Real Presence (John 6) (2024-08-18, Sunday-20)

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 Homily – August 18, 2024  19^th Sunday (Year B)   ● Proverbs 9:1-6 ●  Psalm 34 ●

● Ephesians 5:15-20  ● + John 6:51-58    ●

 [__01__]  A few months ago, when it was Mother’s Day,  I recalled an experience of my own mother coming to volunteer as tutor/teacher at my own school when I was in Grade 6.

          This was a particular volunteer opportunity in which my mother – as the tutor – was to meet with all the individual students to do an exercise in reading, punctuation, grammar. Each of us – the students or pupils in the class – left the room to meet my mother – “Mrs. Ferry” in a room down the hall for a one-on-one lesson.

          I knew that my mother was coming to school that day. This was an exceptional day and a good day and I was looking forward to seeing Mom.

          It was, at least for me, the equivalent of what happens in the workplace when you take a coffee break or call your family during an otherwise busy work day.

          And, so, I was regarding this 15 minute lesson with the visiting volunteer “Mrs. Ferry”- my mother – as NOT something serious and as a break from reality.

[__02__]   What is your attitude and mine toward the reality of God’s word and His Real Presence in Holy Communion and the fact that this is demonstrated to us under the form of bread and wine?

          This Sunday’s Gospel – and that of recent Sundays – focuses on Jesus’ Real Presence in the Eucharist.

          Jesus makes this startling revelation, especially for those who might think he speaking metaphorically or symbolically about His New Passover the Eucharist, stating: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me  and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me

will have life because of me.” (John 6:__)

          In a sermon about Holy Eucharist, Father Ronald Knox of England observed that are always “deciding” – in everything we do or do not do – either to recognize God’s Presence or to reject God’s Presence.

          In other words, we are – at every moment – either “inside” as believers in God as the source of our being … or we are “outside” as atheists.

          I am not saying you are a fully “professed” atheist, but that sometimes we live and speak as though God did not exist, or as though our notions of LOVE are based purely in human effort and rational understanding.

          In the New Testament we read:  “We love because God first loved us” (1 John 4:19)

          In other words, for any of us to believe in the purity of love, the true standards of love, the objective truth of love, then there must be someone – this is God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit – who expresses this purity, standard, truth and objectivity to every human being, or at least to those with “ears to hear and eyes to see”.

[__03__]   This Gospel passage and message of Jesus is inviting his listeners to understand accept his identity.

          Regarding the Holy Eucharist  - Holy Communion – Father Ronald Knox observed this about the sacramental ritual and what can see and what we cannot see.

          That is, we might be inclined to see that Jesus introduced Holy Eucharist in order to give us some kind of super-charged bread by consecration.

          Rather he starts off with his Body and Blood holds up the Sacred Host  which appears to be bread and says, this is my body given up for you.

          The bread is not designed to appear as holiness personified. Rather, Jesus’ holiness personified is presented to us under the form of bread.

          What I am trying to explain is the revelation our Lord is making of “transubstantiation” in which the underlying substance of the bread is transformed into His Body and Blood, which are invisible, and meanwhile the taste, color and appearances of the bread remain.

          This is the classic definition of a sacrament: a visible sign of an invisible reality.

 [__04__]  All of the sacraments of the Church are based on the Eucharist and this invisible reality.

          A parallel in both practical and spiritual sense is the bond of matrimony between husband and wife.

          By getting married and profession of their vows in church before a deacon or priest, the relationship’s substance is transformed but the outward appearance may be the same.

          Also, even if by “outward appearance”, the relationship is evaluated favorably or unfavorably, this does not change the inward reality of their bond.

“What God hath joined, let no man put asunder.”

          It takes dedication and faith and prayer by both husband and wife – to live with honesty, uprightness and respect for each other.

          Of course, by getting married, this respect is legally documented and officially sanctioned because – for example – the spouses share and own property together and they also automatically “inherit” legally from each other.

          But they also are not just heirs and inheritors one to the other, but also jointly together they are journeying toward a heavenly reward.

          The spouses are called to help each other to reach Heaven.

[__05__]  The host in Holy Communion – which is the Body of Christ – is meant to remind us not of bread alone but of a heavenly reward made possible because Jesus gave up his body, rose from the dead in His body.

          When we say AMEN upon receiving Holy Communion, Jesus – through the priest is not only telling you that this is His Body, but also testing you.

          Do you believe?            Do I believe? Do we treat others with love and respect based on this belief in our connection through the Body of Christ.

          It would be easier to believe in a metaphor, but Jesus did not die metaphorically or symbolically on the Cross. This was and is His Body given up for you.

 [__06__]  Recently, I recalled the school and Grade 6 episode with my mother and told my father about this whole experience relating, “I thought that when I went into the room with Mom that we were going to chill, to relax – but Mom was all business. She was serious. And this surprised me”.

          My father’s perspective on this test experience: “Mom was grilling you!”

 [__07__] Jesus, in the Bread of Life discourse of John Chapter 6 and in the Last Supper Gospel was also reading to, remembering and prayer, and re-testing His disciples to recognize Him as their Savior, body and blood, soul and divinity.

          And…to remember that their salvation does not come in material things and that He is the true bread come down from heaven, to help them recognize His Presence as a “Last Supper” which has is still going on as we speak. [__end__]