Eating and Drinking the Body and Blood of Jesus

Homily for the Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

You can learn a great deal about a person or a culture by looking at the food, specifically what is eaten, how it is prepared or preserved, and how people gather to consume it.  Even if the cuisines differ, the role of food is similar in cultures all around the world.  It is what we share with others in bad times and good times.  We bring food to families struggling with the severe illness or loss of a loved one; and humanitarian organizations show up in devastated areas to serve meals to people hurting from man-made and natural disasters.  Food is central when friends and family celebrate birthdays, weddings, and holidays.  Sometimes we enjoy a good meal, or perhaps just a cup of coffee, in acts of fellowship with old friends or with people we are getting to know.  Gathering around the table can also foster reconciliation, if only because you are less likely to say something stupid or offensive if your mouth is full of good food.

The Catholic Church teaches that when we consume the consecrated bread and wine of the Eucharist, we are actually eating the body of Christ and drinking his blood. There are those who contend that the bread and wine that we receive at the Table of the Lord are simply symbolic representations of Jesus’ body and blood. However, if Jesus was speaking metaphorically when he tells the crowd that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood, would he not have called back those who left his company because of these words and explained that he was speaking of symbols. However, the sixth chapter of St. John’s Gospel explicitly tells us that Jesus intended his words to be taken literally. He is the bread of life, and unless we eat his body and drink his blood, we will not have life within us. St. John’s Gospel differs from the other three in that his account of the Last Supper does not include the institution narrative but focuses on serving others as he serves them when he washes their feet.

It is clear that these words have caused many arguments. Those who left Jesus after he spoke these words were simply the first to leave him. This still goes on today. If the polls that have been taken about this issue are to be believed, there are many Catholics who simply do not believe in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Indeed, it takes great faith to accept this truth. It also takes a great deal of wisdom. How important is wisdom? Well, without Wisdom we cannot be happy, we cannot be good, and we cannot be saved.

Without wisdom we cannot be happy because wisdom is necessary to understand the road to true happiness. Foolishness, or folly, which is the opposite of wisdom, leads us along the wrong path and travels in the wrong direction. This is true of physical roads and highways as well as spiritual roads and highways. If you live in Frankfort, you cannot get to Chicago by traveling south. Spiritual paths are just as objectively true and real as physical roads. We need wisdom to discern between the true and the false path to happiness, between true food and fake food, between food and poison.

Without wisdom we cannot be good because wisdom is the knowledge of what goodness truly is, what and who a truly good person is, what a good life really and truly is. Without wisdom we trust and imitate the fools of our world instead of the wise. The world is filled with fools who entice us to imitate their foolishness. Wisdom is not just knowledge of facts; it is knowledge of values and virtues, of good and evil. One needs to be wise in order to apply knowledge to life, theory to practice, or principles to experience.

Without wisdom we cannot be saved because to be saved, we must know ourselves as sinners and God as our Savior. Wisdom is, above all, the understanding of these two most important realities of our lives; namely, who we are and who God is. We can never, ever escape or avoid for even a second, the reality of who we are and who God is if we wish to be saved.

The verses that were proclaimed from the Book of Proverbs this morning address these issues. Wisdom calls out to each of us. “Forsake foolishness, forsake folly that you may live; advance in the way of understanding.” You may be asking yourselves, “How do we obtain wisdom? How do we avoid folly?” St. James teaches us in his New Testament letter: “If any of you lacks wisdom, ask God for it who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly. The one who asks will receive it.” Jesus has assured us that the Holy Spirit has been given to us with the gifts of knowledge and understanding.

St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians explains living with wisdom in concrete terms. With a clever rhetorical device, he tells the Ephesians to be filled with Holy Spirit, not with alcoholic spirits. Drunkenness and debauchery are the behaviors of the foolish. The way of the wise is described by other behaviors; namely, singing the praises of the Lord, being grateful always and for everything that God has given us.

Jesus is the Bread of Life. The consecrated bread and wine are literally the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus. Like everything we eat, it will become part of us. We know that when we eat healthy foods, our bodies thrive. When the Church gathers to consume the body and blood of Jesus, it becomes the Mystical Body of Christ in our world. As that Mystical Body of Christ, we can lead others to wisdom, to happiness, to goodness, and to salvation.