EDITORIAL

Believing in the Eucharist

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This weekend we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus. When the Lord Jesus Christ came to proclaim the Kingdom of God, he emphasized the importance of eating His body and blood as a condition of entering into eternal life. In the Gospel of John Chapter 6, the Lord Jesus Christ expounds upon the bread of life discourse as a preparation to understanding what it means to eat His body and drink His blood. The day before his discourse, The Lord Jesus had just performed the miracle of the multiplication of loaves and had to flee to other side of the lake, because they wanted to make Him king. The next day after they found Jesus on the other side of the lake, Jesus continued his discourse and said to them, “I am the Bread of Life. I tell you most solemnly if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you. Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise him up on the last day.” (Jn 6:48, 53-54).

Jesus had just given one of his greatest sermons, yet the people began to grumble and complain about how could they consider something that resembled cannibalism. They finally said to Jesus, that this is a hard teaching, who can accept it, and then left Him. Our Lord did not get down on his hands and knees and beg them to return, because what he told them was the truth. He let them go, turned to his disciples and asked them if they were going to leave. Peter answering for the group responded in faith, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life. There are many hard teachings in the faith, such as the Church’s moral teachings concerning marriage and sexual ethics, but our Lord teaches us not to waver but to turn to Him and believe what he taught us as the Truth.

As always, it is good to prepare to receive the Eucharist by going to Confession to prepare our hearts to make a fruitful communion. Then as we go to receive Him in the Eucharist, His body, blood, soul and divinity, all the graces that flow from His divinity fill us with supernatural life, which begins here on earth and is fulfilled in Heaven.