The Passage That Stumps the Thumpers

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying,                                   
"How can this man give us his Flesh to eat?" 
Jesus said to them,
"Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood,
you do not have life within you. 
Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood
has eternal life,
and I will raise him on the last day.
For my Flesh is true food,
and my Blood is true drink. 
Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood
remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father,
so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.  This is the bread that came down from heaven. 
Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died,
whoever eats this bread will live forever." 
These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

How I wish Sola Scriptura was true.  If it was, then all doubt and all disagreement about the Bread of Life Discourse found in John would be settled for our Protestant Evangelical brothers and sisters because what it says it says in black and white and is difficult to misunderstand. For some reason, in a book where just about everything else is taken as holy writ, they say Jesus is just speaking in a metaphor.  Now I am not being hateful hear, far from it.  I am sad for our Evangelical Bible-thumping friends. They are normally devoted Christians that take their faith seriously and live it out in a worthy fashion that should be a good example for all. 

Unfortunately. they have developed a blind spot when it comes to the Eucharist.  Jesus could not be more clear through all of John Chapter VI.  This blind spot was born at the time when Luther surrendered to his pride and split from the one true church and formed a church that bore his name and his own brand of theology.  Many things that Catholics, which up until then was the whole world, were stopped, not for any sort of theological reason, but because the Catholic Church believed it so it must be wrong. 

To cut yourself off from the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ is a very sad thing to do.  True, three or four times a year they break out the saltines and the grape juice and call it the "Lord's Supper" but they do not consider the accidents of bread and wine to be changed into the body and blood.  After the service, the leftover crackers are fed to the birds and the grape juice is put into the drain.  I am not saying that the Lord looks down on their practice.  No, He loves all of His children and it must break His heart to be unable to be present inside of these good Christian people in the special way that the Eucharist and the Real Presence provides for.  

There is coming a day when all of our separateness will be condensed back into the one truth that is the Catholic Church.  On that day, those that today live without or even mock the Eucharist will receive it and they will be filled with the Lord and filled with awe and the Spirit of Jesus in ways that that their current theology will not allow them to feel.  

For those of us who currently love and receive Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, let us today resolve to treat the Eucharist as the Royal Visit that it is.  Let us resolve to love Jesus in the Bread and Wine more than life itself.  Let us pray for the day when all of His children can claim their inheritance. 

Pray for the Holy Souls in Purgatory - they need your prayers.