Latest / Catholic Spirit Radio / Good News #216 060626: Bread from Heaven: Why the Eucharist Changes Everything

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Good News #216 060626: Bread from Heaven: Why the Eucharist Changes Everything · Catholic Spirit Radio

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Welcome to Good News on Catholic Spirit Radio, a program for teens and almost
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teens to better understand that the gospel of Jesus Christ is relevant in their
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lives, and it's a place where your questions about faith and religion can be answered.
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And now, here's your host, Deacon Al.
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Good evening, and welcome to Good News on Catholic Spirit Radio.
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I am Deacon Al Lundy, permanent deacon of the Peoria Diocese.
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Happy to be here with you every Saturday and Sunday evening from 8 to 8.30 as
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we talk about the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ through the Gospel of the
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Mass that we will share with you later in the program as we do every weekend.
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This is a very special weekend. This is the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.
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Some of you may remember back when this used to be called Corpus Christi Sunday.
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Body of Christ, and now it's the holy body and blood of Christ.
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In other words, the Eucharist, the importance of the Eucharist,
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of God sharing himself personally with us through the gift of his body and blood.
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And of course, this is going to take into consideration the gospel from John, John 6.
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And for me, this is a really huge selling point for Catholicism.
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This is the breaking point. This is where you have to choose teams.
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As John 6 explains, Jesus explained the importance of eating of his body and
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drinking of his blood to his disciples, to thousands that were present,
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and most of them walked away.
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And most still today walk away.
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They hear this, that Jesus say, this is my body, this is my blood.
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And they say, you know what, that's just too difficult for me to handle. And they walked away.
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And we're going to talk more about that because I think if that's still who
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you are in your Christian faith, you have some really serious questions you
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have to answer because that.
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Calls into the heart of things, your very belief in Christ, in the Scriptures,
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in what is truth, as Pilate would say.
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So we'll talk about that in a little bit. First, let's talk about what's going on in the world.
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Things continue to be really dangerous in the Middle East, things going on with
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Iran and some of their proxies. And this all plays into, in a large way, into Scripture.
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And certainly into the way that some people interpret Scripture,
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I would just caution you not to be too literal in your understanding of what Christ is telling us.
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Scripture tells us that these things, some of which we're seeing going on now
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in the Middle East, has to happen before the coming of Christ. Well, we know that.
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I mean, everything that's going to happen now until Christ finally comes is
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part of leading up to Christ's coming.
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But we still don't know when that is. We don't know if that's a week from now
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or a day from now or a year from now or a millennium from now. We still don't know.
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And Jesus just said, all these things are going to happen first.
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Well, some of them happened a thousand years ago. Some of them happened 500 years ago.
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Some of them happened a hundred years ago, and it's still happening.
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God, being an all-knowing God, knew what our history was going to be.
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And when they asked, when are you coming back?
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You know, he told about some of the events, but in very general terms,
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and some of them have happened repeatedly, but certainly what's going on with
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Israel and with other factions in the Middle East, all play a role in this.
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They all play a part in it.
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I'm convinced that we're closer now to the coming of Christ than we were a year
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ago or a hundred years ago.
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But I also think we're closer to the graces of God than we've ever been.
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With some of the things that we see happening, you know, with great problems also comes great grace.
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And I think that's what I'd rather see everyone focus on is for all the troubles
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in the world, this is still an incredibly beautiful world that we've been given. What a gift.
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And I've talked about my yard and my garden. I don't have a big yard. It's a very small yard.
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It's maybe a tenth of an acre at best. You know, this is not a big yard.
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But I have about 20% of it is devoted to gardens.
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And I'm in the middle of a neighborhood. And yet I look out my window today for breakfast.
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I'm sitting at the table having a very boring breakfast, I might add.
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And looking out the window in my backyard, I'm seeing a family of geese.
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I mean, I have a dozen geese, mom, dad, and 10 young goslings in the yard,
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nipping away at the weeds in one of my gardens.
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I've got a couple squirrels chasing each other over here. I've got some rabbits
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sitting over at this end.
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I've got a cat wandering through and not bothering anybody because he can't.
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This is a neighborhood cat that's declawed and can only wish that he could do
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something to some of these animals and doesn't actually have the tools for it.
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So he just kind of wanders by and stares at them and they stare back.
