3rd Week of Easter 2026 - Friday - Eucharist and Supernatural Life

Last week, remember, we read through the Lord’s conversation with Nicodemus in which Jesus speaks of supernatural and spiritual rebirth. Through baptism, we are born again through water and the spirit. What is spiritually dead in us is brought to new life, and not only that, but God’s supernatural grace raises—elevates—our human nature. The intellect is elevated by grace to know God not merely by natural reason, but by faith. The will is elevated enabling us to love God with charity, which is far beyond merely natural love or moral goodwill. 

Through baptismal grace we share in God’s own life and are now capable of acting in a way ordered to the ultimate supernatural end: union with the Trinity. Human nature, left to itself, cannot attain the beatific vision. No amount of natural intelligence, moral discipline, or sheer human effort can reach it. But through baptism, our earthly life can culminate in heavenly life.

But, in the Gospel today, Jesus explains that for the supernatural life to be sustained in us, we must eat supernatural food. “Unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood, you do not have life within you.” The Eucharist sustains the supernatural life begun at baptism. 

When the body is deprived of food it languishes and dies; and it is the same with the soul. The Eucharist does not merely symbolize supernatural life; it actually communicates it, because it is not ordinary bread but the living Christ himself. “I am the bread of life”, says the Lord. 

The Eucharist nurtures the deepening of supernatural life. Every time we receive the Eucharist, we are offered a greater share and participation in the life of God, for the Eucharist strengthens the theological virtues. It nourishes faith, because in Holy Communion we entrust ourselves to Christ’s word and presence even when hidden under sacramental signs. It nourishes hope, because the Eucharist is a pledge of future glory, a foretaste of heaven. It nourishes charity, because the life of God is one of love—self-sacrificial love, and in the Eucharist, we become what we receive, says St. Augustine—the very Christ who gave himself as a ransom for many.

Like medicine that strengthens the body weakened by illness, the Eucharist strengthens the soul against spiritual disease—enabling us to withstand the assaults, temptations, and lies of the enemy.

 St. Cyprian, writing in the early third century, says Christians imprisoned and tortured for the name of Christ received from the hand of the Bishop the sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Lord, so they would not yield to a Roman prosecutor and deny their faith. Before going on trial, they pleaded, “Give me Communion, so I’ll be able to resist.” From the very beginning of the Church, this was the reason Holy Communion was brought to the Christians in prison, that they could be strengthened in their persecution and temptations.

Whenever you present yourself to receive the Eucharist, do so with openness to be strengthened in the Christian life, fortified against sin, desiring to grow in the life of the spirit, in faith, hope, and charity, in the gifts and fruits of the Spirit, for the mission of the Church, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. 

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By offering His Body and Blood for us, Jesus reconciles the world to the Father. Therefore, we present our needs to God with confidence.

That the outpouring of charity in Christ’s Eucharistic Self-Sacrifice will become manifest in all of the Church’s activity in the world, in all marriages, in all of our business relations, family relationships and  daily encounters, in our care for the downtrodden and most vulnerable; among friends, strangers, and enemies.  

For Catholics who have fallen away from the Eucharist, that they may know the grace of sincere repentance and return to the table of the Lord.

That all of God's children may have sufficient bread for their physical life and the Bread of Life for their spiritual life. 

That those who have died may share the eternal life that Jesus promised to those who feed on the Bread from Heaven. 

Gracious Father, hear our prayers. Nourish us continually with your Son’s presence in the Eucharist, and grant us the grace to lead others to this divine source of eternal life. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2024 - The bread of supernatural life

 Last week we began a five-week liturgical cycle of reading from chapter 6 of St. John’s Gospel beginning with the account of the miraculous feeding of the 5000. 

This crowd of people must have been tremendously excited after witnessing and benefiting from Jesus’ miracle. They had already followed Jesus out into the wilderness because of his reputation as a great preacher and his ability to cure the sick. But feeding five thousand people with a few loaves was a miracle on a whole other level—levels of magnitude greater than the miracle working prophets of the Old Testament. 

In response to the miraculous feeding, the crowd, as we heard last week, wanted to make Jesus their king. After all, he would be able to satisfy all their material needs—that’s a pretty good quality for a king to possess.  

