We continue our Lenten Parish Retreat, and this third week of Lent our theme is “Raining Down Bread from Heaven.” It comes from Exodus 16:4 where the Lord says to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you.” The “manna” given in the wilderness is the precursor, the type, of the Bread of Life that Christ gives us, the Eucharist.       The setting in Exodus is that the 12 tribes of Jacob/Israel had now come forth from Egypt. The Passover deliverance had spared their first-born sons from death when the destroying angel “passed over” their homes upon seeing the blood of the slain lamb on the wood of their doorposts. ( Exodus 12 & 13 .)       Then, in Exodus, the people were next miraculously delivered through the waters of the Red Sea ( Exodus 14 & 15 ), a “type” or precursor of Christian Baptism. But now the people had fallen into complaining. They were hungry. They even blamed Moses for bringing them out of Egypt! In respons...

Miracles & "Scientism"       One of the toxic and false ideas of our age might be called scientism, the idea that science is the only path to truth.       One online definition of “science” is, “the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained.” The earlier, classic definition of “science” was “knowledge of any kind,” meaning, of course, human knowledge.       Is human knowledge the only path to truth? To knowing “what is”? (The best definition of “truth.”) Is, “systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world,” the only path to truth? Even if we don’t understand everything about a cell, an atom, and how the universe works today, might we someday expect human science to figure it all out?       No.       Why ...

Eucharist - Earliest Testimonies.        Today we want to look at some of the earliest testimonies given outside of the New Testament about the Eucharist received in Holy Communion.       St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, knew the Apostles John and Peter personally and wrote about AD 107, speaking of those holding “heterodox opinions” about Jesus: “They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in His goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes” ( Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1). The gift of God in Holy Eucharist is the risen flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.       St. Justin Martyr wrote about 151 AD: “For not as common bread and common drink do we receive [the Eucharist]; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Savior, havin...

Eucharist -- Is It Cannibalism? Part 5.       Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” ( John 6:53-54 ) Jesus further asserts that this new manna He will give is “real food” and “real drink” ( 6:55 , per the Greek). The emphasis of the wording is on the realism: real food, real eating. Not mere spiritual participation.       The reality is even more apparent when we observe that the Greek word for usual “eating” used in verse 53 is replaced in verse 54  with the graphic word for chewing, gnawing, or consuming. Jesus uses this same graphic word when He says, “He who chews My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him” ( 6:56 ). Now in John 15 Jesus speaks of Himself being “the vine” and a disciple being a “branch” which can only bear “fruit” if...

  Eucharist -- Is It Cannibalism? Part 4.       Four weeks ago we set out to address the concern of some people that receiving the Eucharist in Holy Communion at Mass is cannibalism, the eating of mortal human flesh. We asked: How did Jesus answer this question when people raised it in the Bible? We first looked at Jesus’ own context of His words to understand what He is saying, and today we will directly examine how Jesus answered the direct question from the people.       It is when Jesus says “The bread which I shall give for the life of the world is My flesh” ( Jn 6:51 ) that give the people difficulty. They say, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” ( Jn 6:52 ). Is “this man” talking about cannibalism?       How does Jesus answer? “No, you misunderstand Me; I am only speaking symbolically!” “It’s only an analogy.” “Your fathers ate Manna; well, we are going to share bread together as well, just like the P...

Eucharist -- Is It Cannibalism? Part 3.       Last week we examined in detail John 6:27 about food “which endures to eternal life,” which the “Son of Man” shall give because He has the Father’s “seal” (or “stamp”), being God the Son.       Now before we get to certain people’s cannibalism accusation ( Jn 6:52 ), Jesus has more to say about the nature of this food. In 6:33 , He calls it the “bread of God ... which comes down from Heaven, and gives life to the world.” In 6:35 , He says, “I AM the bread of life” such that any who comes to Him will never hunger or thirst (another image of eternity). In 6:48 , He says, “I AM the bread of life,” and in 6:51 , “I AM the living bread which came down from Heaven.” So Jesus is identifying Himself, and His “I AM” (the name of God) with the food people should strive for.       Jesus speaks of this food as the “bread of life” specifically because the people asked Jesus for a sign, and...

