Jesus, Truth, and the Eucharist

By DEACON ROBERT YERHOT, MSW

Have you ever had to walk a long way without food or water? To travel long distances without food and water is extremely dangerous; you soon will collapse and be unable to continue the journey. Yet, you regain your strength quickly after eating and drinking.

If someone were to tell you, “Prepare yourself to eat and drink this once a week, every week, and you will live forever,” what would you think? What is it that sustains you, especially when life may seem dry and exhausting? What is the source of your strength?

God’s holy people, the Hebrews, grumbled in the desert against God and Moses because they were hungry and thirsty. They were unprepared for the long journey. God prepared them, told them what they needed to do. They were to eat the manna and the quail flesh he would give them, which would sustain them on their long 40-year journey through the desert.

The older I get, the more I can identify with desert experiences. The older I get, the more I need to be frequently fed and refreshed. The older I get, the more I realize, in other words, how much I need the Bread of Life and the Chalice of Salvation which sustain and refresh me.

My friends, we cannot spiritually live without the Eucharist, without receiving the Body and Blood of Jesus. It is the source of our lives. It is the source of our strength.

Jesus is the Bread of Life. He sustains us with his very Body and Blood. If we worthily eat his Body and drink his Blood, we will have life, now on this earth, and forever in eternity. If we worthily receive him, we will be refreshed and strengthened, even if we live in a desert, so to speak.

Somewhere it is written: Truth stands alone, but error requires the grumbling of many people. God’s Word is truth. The Body and Blood of Jesus is Truth. Truth is powerful; grumbling and murmuring are weak. So, do we grumble about our lives when the going gets tough? Do we grumble against God and his Church, even though each day we can be fed with the Body of Christ and refreshed with his Blood? Why do we murmur and grumble? Is it because we don’t listen to Truth?

We all need to stop grumbling against God and the Church and start listening and believing! If we listen to Truth, then we will have faith and our hearts will be open to receive Jesus’ Real Presence and to the graces given to us in the Eucharist. If we refuse to listen, we will turn away from Truth himself.

God draws us and then lifts us up in the Eucharist. Jesus takes us and raises us up to new life by our partaking of his Body and Blood which is a sharing in his life. This is such a mystery! It is a gift to which we must respond with faith, acceptance and gratitude. Jesus gives us himself in the Eucharist which sustains us on our journeys of faith.

My friends, God wants to feed you. Jesus gives us living bread from heaven. That bread is Jesus himself. We must come to believe and eat his Body and drink his Blood in order to have life. The bread that Jesus gives is in fact his Flesh and Blood, his very Soul and Divinity.

Deacon Robert Yerhot serves the parishes of St. Mary in Caledonia and St. Patrick in Brownsville.