Twentieth Sunday In Ordinary Time, Year B: Eucharistic Fix

We just heard John 6:52, “The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

That reminds of me two men who lived in a small town who got into a terrible dispute that they could not resolve. So, they decided to talk to the wisest man in town.

The first man went to the house of the wise man and told him his version of what happened. When he finished, the sage said, "You are absolutely right."

The following night, the second man approached the sage and told him his version of events. The sage replied: "You are absolutely right."

Later, the sage's wife rebuked her husband. He said, “Those two men told you two different stories, and you told them they were absolutely right. That's impossible - they can't both be absolutely right. "

The sage turned to his wife and said, "You are absolutely right."

In our First Reading from the first six verses of Proverbs, from chapter 9, a meal is described that bestows wisdom, which is a foreshadowing of the Eucharist.

There was a study on the Eucharist from a university in Santa Barbara, California, about Catholic Mass and its healing implications for the addicted person whereby the social network and group norms that prescribe patterns of perceiving, thinking, feeling, and behaving that promoted drug use are now replaced by the Catholic Mass and receiving the Eucharist in the state of grace. It’s applicable to everyone regarding our attachments and sins, e.g., in our Second Reading, “do not get drunk on wine, in which lies debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.”

Addicts develop a deep emotional attachment and assign a meaning that is very personal to their substance abuse, but, in recovery, the time and space of Mass and Adoration of the Eucharist outside of Mass can alter this attachment to become a source of transformation by an alternative Eucharistic consciousness in Jesus Christ.

One person in the study said, “The Eucharist at the altar is a gift from God who loves us so much.... he’s not going to leave us alone….as the person eats God, he or she experiences becoming part of Him as well.”

We heard John 6:53 and John 6:54, in our Gospel, “53. Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. 54. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.”

As memory device, Renee Oania, shared, “I attended Mass… After making the sign of the cross, my priest recited this verse[s] with the parishioners, which was John 6:53-54. He asked us to sing this and we repeated after him:

John 6, John 6, then [we] clapped our hands six times, then sang the numbers 53 and 54. Then sang verse 54:

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise them up at the last day.1

2. Another person in the study realized that by his presence at Mass there was a “giving” because the offering of his personal intentions at Mass with Jesus to the Father was a way he could give to others.

Pope Pius XI taught that Catholics should not be “detached and silent spectators” at Mass (Divini Cultus of 1928). Christianity is not a spectator sport. Catholics “assist” at Mass. E.g., “Pray brethren, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the Almighty Father.” You offer Jesus to the Father—your life and for your personal intentions, at every Mass, which is a re-presentation of the Last Supper and Calvary.

In the study, that individual and others also reported feeling better after receiving communion, tearing up with emotion, renewing their faith, and getting spiritual strength. “God knows I’m here again” one of them said. Many, in the study, described wanting to go and worship at Mass and looking forward to it, rather than going from a sense of obligation.

We heard John 6:57-58: “The one who feeds on me will have life because of me…. whoever eats this bread will live forever."

It’s like the difference between the Israelites who eat manna in the desert and yet died nonetheless vs. Jesus’ sweet promise that those who eat the Eucharist will live forever, which is echoed in the Responsorial Psalm, “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.”

“Eternal life begins in the here-and-now. [With the Eucharist] the life within us can become an unstoppable force that undergoes no appreciable change even with our own death… this force is a life we can share with others. Whenever we, like Jesus, help another overcome evils like fatigue, illness, fear or alienation, we become the bread that supports the life of the world,” so we live eucharistic lives.2