Author Archives: Father L

Good morning students! Last Saturday, a number of our students made their 1^st Holy Communion, and it was a beautiful day. For the first time, they came up, and received Jesus, and now they can whenever they attend Mass. At 1^st Communion there was a little quiz, right? We asked questions like, when does the bread and wine change into the Body of Christ, and they said at the Consecration; when the priest says: ‘This is my Body,’ This is my Blood.’ The students even remembered the big word, which means the substance of bread and wine is changed, and that is Transubstantiation: there is a real change in substance. I asked them how long one must fast before Communion, and that is 1 hour: no food or drink. Except water.

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We read in the gospel today, Jesus tells us that the Holy Eucharist is truly himself; it is really he, living, alive, and loving us. In those days, there were some people who said: ‘This is a hard saying, I cannot believe it!’ Those people stopped walking with Jesus. But his disciples believed, they trusted him.

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You know, at Mass, there are often extra Hosts consecrated, these too are the Body of Christ – so where do we keep these, so that these hosts can be given to someone, or taken to the sick? In the Tabernacle. At St. John’s we always keep a veil on it, that shows that it is very holy, because it is the Body of Christ in there.

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One time, Pope John Paul II, who is now a saint, he was visiting the United States, and when the Pope visited St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore – a seminary is where young men go to prepare to become priests – well, before the Pope went in, there was a special security team who went in first to check the building – remember, the Pope was once shot, and so they had to be careful that no bad people were hiding in there.

The police used specially trained dogs to sniff out the building looking for any persons that might be hiding in there. These dogs are trained to find people in disasters and under collapsed buildings, or anywhere a person might be hiding.

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The dogs moved up and down the hallways, sniffing around; sniffing in the library, and in the dinning room, looking for any hidden persons. Then the dogs were taken into the chapel; they sniffed around all the pews, and under them – no persons. But then the dogs went up to the front, and they started whining and barking and starring at – the tabernacle! Because they had found a Person there. Who? Jesus.

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But Jesus is not a dangerous Person, he is a loving Person. And so the Pope entered the building and with the seminarians, he knelt down before the tabernacle, and they prayed and spoke to Jesus.

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We ourselves adore Jesus who is there, that’s why we genuflect on our right knee upon entering a church or leaving. And we love this dear Jesus very much, especially when we receive him at Holy Communion.

Friends in Christ, this week we’re reading in the gospel, John chapt. 6: The famous Bread of Life Discourse. It is here, in which Our Lord really teaches us about the Holy Eucharist. Having miraculously multiplied the loaves, to feed thousands,  he then begins to speak of another kind of miraculous bread, which will also feed the multitudes.  ‘I am the living bread come down from heaven, whoever eats this bread will live forever.’

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He will tell the people that they must eat his flesh; that if they do, they will live forever.  Many left him, because of this teaching.  ‘This is a hard saying,’ they said. And they left. But the apostles, though not understanding this mystery, they trusted.  And he would show them what he meant at the Last Supper.   

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This belief in the Holy Eucharist therefore, goes back to the very beginning, it is part of the True Faith. Around the year 180AD, St. Irenaeus of Lyon  would himself write about this ‘Bread from heaven.'[i] Irenaeus, who learned from Polycarp who knew John the Apostle – he says: ‘When the chalice we mix and the bread we bake receive the word of God, the Eucharistic elements become the Body and blood of Christ, by which our bodies live and grow.’  

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He says, since our flesh is nourished by the Lord’s own body and blood, we too are capable of receiving the gift of eternal life.   St. Irenaeus then beautifully adds: ‘The grain of wheat falls into the ground and decays, only to be raised up again by the Spirit of God’ – into wheat.  Then, when the wheat-made-into-bread receives the word of God (at Holy Mass), it becomes the Eucharist which is the body and blood of Christ.   

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So too our bodies, which have been nourished by the Eucharist, will be buried in the earth and decay;  but they will rise again,  for the Word of God will raise them up in glory.   

