Today we are blessed to continue to unpack the most important chapter in Scripture to understand the Holy Eucharist, the Gospel of John chapter 6.  Have you read the chapter in its entirety lately?  It is necessary that every Catholic understand John 6 if you want to embrace the truth for yourself and help others believe in the greatest gift God has given us. 

In last week’s homily I revealed about how I’ve always known that Catholics believe the bread and wine is transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, but God helped me to understand how this amazing gift is true.  I reasoned that if I truly believe in the Scriptures which clearly reveal Jesus as the Son of God, then I must believe what Jesus says so clearly in the Scriptures, especially John 6, about the Eucharist.  Last week I explained that God helped me reason how I can believe that the Eucharist is Jesus’s Real Presence, today I want to share how God helped me to understand just why Jesus would give Himself through the bread and wine.  Simply put, the ‘why’ is because God loves us and wants to save us through the Eucharist; but to fully understand why, we need to look at the Eucharist from God’s perspective, instead of from our human perspective.

In the Old Testament, you will remember that God chose to save his people, the Israelites, from sin through sacrifice.  God asked them to sacrifice to Him the precious animals of their livestock, by offering this sacrifice they were showing God they loved Him more than anything else. And every year on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, God asked that a goat would be sacrificed in atonement for all their sin.  The story of salvation continues, as God saved his people from slavery to Pharaoh in Egypt through the Passover Lamb.  For the Passover, God commanded his people to kill, roast, and eat an unblemished male lamb with unleavened bread.  It was through this Passover meal that God saved his people and set them free from slavery the very next morning, and it was this food which provided them strength for the journey to their own homeland.  God commanded the Passover to be a memorial institution, and so, over and over again throughout the centuries, the Jews would sacrifice an unblemished male lamb and eat its flesh with unleavened bread.  And they thoroughly believed that through these annual ritual actions they were saved just as they were saved from Pharaoh’s evil treatment.  Therefore, celebrating the Passover was not just a ritual for remembering how God saved their ancestors, but it was how God is saving them then, in their time.  It was through their eating the flesh of the lamb with unleavened bread that God saved the Jewish people.    So the salvation that first came through the first Passover is re-presented, or was made present through them celebrating the Passover each and every time.  Because of all this, the Jews knew that salvation came through sacrifice.  Let me say that again so that it sinks in for us, they knew that salvation came through sacrifice.

Flash forward now to Jesus at the Last Supper in which He is celebrating his final Passover with his disciples.  Once again a gift of sacrifice is present.  But in this Passover, Jesus does something a little different.  Instead of focusing on the flesh of the lamb, Jesus takes the unleavened bread and says, “take this all of you and eat it, this is my body which is given for you”.  And in the same way, Jesus tells his disciples to drink from the cup for the forgiveness of sins.  After celebrating the Passover each and every year of their lives, the disciples knew the words and actions centered on the killing and eating of the Passover Lamb for the forgiveness of sins and their salvation.  Therefore, in this final Passover, Jesus is clearly telling his disciples that He is the new Passover Lamb that is to be sacrificed; is to be sacrificed but not yet.  The disciples would have been wondering why Jesus didn’t finish the Passover.  Instead, then Jesus interrupts the Passover meal and goes out to the Mount of Olives where he is arrested, tried, and sent to be crucified.  Now we look back and can see the entire picture.  Hanging upon the Cross, Jesus takes a final sip of wine from a sponge given to him and says “it is finished”.  What Jesus meant by ‘it’, is the Passover supper which began in the upper room.  ,The final Passover meal was only completed after the new Passover Lamb has been sacrificed.  Jesus is the new Passover lamb, and that is why at every Mass we sing 3 times Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world.  And then the priest says, “Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sins of the world, blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb”.  Jesus is the new Passover Lamb who was sacrificed, and we must eat of the Lamb in order to be saved!  Knowing that Jesus is the Passover Lamb that was sacrificed for the forgiveness of our sins, we must then eat the Lamb.  For Jesus clearly says in our Gospel today, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you”.

Wow, isn’t this just amazing.  Our scripture is so rich, as is our Catholic faith!  Listen to the Catechism of the Catholic Church to reinforce the gift of the Eucharist.  “The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ’s Passover, the making present and the sacramental offering of his unique sacrifice”.  And paragraph 1366 says, “The Eucharist is a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the Cross”.  My brothers and sister’s the fullness of this reality of Jesus’ presence in only found in Our Catholic Church.  

Throughout this Mass, I encourage you to listen to how many times in the Eucharistic Prayer we use the word ‘sacrifice’.  It is clear, the words of Jesus at the last supper, “this is my body given up for you”, is what is accomplished upon the Cross when Jesus gave up his body for us, and which we eat for our salvation. 

And so whenever we celebrate the Mass, the salvation which is won for us by Christ upon the Cross, is made present for us.  Our faith in the Cross should not be just what Christ did for us thousands of years ago, but God wants that salvation to be made present, to be made real and active in our lives today- which is done through the Eucharist.  Our salvation is made present, and made real, through our entering into the Sacrifice of Christ at every Mass.  It is made present when we offer ourselves up to God in prayer when the priest says, “pray brethren, that my sacrifice and yours, may be acceptable to God the almighty Father”.  It is the sacrifice of ourselves, our anxieties and worries, which, united with the sacrifice of Christ, is offered up to the Father; and which we pray will be transformed along with the bread and wine. 

The Eucharist is real, Jesus is truly present, and our gratitude for this salvific miracle should be immense.   Today, and each liturgy, may we prepare ourselves, so that as we celebrate the Eucharist, Christ’s sacrifice for our salvation.  May this reality change us and may our love for Jesus in the Eucharist be made more present and more real in our lives as we enter into the Sacrifice and eat the Body of Christ.

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