THE EUCHARIST

Most Rev. Jose H. Gomez
Archbishop of San Antonio
My sisters and brothers in Christ:

 

 

 

First, he called their attention to the need for food and the
importance of food in their life. Then, little by little, he is taking
them to the mystery of the Eucharist. The Bread of Life.
“In the first part of the discourse the main thing Jesus is trying to
do is bring them to make and act of faith in him, so that he can
then openly reveal to them the mystery of the Blessed Sacrament –
that he is the bread ‘which comes down from heaven, and gives
life to the world’ (v. 33)” Navarre Bible, St. Jn. 6, 28 -34.
We have been also asking for the grace to increase our faith in the
Eucharist that we can grow in the understanding and love for Jesus
in the Blessed Sacrament. Today, once again, we pray that we
become Eucharistic souls!
But it was difficult for the people following Jesus to accept the
teaching of His real presence in the Eucharist. They couldn’t
understand it. Jesus was talking about coming down from heaven,
then about ‘giving his flesh for the life of the world’
So they were asking themselves ‘Is this not Jesus, the son of
Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother? Then how can he
say, “I came down form heaven?’ It was so difficult for them to
understand it that, as we will read later on, ‘many of his disciples
returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied
him’

Faith in the Eucharist demands a commitment to Christ, but it
also gives us the strength to be faithful and the peace and joy of
sharing in God’s life. That is what we see in today’s Gospel. Jesus
asking the disciples to believe in him and at the same time telling
them, ‘whoever eats this bread will live forever’.
That is also the message of the other readings of today’s Mass. In
the 1 st reading from the book of Kings, we read that the Prophet
Elijah went to Horeb, the Holy Mountain. The trip was so difficult
and he felt so tired that he wished to die, but ‘the angel of the Lord
... touched him, and ordered, ‘Get up and eat, else the journey will
be too long for you!’ He got up, ate, and drank; then strengthen by
that food, he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of
God, Horeb’. God provided him with the strength during his
journey to be able to reach his goal.
In the same way the Eucharist is the spiritual nourishment that
we need for your journey. As a spiritual writer explains, “The
holy mountain which was the prophet’s destination is an image of
heaven. The forty days of travel represents our journey through
life, during which we too encounter temptations, difficulties and
fatigue. At times we too may find ourselves distraught and without
hope. As the Angel does, so does the Church invite us to nourish
ourselves with the bread –in all ways unique- that is Christ himself,
present in the Holy Eucharist. In him we find the strength to reach
heaven, in spite of our weakness” In Conv. 4.56.1
The 2nd reading from the letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians
reminds us of the commitment of our Christian vocation: ‘All
bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling must be removed
from you, along with all malice. And be kind to one another,
compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in
Christ. So be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in
love, as Christ love us and handed himself over for us...”

If we understand and value the Eucharist, that makes us one with
Christ, then it makes sense to do our best to imitate the Life of
Christ in our own personal lives. But we have to believe that in the
Eucharist we are really receiving the Body and Blood of Our Lord
Jesus Christ.
Let’s never forget that, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church
says: “The principal fruit of receiving the Eucharist in Holy
Communion is and intimate union with Christ Jesus. Indeed, the
Lord said: ‘He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in
me, and I in hi m’ (St.Jn. 6,56)” CCC, 1391.
Faith in the Eucharist, then, that includes commitment and strength
for the journey. If we really believe, as we do, then this is
something that we have to share with others.
Pope John Paul II in his Encyclical letter on the Eucharist wrote:
"In the humble signs of bread and wine, changed into his body and
blood, Christ walks beside us as our strength and our food for the
journey, and he enables us to become, for everyone, witnesses of
hope." (John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 62)
The tremendous gift of the Eucharist requires from us that we
share it with those around us. Just as Jesus sent his apostles to be
witnesses to Christ, so we are entrusted with that responsibility.
When we partake of the Eucharist, we are sharing in the life of
Jesus. As Jesus is part of us, we are part of him and part of each
other. We are joined in communion as the body of Christ, and we
are one. As "witnesses of hope", we can strive to bring others to
share in our faith, and to become part of the mystical body of
Christ.

But people need to see the effects of the Eucharist in our lives.
If there is no effort on our part, if there is no improvement in our
life after receiving Holy Communion, it will be very difficult for
people to believe that we are really receiving Christ in the
Eucharist. It wouldn’t make any sense to them.
On the contrary, if they see that we are trying, not that we are
perfect, because we are not, but that we are trying to do things
better. If they see our commitment to the truth and the practice of
virtue, then they will feel attracted to the Eucharist, because we
will tell them about it and we will explain to them that our strength
comes from Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
We have a wonderful example in the lives of the Saints. I like to
mention the examples that the then, Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope
Benedict XVI mentioned some time ago, “The great social saints
were in reality always the great Eucharistic saints”.
And he gave the examples of St. Martin de Porre s who was born in
1569 in Lima, Peru and spent entire nights in prayer before the
crucified Lord in the tabernacle, while during the day he tirelessly
cared for the sick and assisted the socially outcast and despised,
with whom he, as a mulatto, identified because of his origins.
In our time, we can recall the person of Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
Wherever she opened the houses of her sisters to the service of the
dying and outcast, the first thing she asked for was a place for the
tabernacle, because she knew that only beginning from there,
would come the strength for such service.
Eucharistic life and deeds of charity! The Eucharist is the
spiritual nourishment that we need for your journey. If we truly
realized the wonderful gift that we have in the Eucharist, we would
never stay away. We would come to receive the Eucharist as often

as possible. It is our most precious gift, our priceless treasure, and
our sacrament of endless life.
We go to the intercession of Mary, our blessed Mother, to help us
to increase our faith in the real presence of Jesus, her son, in the
Eucharist and for the grace to be generous to our Christian
commitment that we can be ‘witnesses of hope’ to the people of
our time, sharing with them the great gift of the Eucharist.
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats
this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my
flesh for the life of the world”