A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. Now this is a famous chapter six, and it really started last Sunday. And I, while while I, in a way, I spoke about the multiplication of loaves and fish, nevertheless, what I really talked about was the difference between Philip and Andrew and how they faced the crises of how to feed the multitude. Philip, of course, immediately thought when Christ said, how are we gonna feed this crowd? He immediately thought of money.
Whereas Andrew, see facing the very same situation, in some way or other, got ahold of a boy who had some loaves of bread, five loaves of bread, two fish. So he passed them on to Christ and said, look. Here, this is what we have. You take it up from there. Now for the next in August, each Sunday, we are reading from this chapter six of Saint John.
And my well chosen remarks, I hope we'll have some unity if they don't have anything else. But I can't do anything more than urge you, beseech you, pray that you read this chapter six from beginning to end. It'll take all of a few minutes, about two or three. Because any if you take a text and break it up into four Sundays, separate it by six days, what does it amount to? You don't do that even with a comic strip.
And so I beg you, because this is frightfully important stuff. There's nothing so basic to the Catholic faith as the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. So I urge you to read, sit down, and quietly read because it's a fascinating document, this chapter six of Saint John. So I'm gonna begin. And today, we take it up at the first 23, and I'm going to read to to verse 40.
The next day now this is after the multiplication of the loaves and fish. This is after Christ walks on the water. Two very important So the next day, the crowd that had remained across the sea saw that there had been only one boat there and that Jesus had not gone along in that boat with his disciples, but only his disciples had gone along in that boat. Other boats came from Tiberias nearby where they had eaten the the bread and the fish when the lord had given thanks. Now when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they would be the upper Northeast corner of the lake, they themselves got into boats and came back to Capernaum going Southwest looking for Jesus.
About a journey of five or six miles by boat. And when they had found Jesus across the sea, they said to him, rabbi, meaning teacher, where and how did you get here? Jesus answered and said, amen. Amen. I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs, the multiplication of the bread and the fish, but because you ate the loaves and the fish and were filled with food.
Do not work for food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the son of man will give you. Now note that phrase, son of man, first time it's occurred in this chapter. For on him, the father, god, has set his seal. So the some of the crowd said to Jesus, what can we do to accomplish the works of god? And Jesus answered and said to them, this is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.
So they said in reply to Jesus, what sign can you do that we may see and believe in you? What can you do? Now notice they had just been witnesses of the multiplication of loaves and fish. Our ancestors notice, they were very clever guys. Our ancestors ate manna in the desert.
As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. So Jesus said to them, amen. Amen. I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven, but my father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of food is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
So they said to Jesus, sir, give us that bread always. They're still aiming to fill their bellies with food. So Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst. And that is the reading for today.
In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Our lord then is in this argument with the crowd says to them, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Do not work for food that perishes, but for the food that lasts for eternal life. These words are taken from today's reading. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit.
Amen. Friday of this week, I celebrated benediction of the blessed sacrament here at this altar. We had a pretty good congregation, first Friday of the month. As I knelt there on the steps and looked up at that handsome golden monstrance, it's just man's attempt to give some expression to the inexpressible. There's no other word for it.
How can you use words to say that when I'm kneeling there, the altar boys and so forth and the congregation, we're all looking at the monsters, and all we're seeing is these rays coming out with some plated with gold, and we see in the center a white wafer. I know it's a white wafer. I put it in there. And here we bow, we incense, we sing, and we hail that white wafer as the body and blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ. If that is not an act of faith, I have no idea of how you can utter one.
That, Vatican two says, is the heart and the soul of Catholic worship, the Eucharist, the holy Eucharist. We come to church like any other denomination or or even pagans. We come and we go through certain human acts. We sing. We preach.
We we may have some kind of a dialogue or, you know, some music. We do all the this is this is what we all do. Anybody. And anthropologists teaches us that that atheism was never a widespread cult by no means. That is what we all do.
But there is something absolutely unique about Catholicism, and that's the blessed Eucharist. You come into this church. This is not a meeting hall. This is not a community or a social center. This is a church where god in his presence of the holy Eucharist dwells, and that is absolutely peculiar, unique, extraordinary, inexpressible inexpressible for a Catholic.
