The Eucharist
So, Hi there! I am in a new setting. I don’t know if I like it, but it’s gotta be better than that blank wall. So I’m trying out something new!
Alrighty—this is all about me and my-heart-on-my-sleeve, telling you about how important the Eucharist is to me. I’m also going to throw some Bible stuff at ya toward the end, but let me start off first just by saying, I know that the real Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ is in the Eucharist because I can feel myself changing.
I did not go out there lookin’ to change. I did not go out there really trying to find God. I wasn’t seeking anything. My wife was fabulous. I didn’t need God. As a matter of fact, I didn’t have God in my life. And then slowly but surely, and I can share the story with you, there’s other blogs that are out there; I slowly started changing. I started seeing life through the eyes of my faith through the eyes of how God wanted me to love thy neighbor. So I feel God entering me every time I accept him in the Eucharist and that means that I feel the real presence. And I’ve gone to Mass for a year and a half and have not had the Eucharist because I was not Sacramentally Married in the church—the Catholic Church. So I’ve sat there, I’ve gone to Mass, I haven’t received Him and I have sat there and I’ve gone to Mass and I have received Him and it is a fundamental difference in my life.
What is the Eucharist? I just needed to get that off my chest really in the beginning from an emotional perspective before I get into definitions and the Bible and things like that. So thank you for humoring me.
The definition of the Eucharist—the Christian ceremony commemorating the Last Supper in which bread and wine are Consecrated and consumed. So the word Greek is grace, offer graciously, grateful, thanksgiving. So at the end of the day it’s like it’s grateful, thanksgiving, offer graciously. OK, so that being said, what does Consecrated mean? Well, in the Catholic Church, the Eucharist is the source and summit of our Faith. We firmly believe that at the Last Supper on Pentecost, Jesus Instituted his body, as the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Himself to be given to us every week at Mass or every day if we so choose. So the mere fact here is this is fundamental to the Catholic Faith.
Because, if you don’t believe in that, I would challenge and ask you how can you call yourself Catholic? Because that is, again, one of the most gracious and fundamental sacraments we have in our faith. So the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, all bring up this fact, the institution of the Eucharist in their Gospels and these were the early church writings and these were out there in the very beginning and there was a lot of angst out there at that time. There were a lot of heretics, there were a lot of people that were being blasphemous all over the place. So when John’s Gospel came out and the Bread of Life Discourse that was in his Gospel, it was very poignant. It was direct. It used words like chew or to gnaw in terms of eating my, my flesh and drinking my blood.
This was not a parable, at the end of the day, and I’ve been saying the end of the day a lot—I have to watch that.
But the point here is—Jesus is present. It’s not a parable that people were just, “Oh, we don’t believe in that,” and walked away. They were mortified. It was disgusting. He was asking them to eat his flesh and drink his blood, eat it, chew it, gnaw on it, right … I mean, I’m not just putting a symbol out there. And when the people, the ones that were following him as well, decided to fall away because they couldn’t deal with the saying he was saying Jesus didn’t step back and say, “Oh yeah, you know guys? I don’t know what I was getting at, I really didn’t mean to eat my flesh and drink my blood. I meant it’s a symbol. Why would I ask you to do that? That’s gross.”
No. He got even more clear and stated it even more clearly and turned more people away, and then when he asks Peter, so I know all you are thinking, “this is a hard saying, how are we to do this? What … are you going to fall away too?” And Peter says, “Lord, to where shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life.” and the rest was history.
You can also look up the early church teachings, so the fathers and the priests and the bishops who were trained by Peter and Paul. These are the early church teachings, early church fathers, early church writings, and the presence was always there. You could go look at www.catholic.com. The real presence, the link is here for you. Please go read all those early writings and you will see it has always been Jesus, the new covenant, Instituting Himself in the Eucharist for us—every week at Mass to celebrate his sacrifice for us, which was his death for our sins and our salvation to be living in eternity with Him in Heaven. That’s it—in a summary. But I do have to say there are some writings that you should read.
And quite frankly it is, again, the reason I try to go every day to Mass is so that I can receive the Eucharist. I want to have Him in me because I can feel Him take over. And the feeling is something that I can’t explain to someone who doesn’t have that relationship or hasn’t felt the direct grace from God.
Because I will tell you, I would be looking at me five years ago and thinking, what are you smoking? Because I want some of it! Whatever it is, it looks awesome because you’re on this level of joy and you’re elated, you’re bursting, you’re oozing like, what is it? And it’s God! That is why I left my career to help people understand that this is where fundamental joy and happiness is, and it makes every aspect of your life richer.
Why…Why not? Why not give it a shot? I didn’t even know I had anything missing!
So again, if I can bring God into my body and my soul and my strength and my might and I get reminded every day having Him in there growing in me, why wouldn’t I do that?
So thank you for listening again about my heart and soul are in some of the sacraments and why I am Catholic. It truly does boil down to the sacraments and the faith. Yes, I struggle every day to live in this high Catholic bar. I’m a sinner, no question, but in the end … (in the end—I’ve got to work on that) … but all that being equal, I still strive every day to hit that bar. And every time I pick myself up, I go to confession, I get back at it. So I just know that it’s easier when God’s in me. And, uh, that’s what I feel about the Eucharist. Please feel free to share, put your comments out there, share this with friends and family and join The Collective if you’re not already a part of it. And, uh, get some other vlogs, other ways of looking at your life differently. So again, go Catholic Faith, go Eucharist. It’s Him … there. And my dog is getting up and moving right now. I don’t know, I had to share that. Thank you. Have a wonderful and blessed day. OK.
