Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Desire Giving Way To Belief
We are into our second week of the Bread of Life Discourse from St. John’s Gospel, as Jesus slowly moves his listeners from a desire for earthly food to faith in heavenly food, the Eucharist. With this in mind, you might recall that a couple years ago, a survey was conducted by the Pew Research Center[i]. They released results of the survey given to nearly 11,000 Americans who self-identify as Catholic, asking if they know the Church’s teaching about the Eucharist and transubstantiation. But more to the point, the survey asked whether they believe that the Eucharist is the True Presence of Jesus or instead, merely a symbol—in other words, just bread and wine.
The results indicated that only 31% of Catholics believe in the True Presence, while 69% regard it as a symbol. I also learned that among Catholics 40 years of age and under, the number of those who believe in the Eucharist is only 20%, which seems to indicate that unbelief is a growing trend. And probably most of us would surmise that if this poll had been conducted 50 years ago, we would have seen a higher percentage of those who believe in Jesus’ True Presence in the Eucharist.
So, lest there be any doubt among us here, let’s say it, that as Jesus declared, “My flesh is true food, my blood is true drink” (Jn 6:55), and as was echoed by St. Paul (1 Cor 10:16) and the early teachers of the faith, such as Ignatius of Antioch and Justin the Martyr; and further echoed by the witness of so many Christian martyrs who died for this belief—let us state clearly what we believe: The Eucharist 1) is a primary source of our communion; 2) is the sacrificial memorial of Jesus’ Paschal Mystery; 3) is "the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of (Jesus)….truly, really, and substantially contained" (CCC, 1374).
But considering the result of the Pew Survey—that so many Catholics don’t know the teaching on the Eucharist, and that ever-more Catholics don’t believe what is taught, we might ask: Does it really matter? After all, I try to be a good person. I don’t wish or cause harm upon anyone or break society’s laws. Even more, one might wonder that since it’s not part of the Creed, maybe belief in the True Presence isn’t central to the practice of our Christian faith. Again, does it matter?
Jesus himself said, “Amen, amen…unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you”….and whoever does, I will raise on the last day (John 6:53-54). It seems to matter—gravely so.
But we might also ask: What is the cause for this trend toward unbelief? There’s no single cause, but I plan to say more about that in the coming Sundays, as we move through the Bread of Life Discourse.
For each one of us here and now, regardless of how strong our belief, I suspect….
that there’s some place deep within us that realizes there’s more to all this than is visible to the eye and grasped by human reason;
that there’s something, someone who created all this, that even the most advanced sciences do not fully understand;
that some part of us knows there’s more to us than just our bodies and our consciousness;
that everyone of us wants and thirsts for something more than we currently know, have and experience, evidenced by the fact that we’re never entirely satisfied in this life;
that each of us wants there to be something more, something better beyond this life, and;
that none of us has a clue how much we are loved by a personal God.
With all this in mind—in any way these six assertions are true—I further believe that none of us wants to find ourselves on the other side of death hearing God say to us: You had a chance to know me. I made myself known to you….you ate and you drank….and even more, you had a chance to help your children to know me, but you allowed other things to be what matters most…..You never really knew me, nor truly wanted what I wanted to give, and so you may have what you chose to embrace!
For all the ways that the Eucharist requires an assent to faith—just as was true for the crowd Jesus was addressing in today’s Gospel—let’s start by exercising our desire to believe, to encounter the God who comes to us, who makes Himself known to us, truly alive and present in the Eucharist. Let us begin by desiring it.
[i] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/05/transubstantiation-eucharist-u-s-catholics/