It's absolutely awesome. Now and so don't be afraid to face it. This is a tremendous act of faith. Tremendous. It's beyond words.
It's you know, it just makes you I don't know what. You say it couldn't happen. That's precisely what the Jews said on this occasion. The day after our lord multiplied the loaves and the fish, the day after he walked on the water. Now usually when people discuss this matter of the real presence, the Eucharist, because almost all Christian sects have some kind of Eucharistic worship.
Eucharist simply means thanksgiving. Eucharistia is the Greek word. They usually just simply quote the synoptic gospels in the last supper. When our lord took bread and were broken so forth, said, this is my body and so forth, do this in memory of me. That's not the told story at all.
I'm the first one to agree that if that's all we have to go on, we are dealing with very ambiguous equivocal language. You could make it mean anything you want it to but that is only one third of the story. This whole business of our faith in the blessed Eucharist that it that it is. It's not a representation. It is the body and blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ, the son of God.
And the only reason we have for believing it is that Christ, the son of God, is the son of god and said it and did it. These are just simply the hard categories of thought that we ought to cultivate and not be afraid to face it. It's a tremendously strong position, but it's strong not in terms of fish and bread. It's strong in faith in Jesus Christ as the son of god, as the man who and the son of god who gave us the promise, as the man and the son of god who did give us the power to transform bread and wine into his body and blood, and that this is totally confirmed by the primitive church and especially in the epistles of Saint Paul. But don't ever don't ever try to reduce this to some empirical experiential evidence.
That's been tried to time and again. Now I am not please get this clear. I am not in the least denying or rejecting or ignoring what I would call the spiritual or mystical experiences of many people with the Eucharist, Catholic and non Catholic, if you please. I don't deny them. I only say I don't know what they mean, and I don't place my faith at all upon them.
Because as Thomas Aquinas said about the Eucharist, yours, we don't even use this prayer any more, the adorotate. Sight, touch, taste in thee is each deceived. The ear, faith, alone is to be believed. Now this this chapter six, and as I say, please read it in its entirety because it is a unit, and the promise of Christ to give us himself is only part of it. It begins with the multiplication of the fish and the bread.
It begins with the miracle of Christ walking on the water. Now this is if and furthermore, this this miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and the fish, that is the only miracle of Christ's public life which we have in Matthew, Mark, and Luke as well as in Saint John. But according to the biblical authorities that I read during the past week, this account of the multiplication of the loaves and fish coming from Saint John is an independent tradition. The best doctrine, the best thought about this is that Saint John is giving us his own independent story. He's not borrowing or or simply giving us a repeat of Matthew, Mark, or Luke, the synoptics.
This is very important that we have this kind of testimony. Now at the beginning of this chapter six then, it's as if Christ is saying to us as well as to those Jews because it's the same crowd. It's the crowd that started from Capernaum that went up to towards Bethsaida with him to where that grassy plain was, where they're on a high rise hill behind it. That crowd went out there, then they followed him back to Capernaum. So he's talking to the same crowd.
It's two days. And it's as if he say, now look. Before I'm giving you giving you what you won't believe at all, it's beyond your power of belief. Look who I am. Who I am.
They this crowd this crowd asks for a sign. What did they what did they make of the multiplication of the loaves and the fish? What was that? Just an attempt of Christ to give them a free lunch? That's all they saw in it.
They didn't see it as a sign. All they saw is, here's this man, this very well, they wouldn't have said charismatic. It had more sense. Anyways, they would say, here's this very wonderful worker. Look what he's done.
He's fetus. And not only fetus, there was a surplus. No. Not remnants. Please notice the Greek doesn't mean remnants.
It means surplus. Big difference there. That they took up 12 baskets of surplus food after Christ had multiplied the bread and the fish. What did it mean to them? They didn't see it as a sign at all.
All they saw was a free lunch, plenty to eat without making any effort. And then so what our lord is saying, look. Consider this. Who am I? Look at my works.
Then we have him walking on water. Have you tried that lately? Remember that most of the disciples came they they were late people. They understood. They may not have known much about the laws of nature as we say today to reject them, of course.
