In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
We are going to start by clarifying about the Eucharist, which is one of the main points
of discussion with our separated brothers and sisters.
The central and fundamental point of the Catholic faith is Christ; The living and risen Christ,
present among us in the sacrament of the Eucharist as a close friend, who always awaits us.
The Sacred Scriptures or the bible is clear.
Jesus affirms without a doubt: “I am the bread of life”
John 6:35
“Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise
that person up on the last day.”
John 6:54
Some separated brothers and sisters say that this must be understood symbolically.
So, symbolically what is needed to be understood?
To eat His flesh and drink His blood?
Having eternal life and being resurrected on the last day?
Dear separated brothers and sisters, eternal life is not a symbolic thing, and it cannot
be said that the first part of the verse, eating and drinking, is symbolic and the second part is not.
Jesus, at the Last Supper, seriously tells them: "Take it and eat; this is my body
Matthew 26:26
And in the original Greek it says
“Outo estin to soma mou”
Therefore, it cannot be translated
"This symbolizes my body."
It would be going against the will of Jesus and gravely offending Him by distorting His words.
Outo estin, means in English: THIS IS.
Saint Paul the Apostle himself clarifies it for us with his authority, authentically interpreting the words of Jesus.
“The blessing-cup, which we bless is not communion with the body of Christ?”
It is as he said: does anyone doubt it?
And to further reaffirm it, Saint Paul the Apostle insists
"Therefore anyone who eats
the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily is answerable for the body and blood of the Lord.
Everyone is to examine himself and only then eat of the bread or drink from the cup;
because a person who eats and drinks without recognizing the body is eating and drinking his own condemnation."
To reaffirm our faith in the Eucharist, we can read the writings of the Christians of
the first centuries and we will see that the Church has always understood the biblical texts,
for two thousand years, in the sense that the Body and Blood of Jesus really is in the Eucharist.
We can read, for example, what the Didache, or doctrine of the twelve apostles, says in
the year 70
"We gather on the Lord's day, break bread and offer the Eucharist, after
confessing our faults so our sacrifice be pure”.
"Let no one dare to approach to eat or drink the Eucharist, if he has not been baptized before".
You can also read the first letter of the Roman Pope Saint Clement I to the Corinthians,
chapters 40 and 41, from the year 96.
Saint Ignatius of Antioch in the year 107 says that the Docetists
"keep away from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not want to confess that the Eucharist is
the flesh of Our Lord Jesus Christ"
Saint Justin Martyr who lived from 100 to 165 in his Apology of the second century,
chapters 66 and 67, he says
“We call this food Eucharist and only those who accept our
teachings as true, have been washed by the bath of regeneration and live as Christ taught
us, can partake of the Eucharist.
Because the bread and drink that we take, we do not receive as ordinary bread and drink,
but we have been taught that the food over which thanksgiving has been pronounced
is the flesh and blood of Jesus, the Son of God incarnate
Such is our doctrine”
Gilbert K. Chesterton who lived from 1874 to 1936
was a famous journalist, novelist,
poet and literary critic, he is a great figure of English literature
and one of the most cited modern authors.
He was baptized Anglican and turned away from religious practice.
He says
“Among the dubious things I got involved in, I took up spiritualism
without even having the decision to be a spiritualist.
My brother and I used to play with a Ouija board, but we were among the few who played
with it playfully.
However, I don't completely rule out some people's suggestion that we were playing with
fire and even fire from hell.
The only thing I can say with complete confidence about the mystical and invisible power of
the Ouija board is that it's all a lie.
The general environment of my childhood was agnostic.
My parents were the exception, because they believed in a personal God or impersonal immortality."
“My ideas were fed almost exclusively from anti-Catholic publications.
However, now that I am a Catholic, I believe that the Catholic Church can save man from
the destructive and humiliating slavery of being a son of his time.
Catholics, quite unlike all other men, have an experience of nineteen centuries.
A person who converts to Catholicism suddenly becomes two thousand years old.
The Catholic Church is the work of the Creator and continues to be able to live the same
in his old age as in his early youth.
And her enemies, deep in their souls, have already given up hope of ever seeing her die."
“When people ask me why you have joined the Church of Rome, the first answer is
“To get rid of my sins”.
For there is no other religious system that actually makes people's sins disappear.
The sacrament of penance grants new life and reconciles man with all that he lives
but it does not do it as the optimists, the hedonists and the pagan preachers of happiness usually do.
The gift is granted through a price and is conditioned by a confession.
On one occasion he was asked
Why did you become a Catholic?
and he replied
“Because I want to be happy.
The difficulty in adequately explaining why I am a Catholic consists in the fact that
there are 10,000 reasons, which can be summed up as Catholicism being true.
“I know that Catholicism is too big for me and I have not yet explored all its terrible and beautiful truths.
I don't know how to explain why I am a Catholic, but now that I am, I couldn't imagine it any
other way.
I am proud to be bound by "old-fashioned" dogmas and enslaved by deep creeds, as my
journalist friends so often repeat, for I know very well that it is heretical creeds
that are dead, and that only reasonable dogma lives long enough to call it old-fashioned."
Chesterton's parish priest recalled that “on the morning of his first Communion he was
fully aware of the immensity of the real presence of Jesus.”
And when he congratulated him he said
It was the happiest hour of my life.
Chesterton defended the Church and the Catholic faith in his writings and even founded a weekly
newsletter to share his Catholic thought
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.