Word to the Wise
Saturday, May 2, 2020 - 3rd Week of Easter - Sat
[Acts 9:31-42 and John 6:60-69]Many of the disciples of Jesus who were listening said, "This saying is hard; who can accept it?....As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer walked with him. Jesus then said to the Twelve, "Do you also want to leave:" Simon Peter answered hi, "Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God." [John]
MAY 2 St. ATHANASIUS, bishop and doctor of the Church
Here in Texas, the Alamo is a sacred civil shrine (it was once a Catholic mission) and the Alamo has much the same significance as the New England minutemen have in our revolutionary civil memory. One incident in the story of the Alamo is the famous "line in the sand" which is supposed to have been drawn by Col. William Travis to challenge those who would surrender and those who would stay and fight. The expression has found a place in American imagination and discourse. The expression might anachronistically be applied to Jesus' teaching about the Eucharist in the synagogue at Capernaum. Jesus draws a "line in the sand" when he speaks of consuming his Body and Blood.
Theological and philosophical speculation about how Jesus makes this possible continues to this day! The concept, "transubstantiation," comes to us from thought based on St. Thomas Aquinas' use of Aristotelean philosophy about change, but the Eucharist had been celebrated for more than a 1000 years before that idea began to take hold in Catholic theology. Many currents of the Protestant Reformation, even with its emphasis on the inerrancy of the Bible, do not take Jesus at his word!
Jesus looks at the Twelve and draws a line in the sand. "Do you also want to leave?" Simon Peter has the only answer possible for us Catholics: "Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." Those words in the synagogue at Capernaum and in the Upper Room at the Last Supper mean what they say. HOW Jesus does this can remain for theology and philosophy and even science to speculate about. THAT Jesus does this is a matter of faith. AMEN