The Last Piece
Though it grieved our Lord to see so many turn their backs on Him, Jesus
still refused to water down the substance of His teaching.
At the Last Supper,
Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to His disciples, saying,
"Take and eat - this is My Body!" And similarly, taking up a chalice
of wine, Jesus instructed, "Take and drink - this is My Blood!" And
He commanded His disciples to "Do this in memory of Me!"
At the Last Supper
then, what exactly did Jesus give His disciples - His Body and His Blood, or
just a morsel of bread and a sip of wine, perhaps flavored a bit with the
significance of the moment? In other words, did the Son of God mean what He
said, and say what He meant, or was He just using a tasteless figure of speech?
Well, from the
moment that the first Eucharistic aroma started drifting into human
consciousness, there were those who objected that the real presence of Jesus in
the Eucharist was just too much to swallow. So the Gospel recounts quite
frankly that some (many, in fact!) of His disciples lost their appetite that
day for the Bread of Life. They would walk no longer with Jesus as His
companions, (and that word "companion" remember, means "those
who share bread together"). Our Lord had spoken plainly, and they had
understood Him clearly. He made no effort to call them back. They could not
appreciate His promise, they would not imbibe His words of life, so He had to
let them go. Though it grieved our Lord to see so many turn their backs on Him,
Jesus still refused to water down the substance of His teaching. He could
afford to lose followers, but He Himself could not stomach diluted Truth, and
He Himself never stooped to serving half-baked verities to His disciples.
Yet since the
sixteenth century, that's exactly what some who reject the original teaching of
Christ and His Church have done, by mixing up a baker's dozen or more of stale
recipes for what they imagine Jesus really meant at the Last Supper. But the
common ingredients of all of those novelties boils down to putting these words
on lying lips of our Lord, "This is NOT My body, this is NOT My blood -
it's just a symbol, a souvenir, a simple ritual."
Yet the words
faithfully recorded in Scripture are "This is My Body, This is My Blood!
My Flesh is real food, and My Blood is real drink!" For nearly 2000 years,
the Catholic Church has unswervingly maintained that the divine words of Christ
were surely efficacious, for reality always necessarily conforms to His divine
commands. Thus, in spite of the manifest impossibility, when He unequivocally
ordered, "Lazarus, come forth!" a dead man was instantaneously
changed into a living man, in order for reality to comply with the word of the
Lord. So, there can be no doubts about what happened when the truth-trumpeting
mouth of the Lord declared, "This is My Body.... This is My Blood!"
At that instant, reality again obeyed the command of divinity, and so, despite
the apparent impossibility, the lowly bread miraculously became the Body of
Christ, and the common wine was likewise transubstantiated into the Blood of
Christ, and the miracle is renewed daily in fulfillment of the divine command
to "Do this in memory of Me!"
Just one year
before the marvelously acquiescent reality of the Last Supper, Jesus taught His
disciples thoroughly so that they wouldn't miss the miracle - in Chapter Six of
the Gospel of St. John, the Bread of Life discourse, Jesus unambiguously
insisted, "I am the Bread of Life.... The Bread that I will give is My
Flesh for the life of the world.... He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood
has life eternal.... My Flesh is real food, and My Blood is real drink."
Sure enough, these are hard sayings, but every faithful disciple is conformed,
as is reality itself, in order to accept the word of the Lord and His Bread of
Life, the full and balanced diet of His divinely Real presence, which Peter and
every other faithful disciple holds to, for : "Master, to whom else shall
we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are
convinced that You are the Holy One of God!"