Eat This, Not That

Bulletin Article June 21, 2011

As a personal trainer, I have dealt with my fair share of complaining clients. “I don’t want to eat green vegetables…why do I need to eat 6 small meals…I don’t want to diet, I will just run more…” It’s sad that we think we can cheat our way around achieving goals and getting the outcome we want from life. This week’s gospel is one of my favorites. Jesus gives us a strict diet. Your ancestors ate manna in the desert and still died. Eat this not that. You want eternal life? Eat my body and drink my blood.

Fulton Sheen once said, “There are not a hundred people in America who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions of people who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church.” There are many people who claim they do not agree with the Church’s teaching on certain things. On the forefront of this misunderstanding is The Eucharist. We as Catholics believe that at every Mass, through the power of the Holy Spirit, the bread and wine are completely transformed into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. We believe that it is NO LONGER bread or wine but completely the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ. We believe that the sacrifice of the Cross is re-presented (made present again) on the altars of our churches. This is what the Church teaches; this is what we believe.

Of course it is hard to believe such a teaching. The question of the Pharisees echoes today, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Yet, there have been plenty of occurrences that point to that truth. To name a few…

Lanciano, Italy – 8th Century
A priest has doubts about the Real Presence; however, when he consecrates the Host it transforms into flesh and blood. This miracle has undergone extensive scientific examination and can only be explained as a miracle. The flesh is actually cardiac tissue, which contains arterioles, veins, and nerve fibers. The blood type as in all other approved Eucharistic miracles is type AB!

Blanot, France – March 31, 1331
The Eucharist fell out of a woman’s mouth onto the altar rail cloth. After the priest tried to recover the Host, nothing remained but a spot of blood the same size and dimensions as the Host.

Bolsena-Oryieta, Italy
A priest doubting Real Presence was consecrating the bread, as he raised the bread, blood began to drip from it.

Avignon, France – November of 1433
A great flood swept through the city. There was a chapel in the town where the Blessed Sacrament was exposed day and night. Two Franciscan brothers wanted to get to the Church to remove the Blessed Sacrament and move it to a chapel on dry land. When they rowed their boat to the chapel, they were amazed. From the door to the altar was completely dry. The floodwaters had been parted and the Eucharist remained on the altar unaffected.

You may think that these miracles happened to people with outstanding faith or nothing like that can happen to me. However, most of these miracles happened during periods of weakened faith or to someone who struggled with doubt in believing that The Eucharist truly is the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Christ’s body and blood is so amazing and so powerful that it can perform miracles. Will you let it perform one in your life?

For more information on Eucharistic Miracles, visit TheRealPresence.org.

He gave His only Son…

Bulletin Article 6/19

This week’s gospel is one of the most memorized scripture quotes among Christians. However the significance can get lost when it becomes “just a verse of scripture.” To think of what it means to love something or someone so much that we would offer up our most valued possession can sometimes baffle our minds. We have heard the events of the Crucifixion time and time again, yet perhaps a modern experience will put this sacrifice into perspective.

There was a young man in his mid thirties. He had been married for about 12 years to a lovely woman who worked at an elementary school in their mid-west town. They had one son who was nearly 7. Due to complications during the pregnancy, the wife was no longer capable of bearing children. This was their one and only child, so they cared for him and loved him all the more for it. The father loved to bring his son fishing, to baseball games, and coached his little league team. The boy had an intense love for trains. He had every toy, book and model known to man. His love of trains stemmed from his father’s job, working at the railroad switch station around the corner from his house. Everyday in the summer, his son would visit him for lunch. Sometimes he would let his son switch the track for a slow-moving freight train.

One day the man was having a very rough day. Many of the trains were backed up and he had to reroute a lot of them. There were trains full of passengers from all over – tourists from Europe, children on field trips, sports teams traveling to other cities, businessmen and women going to work, and many more. There were dozens of trains filled with people lined up at the local station. As lunchtime rolled around he saw his son coming down the road toward his switch station. As his son was crossing the tracks, he received an urgent call telling him to switch track A to track C immediately. A freight train carrying various military materials was out of control and unable to stop. Track C led to an uphill climb, which would slow the train down. Track A and B were jammed with passenger trains. If the man didn’t switch the tracks, the weapons train would certainly crash and explode killing hundreds, if not thousands of innocent people. As the man turned to his son, he was struck with horror. His son had fallen on track C and was stuck in one of the loose ties.

Turning back at the oncoming train, he was forced to make a decision – switch the track and sacrifice his one and only son, or save his son while allowing thousands to be killed. He looked at his son and said, “You know I love you very much.” With that he pulled the switch and diverted the train to Track C where it proceeded uphill, slowed down, and came to a stop. The passengers were saved, but his one and only son had to die for that to happen.

This story is hard to imagine; it is extremely sad, yet it is the story of God’s love for His people. For He so loved the world that He gave His only son. His son was sent to suffer and die so that we may be saved through His blood. The story of Christ’s death however is not sad but joyous. Through his death, we no longer have to suffer death, but are born to eternal life – that, my dear friends, is love.

The Good Old Days

Bulletin Article 6/12

If you ask your parents or your grandparents what the world was like when they were a “young adult” you may get a pretty shocking answer. If they are like my father (and grandfather) the response will be, “What do you mean WHEN I was a young adult…” Yet if we look back at history, we can see what they would have been facing in their 20s and 30s:

1920s/30s- The Great Depression, Prohibition
1940s- World War II
1950s/60s – The Space Race, Civil Rights
1960s/70s- Nixon, Vietnam War, Gas shortages
1980s/90s – Birth of computers, First Gulf War, War on Drugs
2000+ - 9/11, drastic recession, War on terror

If we look back on all of this, it seems that not much has changed. War, poverty, violence, unemployment, high gas prices/gas shortages, political corruption, etc. – it all sounds very familiar.

So often we hear about “the good old days,” in which the street lights let us know our curfews, we drank from a hose, never heard the words ‘sun tan lotion,’ and playing wasn’t something planned out-it just happened. The good old days can also refer to how our parents and grandparents had it “easier” than us. They didn’t have to worry about getting 3 college degrees just to get an entry level job, getting their credit checked from 3 different agencies when they bought a house, or wondering if the government would send them a social security check when they retired. Nowadays, these are simply common factors that we must calculate into our plans for life.

However, just because our parents and grandparents had it “easier” in some respects, they also had to face some serious hardships that we are blessed to be free of. For instance, imagine writing a thesis paper or business report on a typewriter (that’s the machine people used to type before computers…). Imagine not being able to do 95% of your research by GOOGLE or Bing and actually using the card catalogue in the library. Imagine sitting home wondering if your number would be selected to serve in a war where hundreds and thousands were killed daily. I guess the good old days weren’t always so good.

The one thing we can learn from the young adults of the past is that together we make it out on top. The wars will end. Technology changes. The economy has its ups and downs, but what keeps us going is not thinking about the good old days, but the good days to come. In light of the Easter Season, we are reminded of what John Paul II said, “We are an Easter people…” We are a people of hope, looking forward to the joys that await us in Heaven.