, this takes faith which is the evidence of things not seen. Sometimes God allows the outside stuff to change too just to remind us of what is happening. Just google “eucharistic miracle” and you’ll find plenty of examples, even recent ones. But the point is that it happens every time. The Eucharist is not, is not, is not just a symbol.
It defies nature, yes, but so does a lot of what we believe. Abraham and Sarah had a kid after being 100 years old. Mary is a virgin mother. Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac because he believed God could raise the dead. Jesus actually did raise the dead. Virgin births and rising from the dead defy nature too. Why should the God who does that be unable to make bread and wine turn into his Body and Blood?
That’s what he does. And that is why we’re here. That is why Mass is not like anything else. That is why it is full of formality and singing and weird gestures and odd ways of talking. At Mass, thanks to the Eucharist, we enter into a time and space that goes beyond nature, beyond these walls. We are like people in the Old Testament, “the holy children of the good [who] were offering sacrifice and putting into effect with one accord the divine institution.”
The Mass, and the Eucharist, is a Divine Institution. I am sorry that we have failed to communicate that to 70% of you, your children, and your grandchildren. Let’s make it right. Starting next week, the bulletin and my homilies will be a series to help you take a deeper look at what we’re doing here and why. What is the Mass, why do we have to do it a certain way, and why should we bother with it?
Renew your faith in the immense gift of the Eucharist now. Allow God and the Church to draw you deeper into this mystery, to see how God himself comes to us, his servants, to wait on us and to feed us with his own body and blood.