They did they but they knew from probably from very sad experience that you don't walk on water. And lo and behold, they are in a boat well out into the Sea Of Galilee. The water gets pretty rough. You get you get those very sudden strong winds being funneled and channeled right from the north coming down in the valley of the Jordan River, and they were short they're short, but they're deep waves. So they were they were pretty well troubled by this.
And lo and behold, here comes Christ walking on the water and were told that they were afraid. Now what were they afraid of? The first thing that struck me when I read this this week and thought about it is, notice, they had abandoned Christ. They left Christ over there, up there by beside him. They took the only boat up there, and they came back.
And I sort of said, well, they had reason to be as scared. He was probably coming out there to give them a severe bowling out for leaving him alone over there. It's just a guess. Or they may have been afraid of here that they what they were seeing was some kind of a ghost that, you know, everybody sort of has a inborn fear of this or a dread. I don't know.
Saint John says they were afraid, and our lord's first words to them was, don't be afraid. And then they tried to get him into the boat. And at that, the boat grounded on the shore. You know how a rowboat comes in and grounds. So what is Christ doing here?
He's telling us, look. Believe me. I am what I claim to be. I am the son of god. I am the son of my heavenly father.
I have come to bring you the food and the drink you need to survive this life, to not to put you into eternity, but to to guarantee your salvation in eternity. Look at me. This is I. Who am I? Look at my works.
And so that the second part of our reading today has to do with this. It's an argument between the crowd, the Jews and remember, this is the same group that started out at Capernaum, went up to Bethsaida, saw the multiplication of the fish, then when Jesus was no longer there, walked back four or five hours walk back to Capernaum. And now they are having an argument. They want Jesus to give them bread for good. Fish is not mentioned.
Notice the emphasis in Saint John is entirely on the bread. Fish is not mentioned, or at this particular time, I mean, in this argument. Now what is this argument? It's an argument to justify our lord's claim to be the son of god. That's what it's all about.
And it begins by the Jews saying, look. We had Moses. Look what Moses did for us. Look. Just remember that.
What did old man Moses do for us? Our great prophet. He gave us food. He gave us manna. He gave us the quail.
If you're so great, why don't you do it? Notice all they're worried about is having a free meal, food. Now there's nothing wrong on God's earth in wanting food. There's nothing wrong on God's earth in wanting money that will buy food or a house or an education. That isn't the point.
It's a matter of priority. What comes first? That is the issue. What is first? Not to exclude other things.
Every human being needs food. Leo the thirteenth's encyclical has to do with giving food to the working man. Our but our lord is saying, that isn't what I'm about. I've come to give you something that will eternally sustain you, will eternally invigorate you, will eternally make you one with my heavenly father because that's what you're born for. But the Jews and then our lord noticed.
Our lord very abruptly corrects them. He said, look, you people. Moses didn't give you that food. My heavenly father gave you that food. But the food that I will give you is for your eternal life, for your spiritual welfare, and your spiritual victory and conquer over life and death.
And then our lord puts in in today's reading see, read he just listening to it, it will not come through to you. But then our lord goes on to say, look. I am the bread of life. I am my father's son. And if this does not as it's given I'm just giving you the skeleton.
But as our lord develops his argument in this, what I call the this preliminary to his promise of giving his giving us his body and blood, it's clear that he is claiming to be the son of god with the power of his heavenly father. It's absolutely clear. And there's no question here of getting mixed up with the Greek or or or problems of words like it is in the last supper stories. It's perfectly clear what Christ is claiming here. And so I ask you, go between now and next time.
Read this check. It's only a chapter. Chapter six of Saint John's gospel. Little wafer, a tiny wafer. It's almost translucent.
Sometimes it is translucent. And then you say, my I say the body of Christ, and you say, amen. Amen is the aorist imperative of the Greek verb to be. Let it be so. That's what you're doing.
I say this is the body of Christ. You say it sure is. Amen. And you worship that as god. Isn't that incredible?
And yet it's the heart and the soul of Catholic worship. In the name of the father and of the son, holy spirit. Amen.