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I had hummingbirds, a variety of other birds at the feeders.
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Last night I had a groundhog walk across my deck, a raccoon.
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And I mean, I've got all kinds of cool wildlife in this one little bit of yard
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wandering through the gardens.
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And it's just amazing to sit there and watch.
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It's just beautiful. And you think this is just, this is a postage stamp size
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area compared to this world that we live in.
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I was visiting my son out west a couple weeks ago out in Las Vegas.
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And we took a trip over to a state park and a national park and did a little
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hiking through there and saw Gila monsters and longhorn sheep.
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Turtles out in the wild, you know, desert turtles kind of a thing.
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It's just an amazing world. The cactus was flowering. It was just gorgeous.
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We just live in such an amazing, amazing world. And this isn't by accident.
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If you read through it, if you read through Genesis, this is all here purposely for us to enjoy.
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And yet we tend to focus on the bad news of the day.
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We tend to focus on our telephone screens or our computer screens.
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We tend to sit in offices. And this is summertime.
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To me, as a kid, this was summer camp time. You know, as it is still for some
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children, get outdoors, go out and do stuff.
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Whether it's a sports camp or a computer camp or a Boy Scout camp or a church camp,
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get outside and see just what an amazing world we've been given as a gift from
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God, and then think about, okay, so now what's my role in all of this?
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Is it just to be an observer?
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Or are we here to be caretakers? We're here to be stewards.
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We're here to be able to make the most of these resources for the good of all
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mankind, and also for the good of nature itself. It's a balance.
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It's a symbiotic relationship that we're here to help each other out.
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And isn't that what the message of Christ has been for 2,000 years,
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is that we're here to help each other out.
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And we'll see that even more next weekend.
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In next week's gospel, we'll talk a lot about that, about the kindness of God
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and how that kindness is to be shared with others.
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But this weekend, it's the body and blood of Christ, the Eucharist.
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What an amazing miracle that is shared with us at every Mass,
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at every Catholic church,
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every country of the world. Tens of thousands of times a day,
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we have the chance to witness this incredible miracle of God sharing himself
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personally with us through the body and blood of Christ.
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So let's talk about those readings and talk about the importance of this in
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our lives and in our faith.
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When we come back after these few messages, you're listening to Good News on
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As you've heard, Catholic Spirit Radio is hosting their 15th anniversary pilgrimage to Wisconsin.
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Hello, this is Bishop Louis Tilka from the Diocese of Peoria.
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I want to congratulate Catholic Spirit Radio on their 15th anniversary.
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I was pleased to visit and bless the station's studio.
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You are touching the souls of so many. The listeners in the Diocese of Peoria
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appreciate your efforts.
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I wish you again a very happy anniversary and hope you keep our airways full
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of the Lord's love and words.
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May the Holy Spirit bless this ministry, its volunteers, and all its listeners.
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In the name of the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit.
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Deacon Al Lundy, and we're here every weekend to talk about the good news of
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the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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And this weekend, we're looking at the solemnity of the most holy body and blood of Christ.
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As I say, it used to be called Corpus Christi. Many of you remember it by that name.
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But this is a celebration of the Eucharist, something we celebrate at every Mass.
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But we take the time this Sunday to really appreciate what a wonderful gift this is.
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You know, during the Genesis, during the creation, God tells us that He gave
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Adam and Eve within the garden everything they needed to be happy,
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everything they needed for life.
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So God fed us from the very beginning.
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But then we get to the Exodus, where we're released from the slavery of Egypt,
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and God is directing us now to a new homeland, directing the Israelites to this
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new land of life and opportunity.
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And to get there, they have to wander through the desert.
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They had to wander for many, many years because of their own sinfulness.
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It wasn't supposed to take that long. It wasn't supposed to take 40 years.
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If you look at a map of where they wandered during this 40 years,
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they kind of zigzagged and looped their way around the Sinai far more than they needed to.
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But it was necessary because they had sinned. And the whole point of the 40
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days was this period of purification.
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They were letting an entire generation, the oldest generation of the Israelites,
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die out and take their idol-worshipping habits that they gained during their
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imprisonment in Egypt and let that die off with them and give them a chance for a new life.
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So while they're wandering through the desert and you're going to hear this
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description of, you know, they're in this land that's filled with serpents and
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scorpions and waterless, parched ground and hard rock.
