3rd Week of Easter 2022 - Friday - "My flesh is true food..."

 

There is a short Eucharistic hymn from the 14th century, composed by an unknown author, possibly Pope Innocent VI, the fifth of the Avignon Popes. The hymn is called Ave Verum Corpus. It was sung often during benediction, when the host would be elevated in the monstrance for our adoration. While gazing upon, what appears to be ordinary bread, in the ornate golden monstrance, the choir would sing Ave Verum Corpus—"Hail true flesh born of the Virgin Mary who having truly suffered, was sacrificed on the cross for mankind, whose pierced side flowed with water and blood: Be for us a foretaste of the Heavenly banquet in the trial of death."  

St. Thomas Aquinas maintained that believing that bread is transformed—trans-substantiated—into the flesh of the Savior is a difficult doctrine. The Eucharist does not look like Christ, nor his flesh; thus it tests our faith—the doctrine requires faith.  But we believe it because this teaching comes from the Lord himself.

“unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood you do not have life within you.”

The non-Catholic denominations of Christianity have to do some pretty strange intellectual gymnastics to support their claims which contradict what Catholics have held as true from the beginning of the Church. The flesh and blood offered on the cross for our salvation becomes present on the altar under the appearance of bread and wine, and is given to us to eat and drink.

Already around the year 150, St. Justin the Martyr explains what was already well-established teaching about the transformation of bread and wine into the true flesh and blood of Jesus. He said, “We do not consume the eucharistic bread and wine as if it were ordinary food and drink, for we have been taught that as Jesus Christ our Savior became a man of flesh and blood by the power of the Word of God, so also the food that our flesh and blood assimilates for its nourishment becomes the flesh and blood of the incarnate Jesus by the power of his own words contained in the prayer of thanksgiving”—that is the Eucharistic Prayer at Mass.

It is a terrible horrific tragedy that so many Catholics, who should know better, deprive themselves of the Flesh and Blood of Our Lord, choosing to skip Mass, and fill their lives with so much garbage that does not satisfy, that does not give life. So part of our Easter mission is to urge them to return to the sacraments, so that they might not be deprived of eternal life.

May we find our nourishment in the Eucharist, and be strengthened in our mission by the Eucharist, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That the Church will deepen in her devotion to the Eucharistic sacrifice which is the source and summit of our Christian life.  

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

That the Eucharist will be for priests the source of their joy and their deeper configuration to Jesus Christ.  

For all those who have died, for all of the poor souls in purgatory, for all who have fought and died for our country’s freedom, and for [intention below], for whom this Mass is offered.

Incline your merciful ear to our prayers, we ask, O Lord, and listen in kindness to the supplications of those who call on you. Through Christ our Lord.