Last week, Fr. Jeremy kicked off a five-part series on five Eucharistic words. Over the course of five weeks, we will hear these words mentioned in the Gospel readings from John Chapter 6 where Jesus is teaching and preaching about the Eucharist. These same five words appear when the disciples experience their first communion by taking the Eucharist into their bodies and lives at the Last Supper. These five words are recline, take, break, give, and thanks.
Last week, Fr. Jeremy focused on the word “recline.” This week we are going to focus on the word “take.”
I used to show up to Mass, listen to the homily, and then after Mass, be an ungrateful complainer about the quality of the homily. In short, I used to take the preaching for granted, until I became a preacher and started preaching. Sometimes, when it comes to preparing to preach, I find myself on the floor looking up trusting that the crumb of grace I need will fall to me. When it comes to the Eucharist, I believe God wants us to do the same.
In the first reading, we hear the ungrateful Israelites complaining, taking for granted all that God had done for them by freeing them from slavery in Egypt. But God is merciful and instead of giving these ungrateful complainers what they deserve, God gives his hungry people what they need, bread from heaven.
In today’s Gospel reading, we hear of people coming to Jesus hoping to take a second-helping of that bread and fish he miraculously previously gave them the day before. These people took the bread and fish he previously gave them and it helped them live a little while longer, but before too long, they were hungry again and came to take Jesus more food from him.
Jesus then starts to teach them about the Eucharist. Jesus tells them he wants them to take something more substantial and that gives them life longer than the bread and fish they previously took from him. He wants them to take his very self.
Even though we all too often may take Jesus in the Eucharist for granted, Jesus is merciful and gives us not what we deserve, but what we need, his body, blood, soul, and divinity … his very self.
If we take this bread from heaven, consume the Eucharist with our bodies and our souls, and let Jesus transform us from the inside out, we become part of the mystical Body of Christ and Jesus takes his body with him to heaven. Jesus does not leave his body behind; but he takes his body with him to be with him in heaven. Each time we take the Eucharist into our bodies and souls, we become more of the saints that we were created to become. This is how the bread from heaven that is Jesus Christ gives each of us eternal life.
This is not just a theological point. This is an experience we are meant to have, just as the disciples who heard Jesus preaching and teaching about the Eucharist in John Chapter 6 were meant to go on to experience taking the Eucharist into their bodies and their lives at the Last Supper, the same is true for each of us. You aren’t meant to just hear Jesus and me teaching and preaching on the Eucharist. You are meant to fully experience the Eucharist.
One thing that helps me more fully experience the Eucharist is practicing the Eucharistic fast, ideally for longer than the current requirement of fasting for at least one hour before receiving communion. There is something powerful about the physical-spiritual connection. When I am physically hungry and thirsty before Mass, I approach Mass with a greater appreciation for and anticipation of receiving Jesus in the Eucharist. I literally hunger and thirst for Jesus.
As the priest elevates the Eucharist, I kneel as a hungry beggar trusting that the crumb of grace I need will fall to me and my silent prayer in that moment is this, “Lord, thank you for giving up your body and your life for me. Please take my body and my life the way you take the bread and transform them to make them your body and your life.” When we take the Eucharist into our bodies and our lives in this way, we don’t lose our identity, we actually gain our true identity. We become the members of the mystical Body of Christ we were created to become.
When we believe that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist and then take him into our bodies and our lives, this is how our bodies and our lives become restored to the Lord.