Fundamentals

My daughter is in her last year of getting her degree to become a Nutritionist.

She does a lot of the cooking at home and she’s trying to reform my diet.

She says I eat too many snacks and sweets and junk.

And not enough fresh vegetables.

She makes icy smoothies in the blender, and they’re pretty good.

But I eventually get tired of the taste of all the kale she puts in them.

She tries to impress me with the biology and chemistry and science.

They show the impacts of different foods on our bodies.

Impacts at the basic cellular level.

Impacts on all the body systems including the brain.

They affect our health, our energy, our moods.

Even our intelligence and thinking.

They confirm the old slogan—You are what you eat.

Some studies say that most Americans eat too much.

And too much of the wrong stuff.

Including too much meat.

Sometimes I’m almost tempted to try vegetarianism.

When I see the videos of the little calves and pigs and chickens playing.

Even more when I see the abuses and health violations in the meat industry.

On top of all that we’re told that the meat industry pollutes the environment.

And that raising cattle misuses enormous quantities of water and land.

That’s when it’s almost enough to make me consider vegetarianism. 

But I tell myself there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with eating meat.

Jesus himself ate meat.

The Bible doesn’t give us many detailed descriptions of his meals.

But we know he joined in the Passover meals and that they included lamb.

We know he fed fish to the multitudes.

And ate fish himself to show that his glorified body was not a ghost.

The Jews had a lot of laws concerning food and eating.

And meat was part of their regular diet.

They didn’t have nice prepackaged meats like we have.

They had to take a hands-on role in slaughtering their animals.

They weren’t as squeamish as most of us would be.

With the killing and the blood and the butchering.

But they were shocked and appalled with what Jesus said in today’s Gospel.

The bread that I will give you is my flesh.

You must eat my flesh and drink my blood.

My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.

Many of his disciples left him.

This disgusting, crazy talk was too much to bear.

But others stayed with him.

They didn’t fully understand what he was saying, but they trusted him.

They had faith in him.

Most of us have grown up with this idea of eating the body and blood of Jesus.

And we’re comfortable knowing it appears to be just bread and wine.

So, it doesn't strike us as so weird.

But doesn't it seem outrageous when we stop to think about it

Eat my body and drink my blood

With that invitation, how many of us would get in line for Communion.

If we didn’t know we’d receive what looks and tastes like bread and wine.

But it’s not just bread and wine.

It’s bread and wine that has maintained its appearance.

But bread and wine that has been changed in substance.

Our God who created all things from nothing can also change things at will.

This miraculous food is available to us every day.

In years past, it was viewed as a rare opportunity—maybe once a year.

But Pope Pius X, in 1905, encouraged frequent, even daily, Communion.

And Pope Francis has assured us that Communion is not a prize for the perfect

but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.

At every Mass we join ourselves in the offering and in the sacrifice.

We bring forward our gifts of bread and wine and the priest prays:

Blessed are you Lord, God of all creation.

Through your goodness we have this bread to offer.

Which earth has given and human hands have made.

It will become for us the Bread of Life.

We add a few drops of water to the wine, saying:

By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share

in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.

And the priest prays:

Blessed are you Lord God of all creation.

Through your goodness we have this wine to offer.

Fruit of the vine and work of human hands.

It will become our spiritual drink.

And finally, the priest says the words of consecration, such as:

Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray,

by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall,

so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

With the consecration, the bread and wine cease to be merely bread and wine.

They have become the bread from Heaven that gives us eternal life.

They have become the true food that can transform us at the most basic levels.

Because we are what we eat.

20th Sunday Ordinary Time
Jn 6:51-58      Read this Scripture @usccb.org