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And how are they possibly going to survive?
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And they did it through God feeding them. A bread from heaven, manna.
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And to me, this is, I always find great humor in Scripture. It's kind of hidden
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in the crevices of the verses.
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But for me, one of the first great bits of humor in Scripture is manna.
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So what is manna? We know that it was a frost-like substance that fell overnight,
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almost like dew on the ground, but it could be gathered up and pressed into
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loaves and then eaten like bread. Right?
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And it gave the Israelites nourishment through their exile in the desert.
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Well, what is manna? Manna actually means, what is this?
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They had no idea what it was. They said, oh, look, we have manna.
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And what they're saying is, oh, look, what is this?
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And it turned out to be this great gift of life from God.
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And it's a precursor of the Eucharist. It's a precursor of communion,
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where this one type of bread feeds everyone,
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but now it's a spiritual food as well as a physical food.
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And Jesus is going to tell us when we get to the gospel that this is like manna
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in that nobody truly understands this miracle.
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But yet it does feed us. And this is the true food from heaven. This is from God.
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And after we hear the gospel, I have a question for many of you,
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because a lot of Christians do not see the Eucharist as the actual body of Christ.
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A lot of Catholics still wrestle with this, which astounds me.
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But I think we need to talk about this and ask a couple questions for you to
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meditate over, to decide what do you really believe in? What is the truth?
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And how do you judge that?
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So, our first reading is from the book of Deuteronomy.
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Moses said to the people, remember how for 40 years now, the Lord your God has
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directed all your journeying in the desert so as to test you by affliction and
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find out whether or not it was your intention to keep His commandments.
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He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger and then fed you with manna,
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a food unknown to you and your fathers, in order to show you that not by bread
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alone does one live, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
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Do not forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
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that place of slavery, who guided you through the vast and terrible desert with
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its seraphs, serpents, and scorpions, its parched and waterless ground,
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who brought forth water for you from the flinty rock and fed you on the desert
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with manna, a food unknown to your fathers? The word of the Lord.
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So Moses is reminding the Israelites, You're alive for one reason, God.
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God has kept you alive. God saved you from death and slavery.
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And it's only by God that you're kept alive.
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Well, we're not in the desert, a physical desert, as the Israelites were.
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We're not in slavery to another land, as the Israelites were.
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Our slavery is to sin.
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Our desert is one that we create ourselves.
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Our desert is the distance that we put between us and Christ through our sinfulness.
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And God saves us from that sin. God saves us. No one else can do it. Nothing else can do it.
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Only God can redeem us from our sins. Only Christ offers us salvation.
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And he does this through a new form of manna. And we'll hear about that in our
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gospel. It will be explained.
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Our second reading is from the first letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians.
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Paul writes, Brothers and sisters, the cup of blessing that we bless,
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is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?
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The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?
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Because the loaf of bread is one, we though many are one body,
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for we all partake of the one loaf.
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That's why it's called communion, because this sharing, this unity that's gained
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from all of us entering into Christ through the same way, through the same door,
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that door being the Eucharist.
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What this tells us, though, this tells us that mass was taking place.
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During the life of Paul. He's talking about the consecration during the Mass.
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The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?
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The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?
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This is the communion of the Mass. This is the consecration that the priest
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does and then shares the one cup and the one loaf of bread with,
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everyone, and not just with everyone in that parish, but all the parishes,
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all the masses are sharing of the same cup and the same bread.
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That's why we're using the same words, we use the same actions in all the masses,
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because it's one cup, it's one loaf of bread.
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So we see that the mass goes back all the way back to apostolic times.
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This is nothing new, this is nothing created by Constantine or something that
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came out of the fourth century.
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This is the history of our faith that was established by Christ,
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through the words of Christ, through the actions of Jesus at the Last Supper.
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The actions you see during the Mass are the same as the actions of Christ at
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the Last Supper, when He established the consecration, when He established the
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sacrament of the Eucharist.
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And that's been carried on through his priests and his bishops from that time forward.
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So what you see being done in the Catholic Church is not something new.
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It's something old being brought forward into the present.
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We're not crucifying Christ again. We're not sacrificing Christ again.
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We're not killing Christ again. We're taking an action of Christ from the past
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and not just replaying it, but bringing it forward and enacting it now in the present.
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And we know that this is the work of Christ because Christ tells us so in John
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6, where our gospel comes from.