  Eucharist - Is It Cannibalism? Part 2.       Last week we began a look at how, in the Gospel of John, chapter 6, some people objected to Jesus’ teaching of giving His Body and Blood by exclaiming, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” ( Jn 6:52 ). The cannibalism accusation.       Yet we also noted that they clearly understood that Jesus was speaking of something real and tangible, not merely symbolic nor purely spiritual.       Today we want to examine further the three points Jesus makes in John 6:27 .       First, Jesus is not talking about “food which perishes” – the organic physical stuff of this mortal life. As to the cannibalism claim, that pertains to the physical human body of this present mortal life. But Jesus says He’s not talking about “food” that “perishes.” That’s not it at all.       In fact, Jesus says that one should strive for the “food whic...

  Eucharist -- Is it Cannibalism? Part 1.       Some people judge that receiving Holy Communion at Mass is cannibalism, the eating human flesh. An internet search of “Cannibalism and Eucharist” comes up with answers which range from inadequate to bad (e.g., it’s not cannibalism if the person first consents to your eating him; it’s not cannibalism to eat living flesh, only dead flesh; it’s not cannibalism in an event of necessity to preserve another’s life).       Rather than rationalizations, let’s go to the heart of it. How did Jesus answer when people laid the same judgment upon His words?       We find the discussion in John chapter 6 ). Jesus is speaking to a collection of people in Capernaum ( Jn 6:59 ), in Galilee.       Here is the “cannibalism” objection: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” ( Jn 6:52 ).       Said by the disputing Judeans present. (The...

Proof of Christ's Resurrection.       We continue along the 50 days of the Easter Season, this week being the octave of eight days of Solemnities celebrating the Easter Resurrection of the Lord.       This Sunday, the eighth day and Second Sunday of Easter, is also Divine Mercy Sunday. The Opening Prayer (Collect) says it all: “God of everlasting mercy, who in the very recurrence of the paschal feast [Easter] kindle the faith of the people you have made your own, increase, we pray, the grace you have bestowed, that all may grasp and rightly understand in what font they have been washed [baptized], by whose Spirit they have been reborn, by whose Blood they have been redeemed.”       Naturally, being eight days after Easter, our Sunday Gospel reading is from John 20:19-31 , relating when Jesus appeared to the 11 disciples [minus Judas Iscariot] eight days after his resurrection. In the Early Church, those who were called “Ap...

The Catholic Mind       “What Makes the Catholic Mind Unique?” is the title of an article by Fr. David Meconi, SJ, in the December 2020 issue of New Oxford Review magazine, available online.       To summarize his presentation, we might start with creation: space, time, matter. “God’s world,” Fr. Meconi says, “by its very nature, is a sacramental that lifts human minds to their Creator through the divine embeddedness of matter. For the truly Catholic mind, this world is awash with grace.”       “Embeddedness” here is something like St. Paul’s expression that God’s “eternal power and deity has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made” ( Ro 1:20 ). And yet it goes further. It means God’s incarnation. Not absorption – we are not God, the universe is not God.       Incarnation means the Second Person of the Divine Trinity assumed human flesh in Jesus Christ, which flesh has the ...

The Gospel of the Forty Days:  The Church as the Restored Kingdom       Last week we developed the theme of the Messianic expectation of the restoration of the Kingdom of David, and asserted that in Jesus’s teaching about the “kingdom of God” during the forty days between His resurrection and ascension (Ac 1:3), He would have taught that this kingdom is now the Church. Let’s explore that a bit more.       David’s kingdom was based on covenant with God (2 Sam 7:1-29), which included God’s promise to establish an eternal kingdom with a descendant of David, and “I will be His Father, and He shall be My Son.” Luke’s Gospel makes it clear that Jesus, in the flesh, is a descendant of David (Lk 2:4-7, 3:31); and in previous articles we have discussed some of the Bible’s evidence that Jesus is, at the same time, in His Divinity, the Son of God.       Now at the Last Supper, Jesus says to the Twelve, “As My Father appoin...