Do You Truly Believe in the Eucharistic Presence? Saturday Third Week of Easter
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Breakfast with The Word: Saturday of the Third Week of Easter
John 6:60-69.
The question above may sound somehow because I know almost all Christians especially Catholics, will always affirm the belief in the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Therefore, this is our faith, and what we believe is true.
Our concern today is we who are reading this, we who are Christians, do we truly believe? Do you truly believe in the Eucharistic Presence?
In essence, do we sincerely and sure accept that what the church teaches us is true? Do we wholeheartedly believe that the Holy Eucharist is the body and blood of the Lord?
It is a different thing to hear about something and move along with it in our head. It is also another thing to be certainly sure and believe that what we heard is true.
Our Reaction and Relationship.
In today’s gospel, after hearing the doctrine about the body and blood of Jesus, many people deserted Him. Some abandoned Him. Most of His followers become disappointed in Him.
This is simple, when we do not understand the reality of the Eucharistic Presence, the way we react to the presence and the way we relate to it are enough to say if we do.
In essence, If we truly believe in the Eucharistic Presence, we will eat Jesus every day, we will visit Him in the Blessed Sacrament often.
A Little Understanding.
In a particular parish, a priest who is a lover of the Blessed Sacrament wants to find a way to make his parishioners begin to visit the Blessed Sacrament.
The priest understands the benefits and graces that come from such devotion. In essence, He wants to impact such in the life of His parishioners.
He preaches and talks about it but yet they pay deaf ears. After a liturgical service one day, He comes out of the chapel shouting to the people that Jesus appeared in the chapel. Many people leave what they are doing and begin to run to the chapel to behold such an apparition.
While they are busy searching and looking to find Jesus. The priest asks them “did you see Jesus?” They said “no”. He asked again “are you sure you did not see Him, they said “no”.
The priest laughed and told them ”how can you be looking at the Blessed Sacrament and yet you said you have not seen Jesus. Are you sure, you truly believe that Jesus is there? They said yes.
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He pointed at the Blessed Sacrament and said “You do not need to search Jesus anywhere, He is always there for you”. After that day, devotion to the Blessed Sacrament increased in the parish.
Therefore, faith is the certainty of what you have not yet seen. ( Hebrews 11:1). If we truly believe in the Eucharistic presence, the reception of the Holy Eucharist would be a thing of joy. There should be this hunger to go for the Holy Mass every day.
If we truly believe in the Eucharistic Presence, why then is it difficult for us to visit Him and spend quiet times with Jesus? Why is it that we do not care again if we are in the state of grace to receive His body?
Why is it that despite the number of Adoration chapels all over the places, yet we feel so tired and weak to spend time with the Lord?
To tell us the truth, this is where we can receive inspiration to do anything. Hence, the moment we begin to spend time with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, the more our lives begin to change. Enormous graces come from this devotion.
The Gospel
In the gospel of today, It was clear that His disciples could not truly believe. In essence, they could not understand His teaching on the Eucharist.
The gospel says that when many of his disciples heard it, they said, ‘This teaching is difficult; who can accept it? Many of them left Him even.
The questions they must be thinking are “How can this man give us his body? How is the bread, His body? This is illogical to the human mind and incomprehensible to human understanding.
Today, though we go to church, sing, pray, but some are still wondering ” How can that bread there be Jesus Christ? When they look at it, they see only bread, and some ask “how can you say it is Jesus”?
So, like we have many following Jesus up and down, but do not believe in all He says, is the same way, we have many going to church but do not truly believe.
Only in the Spirit.
Jesus is God, His messages are spirit-filled. Therefore, you have to be in that realm of the spirit to fully grasp all mysteries surrounding Him.
Jesus says, “It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh has nothing to offer. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life”.
Therefore, without being in the Spirit we will see everything as mechanical. So, we need faith to believe in the Eucharistic presence.
There are things beyond what we see at the altar. So, always know that Jesus is real and truly present in the sacred hosts.
May God have mercy on us and increase our faith in Him. May He never allow you to stumble Amen.
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