But Jesus doesn’t stick around for a coronation; he retreats, for his kingdom is not of this world. Nonetheless, the crowd follows him—they want more from him. And to their delight, Jesus explains that he does intend to feed them. As God fed their ancestors in the desert, as we heard in our first reading, Jesus promises that whoever comes to him will never be hungry. He will provide for their hunger, he will provide for their thirst.

What a promise! And yet, six chapters into John’s Gospel, we know that there must be something else coming because a pattern has already emerged in John’s Gospel. While the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke record many miracles, John records only six. The miracle of multiplication in John’s Gospel is the 4th miracle, the first three being the changing of water into wine at the Wedding at Cana, the healing of the Royal Official’s son, also at Cana, and the healing of the crippled man at the pool of Bethesda. And following those miracles, Jesus gives some sort of teaching, a teaching of who He is—and why He is here—and His mission, is about much more than gaining popular adulation in order to claim earthly kingship.

After the Wedding at Cana, Jesus teaches that he’s not just another party goer who enjoys a jug or two of wine. Rather, he is the beloved Son of the Heavenly Father sent by the Father to speak words of everlasting life. “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him.” He’s on a mission where the stakes are not about temporal pleasures and frivolity—this mission is about life and death—eternal life or death.

After the second and third miracles, Jesus gives another teaching. He teaches again about his relationship with His Father, and that he has been sent to do the work of the Heavenly Father which is a matter of life and death. And then he echoes the teaching he gave after the first miracle, “whoever hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life and will not come to condemnation, but has passed from death to life.”

So, following the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, the attentive reader of John’s Gospel will intuit that there is going to be another teaching—and likely one about some very serious eternal realities. In fact, in the original Greek of St. John’s Gospel, this is absolutely clear. 

For the Greek New Testament has two different words for “life”. Bios and Zoe. Bios is natural life, biological life, the physical life of plants, animals, and humans. But Zoe—Zoe is the word for supernatural life—the life of God, the life of the spirit. In today’s passage, when Jesus says, I am the bread of life, which word do you think he uses? Zoe, of course. Εγω ειμι ο αρτος της ζωης. I am the bread of supernatural life. 

Just like he did after the first three miracles, Jesus identifies himself with the life of God. He is sent by the Father to be food for us—and not just food that keeps our bodies alive—food that will keep our souls alive. 

Yes, of course, God is concerned with our physical needs—and if the world were a little more in conformity with the God’s kingdom—there would be a lot less physical hardship on everybody. But in the Bread of Life discourse, Jesus teaches about a reality more vital than even our physical needs. 

Now most people in our modern world say, there IS NOTHING more important than our physical life. Food, drink, shelter, medicine, without these, our frail bodies cannot survive. But Jesus teaches that there IS something more important than even physical life.  For it’s one thing for your body to die, it’s another thing for your souls to be separated from God for eternity. 

Now even a lot of Christians, these days, have fallen into some serious error. They claim that since God is all-loving everybody goes to heaven. So it doesn’t matter if you pray, or if you go to church, or get baptized or confess your sins, or receive the eucharist. But these are grievous errors that keep us from the life God desires for us—the life he sent us Son to be offered up as a sacrifice in order to obtain.

Rather, Christians must witness to the reality of man’s need for the bread of eternal life no matter what our foolish culture posits. This is why St. Paul writes in our second reading, “I declare and testify in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds; darkened in understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance, because of their hardness of heart, they have become callous.”

St. Paul is saying that the corruption of a non-Christian society is the result of shallowness in their thinking—futility of mind. One translation puts it, “empty headed thinking”. The depravity, corruption, and disorder in our surrounding culture comes from ignorance—often willful ignorance, hardened hearts and callousness—regarding the things of God. There is a lot of empty-headed thinking about God these days, even among members of the Church.

But our task in the Lord, is to witness by word and deed—through formal teaching and by good example and charitable works—that God calls us to a new way of life in Christ. God feeds us with the Bread of Life that we may have new life in Christ for eternity, and that is to be evident in how we speak and act and how we treat people.  Through the Bread of Life we are brought into Communion with the One who is life, the one who desires the flourishment of humanity and provides the means for that flourishment, in this life and the life to come, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.