The Eucharist!\u00a0 Today we celebrate the day Jesus introduced the Eucharist.<\/p>\n
The earliest account of that event is the one you just heard from 1 Corinthians.\u00a0 It was written down decades earlier than the accounts in the three synoptic Gospel. \u00a0And what did Jesus say as he took the bread and blessed it?\u00a0 He said \u201cThis is my body for you\u201d and \u201cThis cup is the new covenant in my blood\u201d.\u00a0 He went on to say: \u201dFor as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes\u201d.<\/p>\n
In a few moments, you will share in the body of Christ, just as the first apostles did a couple of thousand years ago.\u00a0 We have almighty God, Jesus Christ, present with us right here and now in this room- body, soul, and divinity!\u00a0 And in a few minutes, we will take him into ourselves and all of us will be in communion with him at the same time.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that exciting!<\/p>\n
But you know what?\u00a0 Over the years, we have become dulled to the miracle of the Eucharist.\u00a0 One of the main contentions in the Reformation of the 1500\u2019s was over the reality of the Eucharist.\u00a0 The reformers talked about how the Eucharist wasn\u2019t really the body and blood of Christ.\u00a0 After all, they couldn\u2019t see or feel Christ\u2019s presence with their senses.\u00a0 Some said that Jesus was there in parallel in spirit, but only as long as the ceremony was conducted.\u00a0 Others believed the Eucharist was just a symbol, not the real thing.\u00a0 Today, many people, even alleged Christians, scoff at the idea of the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.<\/p>\n
But as Catholics, we are called upon to believe that the Eucharist we receive is the real body and blood of Christ.\u00a0 It is part of the mystery of our faith.\u00a0 And the Eucharist is the food we need to help us remain in Communion with the Lord as we face the realities and trials and sufferings of life.<\/p>\n
Still, has God ever spoken to us to validate our faith in the Eucharist?\u00a0 As a matter of fact, He has!\u00a0 A couple of years ago I was awakened to how reality of the Eucharist has been validated by a friend and his wife..\u00a0 These friends talked about the \u201cEucharistic Miracle\u201d they had seen.\u00a0 They had travelled to Italy, and toured some of the tourist sites.\u00a0 Among them was a \u201cEucharistic Miracle\u201d display in Lanciano, Italy.\u00a0 They told me that during the consecration of a host in the year 750, the host actually turned into flesh and blood!\u00a0 The people at the time had all seen it; but even more to the point, they had preserved the evidence,\u00a0 And even now, some 1300 year later, the flesh and blood was still preserved and on display.\u00a0 They told me how samples of the evidence had been tested, and validated that it was real human flesh and blood.\u00a0 I found that all just astounding- that the bread and wine had actually turned to real flesh and blood.<\/p>\n
And then, a couple of years later, I discovered that this was not the only such miracle.\u00a0 There were, in fact, dozens of Eucharistic Miracles that had occurred over the centuries.\u00a0 The evidence of these miracles had been carefully reviewed by the Church. and a number of them had been validated as genuine,\u00a0 kind of like how the Church validates miracles that have been worked in the name of a person who is being considered for Canonization as a Saint.\u00a0 The Church collected information from some 126 of these validated Eucharistic Miracles and made giant displays that told their stories and documented them.\u00a0 These displays are part of the Vatican Museum, while the original evidence remains on display, where possible, at the original sites.<\/p>\n
The Miracles are of various kinds.\u00a0 Some of them are the actual change in the material from bread and wine to flesh and blood.\u00a0 Others involve lost or stolen hosts that were later found or recovered in perfect condition.\u00a0 Some of these have remained in perfect condition for centuries.\u00a0 Still others involve hosts where the image of Jesus appears on the hosts.\u00a0 And then there are miraculous Communions.\u00a0 Hosts that miraculously made their way to communicants; or Communicants that have lived on the Eucharist alone- no other food for months.<\/p>\n
A couple of years ago, a group of the Faithful here in the US\u00a0 Called \u201cUna Fides\u201d, Latin for \u201cOne Faith\u201d; paid to have these Vatican Displays replicated and brought them over to this country for making tours of our Churches.\u00a0 They wanted more of the faithful to experience the evidence of what God had done for us in giving us the Eucharist.<\/p>\n
On Friday, April 5, all of you will have the opportunity to come and see these displays while on the field trip arranged by Chaplain Walk to my Parish, Holy Family.\u00a0 Come see the photographs and read the stories of some 37 of these Miracles.\u00a0 And know that you do not believe in vain.\u00a0 Because The host that you will receive today is the body of Christ!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Holy Thursday Reflection Ex 12:1-8; 1 Cor 11: 23-26; Jn 13: 1-5 Dc. Larry Brockman The Eucharist!\u00a0 Today we celebrate the day Jesus introduced the Eucharist. The earliest account of that event is the one you just heard from 1 Corinthians.\u00a0 It was written down decades earlier than the accounts in the three synoptic Gospel. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[200],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=313"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions\/314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}