[i] The following is adapted from Irenaeus’ treatise against heresies found in the Office of the Roman Breviary, Thursday, the 3^rd Week of Easter.

Friends in Christ, in a study published in Psychological Science, it was shown that men often judge a woman as more attractive when they believe that their peers find that woman attractive. According to the study’s author, this theory of conformity shows that people are not concealing their own preferences, they have actually aligned their minds with the others.'[i]

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To us who are not psychologists, it is surprising how easily people will follow the crowd. People who do not base their life on firm convictions and beliefs, will easily follow whatever is the “in thing.” Today, many people who grew up Catholic, easily go along with whatever the latest trend is, even if it is against the teachings of the Church.

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A stunning example of this is the almost over-night conformity to the supposed ‘gay-marriage’ idea. But there are many other examples. The devil often uses this power of ‘group think’, to lead many astray. It is explained probably best by this psychological theory of conformity. It’s not that people hide their true idea on the subject just to get along; it is that they have literally been convinced, not by logic, but merely because their friends and the media tell them.

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We read today in the Acts of the Apostles, of the first persecution against the Church. ‘There broke out a severe persecution of the Church in Jerusalem, and all were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria.’ The teachings of those first Christians did not fit in with the ideas of the majority: ‘What you believe is not acceptable!’, they said. ‘And entering house after house they dragged out men and women, and handed them over for imprisonment.’

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Since the very beginning of the Church, this has been the reality. Many people will accept whatever the world says for today, but those who live for Christ, who actually have convictions and Faith – they will never go along with the latest trend of the day.

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At times, the ideas of the world are not far off from ours, and this is when society is somewhat Christian. We had that for a while – then it was easy to coast along as a Catholic. But those days are over. To be a follower of Jesus means being different. But we must have a merciful heart toward the weak, who easily fall for the latest trends. As St. Paul said, we must help those who are weak in faith.[ii]

[i] Scientific American, Aug 25, 2011

[ii] See Romans 14:1

Friends in Christ, in the 1^st century AD, the luxurious living of ancient Roman society was unparalleled. Roman banquets featured a selection of anything you wanted, wild boar, oysters, pheasant, deer; and they included exquisite and expensive delicacies such as peacock brains and nightingale tongues. Guests would often eat while reclining, while slaves swept away discarded bones and olive pits. It was commonplace for the rich to spend 10’s of thousands of dollars on these banquets.

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Pliny the Elder, in his writings from that period, describes the excessive lavishness of the people, but he believed that the terrible fires that occurred in Rome were punishment for this lifestyle. ‘In great buildings and in everything else, he says, the rest of the world has been outdone by us Romans. It was reported that a Roman lady who was married at that time, wore a robe so richly jeweled that it would cost today the equivalent of 17million dollars.

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‘There was a reason for all of this, and the reason was dissatisfaction; a hunger that nothing could satisfy.’ So says William Barclay, in his commentary on John. People who are hungry inside, who can’t find meaning to life, they seek out anything that can give a thrill or a new pleasure in life. But it’s always for earthly things, things that are temporary.

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Today in the Gospel, the crowd seeks out Jesus, trying to find out where he went. Why? Because he had multiplied a few loaves to feed 5000 families. ‘You are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled,’ he says. They wanted a bread king, who could produce food for them, so that they wouldn’t have to work, but that’s not why he came. Our Lord wants the people to see that he is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. ‘Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life.’

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There are two kinds of hunger: there is a physical hunger, but there is also a spiritual hunger, which the pleasures of this world will never satisfy. A person can be a billionaire, but still have an unsatisfied longing, an incompleteness in this life. Not only Jesus’ miracle of the loaves should convince us, but his resurrection from the dead should convince us. No THING, nothing – can save us from death. But Jesus has proven that he is the WAY. He is the way to a New Life, which is stronger than death.