Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/081212.cfm

After he ate and drank, he lay down again,
but the angel of the LORD came back a second time,
touched him, and ordered,
"Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!"
He got up, ate, and drank;
then strengthened by that food,
he walked forty days and forty nights to the  mountain of God, Horeb.

When I offer a dying Veteran the Eucharist for the last time, in a ritual called Viaticum, I often use the above passage from I Kings. In our Catholic tradition, as we find types in the Old Testament which prophecy the Messiah and his Virgin Mother, we find types that speak of the Most Blessed Sacrament. Among them are Melchizedek’s offering of bread and wine (Genesis 14:18, which is cited in the New Testament Letter to the Hebrews), and the Manna God provided in the wilderness.

This bread, we should never forget, is the Lord Jesus Christ, whom Catholics share with many Christian denominations. But it is nonetheless a particular privilege of the Catholic Church to know the Lord through the Eucharist. If crucifixes, icons, television preachers and prayer services remind us of Jesus’ love for us, we meet him face to face in the Blessed Sacrament. Both in our private worship before the Tabernacle and amid the congregation gathered for Mass we acknowledge his Lordship.

I have experienced that Real Presence especially in the last nine months since we began using the new translation of the liturgy. It’s not that the new translation is so much better than the former, but the effort we have put into learning it – as priests and congregation – has renewed my sense of wonder in our ceremony. It is a complicated dance that we execute together, zigging and zagging with one another. When one misses a step it throws off everyone. Nine months into the new translation, I still meet Catholics who have not learned the new steps. Because they come to the hospital Mass, I have learned to coach them through; and I expect to do so for the next several years.

In today’s gospel, we hear Jesus’ insistence,

I am the bread of life.
Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;
this is the bread that comes down from heaven
so that one may eat it and not die.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
whoever eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world."

Many people suppose Jesus is speaking spiritually and does not mean we should actually chew on his flesh. I  once met an anorexic woman in the psych ward who was starving to death. She would not eat. She wanted to come to Mass and I agreed to negotiate with her doctor who might allow her to leave the lockup ward. But she said she would not eat the Blessed Sacrament; she would only receive spiritual communion. I saw no point to that.

The poor woman was making war on her own precious human body out of some dreadful misconception about its worth; if she could be saved from death she had to surrender to her appetite and the beauty of her own flesh. 

Like many people with severe mental illness, she suffered a disease typical of our time. She thought there is nothing good or spiritual about her body. More sensitive than most people, she had embraced our culture wars against the feminine body, healthy fat and shared meals.

Through the Mass Jesus invites his disciples to know him in the wholeness of our being. He is physical and spiritual, public and private, immanent and transcendent. My personal Lord and Savior is Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; I cannot know him spiritually except through the physical companionship of the Church. 

In the fellowship of all the saints, the dying Catholic receives Viaticum and sets out for the sanctuary not made by human hands in heaven itself.  (Hebrews 9:24)