Church of the
Annunciation

At Mass today we can smell aromas drifting into the Church. The smells heighten sensitivity of our taste buds as we anticipate a pork chop dinner, a chicken barbeque, a bowl of chowder and delights in the food court. It is summer picnic time at Annunciation. We enjoy (and often take for granted) the bounty of food that graces tables in America. In many parts of the world, morsels of bread are a matter of survival. The recent movie/novel -- Hunger Games -- is an apocalyptic vision of our country after civil war where distribution of food is used to control and subdue people in the districts; and where teens, young adults and even children fight to the death in an arena to the amusement of the “victors.” One person at the end of the contest “wins.” Everyone else is dead.

 

Jesus in our Gospel speaks of bread: “The bread I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” His words can offend our sensibilities. How can someone offer his very flesh and blood for the life of the world? Scientific analysis of the consecrated bread at Mass will determine the bread is bread. Scientific analysis of the consecrated wine will determine the wine is wine. Genetic DNA testing of consecrated bread and wine will determine the elements at Mass are bread and wine. St. Thomas Aquinas, the great Catholic theologian, said as much generations ago. St. Thomas explained that the “accidents” of the elements of bread and wine (that is, what we can see, touch, taste & consume) remain bread and wine but the “substance,” or the “essence” of the bread and wine is transformed (transubstantiation) into the body and blood of Christ. Blessed John Paul II uses vocabulary that we can better understand: “the flesh of the Son of Man, given as food, is his body in its glorious state after the resurrection. With the Eucharist we digest, as it were, the “secret” of the Resurrection.”  (You will find JPII’s reflection on the Body and Blood of Christ in the August edition of Magnificat, pages 270-271.)       

 

As Catholic we believe in the “real” presence of Jesus Christ in the consecrated bread and wine – His Body and Blood for the life of the world. It is not easy for us to understand and to believe. Next week in the Gospel of John as the discourse of Jesus on the Bread of Life comes to an end, we will hear the evangelist remark: “Many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.” What Jesus says to the Twelve, he says to us: “Do you also want to leave?”