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Jesus said to the Jewish crowds, I am the living bread that came down from heaven.
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Whoever eats this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give is
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my flesh for the life of the world.
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The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
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And Jesus said to them, Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of
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the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.
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Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.
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For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.
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Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.
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Just as the living Father sent me, and I have life because of the Father,
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so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.
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This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate
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and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.
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I want you to think about that, because this is really the divining line between
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the Catholic faith, the Orthodox, along with our Orthodox brothers and sisters
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who share this same belief,
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and the entirety of the rest of Christianity.
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You know, and when Jesus had said this, it tells in the following verses,
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those disciples, and again, this was a crowd of thousands,
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found this too hard to understand, too hard to listen to, and they walked away.
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And yet nowhere does it say that Jesus chased after them and said,
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come back, you misunderstood, I meant figuratively, this is symbolic.
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He didn't say that. He doubled down and he said, listen, this is my body.
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My body is real food, you must eat of it. My blood is real drink,
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you must drink of it. And they're saying, well, how is this possible?
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Even his own disciples couldn't figure out how that was possible.
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But they didn't leave because they had faith. They had trust that Christ would
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explain it to them eventually, which he did at the Last Supper when at the consecration,
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he prayed over the bread and said, things have changed now.
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This is now my body, and you will eat of it in remembrance of me.
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And this is my blood, and you will drink of this for your own salvation.
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So, he explains later at the Last Supper what he meant during this discourse in John 6.
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But at no point does he say symbolically. At no point does he say,
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this is just, I don't mean this in a physical sense.
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In fact, he insists this is a physical sense to the point where most of his
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disciples walk away from him.
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I want you to think about that because most of his disciples continue to walk away from him.
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When the Protestant church says, no, the communion is not the body and blood
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of Christ, it represents the
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body and blood of Christ, they're saying that the Scripture isn't true.
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Well, yet they also say that the Scripture is without error.
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Well, how can the Scripture be without error and this part not be true? Now, think about that.
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Either it's the truth or it's not the truth. But you can't say,
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well, each person decides what the truth is. No.
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No, that's not possible. I'm sorry, my friends, but that's simply not possible. Truth is truth.
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It's not true here and not true over there. It's not true when I hear it and
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not true when you hear it.
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You have to decide which side you're going to be on.
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Do you accept Scripture as being without error?
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Do you think Jesus lied in John 6?
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Do you think Scripture lied about Jesus in John 6?
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If Jesus told the truth and the Scripture is the truth of Christ,
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then John 6 has to be true.
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And yet for 500 years, much of Christianity has continued to walk away just
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as the disciples did that day.
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I find that amazing, and I find this gospel reading to be incredibly beautiful.
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I think that's why I find the Mass to be so incredibly beautiful,
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because it is so in line with the teachings of Christ.
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It mirrors Christ's words, it mirrors Christ's actions, it mirrors Christ's teaching.
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And yet so many of us look at this and say, well, that can't possibly be because
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I don't understand this.
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Well, that's what the Jews said when the manna fell. What is this?
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We don't understand this. And yet, it's what kept them alive.
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And Jesus is saying it's the truth of this teaching that will keep you alive for eternity.
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Not just for your mortal life, not just through this short journey through the
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desert, but this is a bread that will keep you alive for all eternity.
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But it's your decision.
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We can't make you believe it. If Jesus couldn't make his own disciples believe
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this, how can we possibly make someone else believe it?
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It has to be your choice. It has to come from an act of the Holy Spirit within
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you to look at what you believe as a Catholic, as a Christian, as a Protestant,
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to look at the words of Christ in the Scripture and say, what is truth?
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Truth, if you believe that Jesus is the truth,
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as He promises He is, the way, the truth, and the life, if you believe that Jesus is the truth,
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then you have to accept His words, and you have to accept the fact that the
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Eucharist, the real communion of the Catholic faith.
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Has been in the Catholic faith since apostolic times and has never wavered since
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then is the truth of Christ.
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And now it's up to you to decide what you're going to do with that.
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Pray over that. Think about that. Challenge yourself. Is Christ right or are you right?
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That's a big question. While you think about that, may Almighty God bless you,
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protect you from all evil, and bring you to everlasting life.
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Good night from Good News and Catholic Spirit Radio. You've been listening to
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