Deacon Jerry Franzen Cathedral 8/19/07
Jeremiah
38: 4-6, 8-10 Hebrews 12: 1-4 Luke
12: 49-53
Praised Be Jesus Christ Good Morning (Afternoon, Evening)
Today
we heard Jesus say that he came to set a fire
which he wished were already blazing.
Fire
is a vehicle for change, among other things.
That
change came in the form of his being baptized in,
being immersed in, his suffering and
death,
which he wished had already
been accomplished.
His
coming to earth would not bring peace to the people,
the freedom from their struggles
that they thought a Messiah would bring.
And
then he predicted that his immersion in the fire of the cross
would cause significant division.
And,
yes, that has come to be the case; we do have division.
I
We
hear a lot of rhetoric about division in the political realm.
The
suffering , death and resurrection of Jesus
did not cause that rhetoric.
Jesus
was probably referring to the division
between those who believed Him to be
the promised Messiah
and those who did not believe that someone
who would suffer that horrible death
could be the Messiah.
Also,
in St. John’s Gospel we hear Jesus say to His followers:
“Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man
and drink his blood, you do not have life
within you.”
Many
walked away declaring, “That is a hard saying.”
(John
6: 53, 60, 66)
In
effect, they were saying how can this man be the Messiah?
In
scripture we see many instances of division
between the Pharisees and the
teachings of Jesus
Today
there remains division among the world’s
religions,
even those that worship the same God of the
Old Testament.
There
is even division among the Christian religions.
The
Catholic faith has much in common
with other Christian faiths, but
there is one very fundamental element
that
yet divides us from the others.
Jesus
is really present in the Eucharist which we receive.
Non-Catholic
Christians believe that what they do
when they have a Communion Service is
a symbol of
what Jesus did at the Last Supper.
Our
Mass IS what Jesus did at the Last Supper and on the cross.
He
makes Himself present and sacrifices Himself to the Father.
We
believe that validly ordained Catholic priests receive the gift,
the Church uses the word “faculty”, to stand in for Christ
as He, Christ, brings about the
change of bread and wine
into His Body and Blood and then
offers
them in sacrifice to the Father in the Mass.
Our
bishops and priests can trace their ministerial lineage
back through a succession of ordinations
back to the apostles who ordained
bishops who ordained more
bishops
and so on
to the present ordinations of bishops.
And,
of course, the bishops have ordained all priests.
Ministers
ordained outside of the Catholic Church
cannot claim this Apostolic succession
to have the faculty
to be the earthly instrument
by which the miracle
of the Eucharist
occurs.
So yes, Christ offering himself in
sacrifice to the Father
and the subsequent human disagreements of the Reformation
have
brought about division among Christians.
II
in the
Eucharist?
In both St. Mark’s
(14:22-24) and St. Matthew’s Gospels (26:26-29)
Jesus at the Last Supper gave the apostles bread
and said “Take it; this is MY Body.”
They shared the cup and Jesus said “This is MY Blood
of the
covenant, which will be shed for many.”
Jesus did not say this is a symbol of my Body or a symbol of my Blood.
The account in Luke’s Gospel is virtually the same
using the terms
"MY Body” and “MY
Blood,”
with
the added command, “..do this in memory of me.”
How could the apostles do this, see to it that this would
continue,
that
they would be able to do this in remembrance of Him
unless He granted
them that power to do this
and
the power to pass it on through ordination?
St. Paul’s description of what he received from the
Lord
in I
Corinthians 11:23-26 combines these other accounts
and
is the main source of the words of consecration
used
in the Mass today
We believe that the bread and wine become
the Body and Blood of Christ when the priest
says,
“This is my Body…” and then “This is the Cup
of my Blood…
III
Furthermore, there are divisions within the Catholic
faith also.
You may have heard the bishop decry the polls
that
show that only about 20 percent of those self- identifying
as Catholics actually attend
the Sunday Mass regularly.
Wow, an opportunity to receive Jesus and they do not
attend!
I would think that if they believed in the real
presence,
they
would figuratively move heaven and hell to get to Mass.
My guess is that most of them do not believe
in the real presence of Jesus in the
Eucharist.
In a recent video, Bishop Robert Barron
quoted
an even more disappointing statistic from a poll.
Only about 23% of those attending Mass regularly
believe
in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.
The remaining 77% say that the Eucharist is only a
symbol of Jesus.
I was told that the percentage of believers in the
real presence
may
actually be somewhat higher than 23% due to the way
the
questions were worded in the survey.
Still I was appalled; why is it not 100%?
I makes me
wonder: “What are people learning?”
TheCatechism of the Catholic Church in paragraph 1376
states
the following from the Council of Trent in the year 1551:
“Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly
His Body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been
the conviction of the Church of God, and his holy Council now declares again,
that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of
the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the Body of Christ our
Lord and the whole substance of the wine into the substance of His Blood.”
So yes, there is division within the Church today,
division
within the Body of Christ.
It is a division which disheartens me.
We have, first of all, Catholics who come to Mass
regularly
and
those who do not.
Some do not attend because they don’t get anything out
of it.”
They received Jesus within their bodies when they came
and
didn’t get anything out of it?
People should be eager to “get Jesus”
to
welcome Him within their bodies, within their hearts.
And then there are those who receive Jesus regularly,
and
don’t really know that they are receiving Him.
They think that what looks like a disc of unleavened
bread
is just
a symbol of Christ’s’ body.
And what still looks like and tastes like wine
is just
a symbol of Christ’s blood.
I don’t know just where the Church has failed to teach
about
the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist,
or where parents have failed to pass
along
this very important element of our
faith.
The online
Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “symbol” as:
“something that stands for or suggests something else
by reason of relationship, association, convention, or accidental resemblance especially : a visible sign of something
invisible
a lion (something visible) as a symbol for courage (something invisible).”
Could it be that some think that what appears as bread
and wine are just visible signs of the
invisible Body and Blood of Jesus,
because
they still look like bread and wine?”
Maybe this is the problem!
We, however, believe that by the miracle of the Eucharist,
the
Body and Blood of Christ are right there clearly visible.
The change in substance without a change in physical
properties cannot be explained;
it is a
miracle; it is a mystery.
It is something we must believe.
Remember Jesus said. “ This IS my Body.”
not
“This is a symbol of my Body” and likewise for His Blood.
Remember also Jesus said, “Unless you eat the flesh
of the
Son of Man and drink his blood…”
So if you are coming to Holy Communion and thinking
that
what
you are receiving is just a symbol of Jesus,
please
know that Jesus wants you to have the faith
to believe that He really offers himself,
not
a symbol of Himself in Holy Communion.
Please pray for strengthening of your belief in the
real presence.
Can there be anything greater than
such an
intimate meeting with Lord himself?
St John Vianney said, “If we really understood the
Mass,
we would die of joy.”
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