Gospel Reflection For The 20th day of April in the year of Our Lord, 2024
Gospel
John 6:60-69
60 These things he said, teaching in the synagogue, in Capharnaum.
61 Many therefore of his disciples, hearing it, said: This saying is hard, and who can hear it? 62 But Jesus, knowing in himself, that his disciples murmured at this, said to them: Doth this scandalize you? 63 If then you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? 64 It is the spirit that quickeneth: the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I have spoken to you, are spirit and life. 65 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning, who they were that did not believe, and who he was, that would betray him.
66 And he said: Therefore did I say to you, that no man can come to me, unless it be given him by my Father. 67 After this many of his disciples went back; and walked no more with him. 68 Then Jesus said to the twelve: Will you also go away? 69 And Simon Peter answered him: Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.
This is the grave mistake that Protestants make in saying that the Eucharist is merely symbolic, or even worse…. Many claim that the Catholic Sacrament of the Eucharist is a form of idol worship. That second charge is very much like when the religious Jews accused Jesus of being demon possessed and attributed His healing of the sick to evil. That was a “sin against the Holy Spirit.” It is very dangerous to attribute a sacrament instituted by our Lord to evil. In today’s gospel, we read that Judas did not believe in the Real Presence of the Eucharist and that this may have been when he decided to betray our Lord. To deny the Eucharist is to deny the divinity of Christ – the Word of God through whom all that is was created certainly has the power to turn physical bread and wine into His spiritual body and blood. He may choose how we are to worship Him; we may not. Our duty is to believe and to obey.
To those who claim that our Lord’s words were symbolic, I must ask…. If so, why didn’t He clarify? Granted, Jesus often spoke in parables, but not to His disciples. To the Holy Apostles and the others that He chose, He made absolutely clear His meaning. In this incident, He makes absolutely clear His plain meaning and those who could not accept His teaching fell away. Even the Apostles had trouble understanding, but they had no choice but to believe.
So many of our Protestant brothers and sisters have fallen away from the Truth, from God and His Church for the very same reason. They refuse to believe the Word of God. They claim to believe the entire Bible and to love and trust in Jesus, but they reject and deny His plain teaching. As I have said, that is a shame, but more shameful are Catholic who do not believe in the Real Presence. In this case, Protestants have the advantage. They do not believe in the Eucharist and they do not partake in the Eucharist as only a Catholic Priest can consecrate the Host. A Protestant who denies the Eucharist commits sin out of ignorance. A Catholic who receives the Eucharist, while in a state of unbelief, commits mortal sin and has no excuse as we have been instructed in the doctrine. In this instance, an ignorant Protestant is far better off than an unbelieving Catholic.
If you doubt that the bread and wine become the true body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, you must address this issue now. There is no time to waste! Our Lord said that to receive His body and blood unworthily is to become guilty of His murder. If you only take one message from this book, let it be this – do not receive the Eucharist in a state of mortal sin or while in disbelief of the Real Presence. Talk with a priest, read the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and as our Lord said to Saint Timothy, “Be not faithless but believe..”!
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Gospel passages are taken from the Douay Rheims Bible.