Fr. Michael Williams

St. Thomas Aquinas, the great theologian of the Church, has said that what happened at the Last Supper, was the greatest miracle Jesus ever worked. At the Last Supper, “Jesus took the bread saying, ‘This is my Body’…He did the same with the cup, ‘This is my blood poured out for you’”. Aquinas goes on to say that we can only accept this great miracle and mystery, if we have accepted the gift of faith. Only faith allows us to accept the truth about the Eucharist. Our senses tell us we receive bread and wine, our faith tells us we receive the Body and Blood of Christ. That is what we say Amen to.

For the Jews who heard Jesus preaching at the synagogue in Capernaum, they could not accept what Jesus was saying. Jesus had told His listeners that, “I am the living bread which has come down from Heaven…[and] the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world”. This was intolerable language for them: “How can this man give us His flesh to eat”? The doctrine of the Eucharist that Jesus was teaching was difficult for them to accept. After Jesus taught this doctrine at Capernaum, many people left Him. Chapter 6, verse 66 of John’s gospel tells us that “After this, many of his disciples went away and accompanied Him no more”. Only the faithful few gathered around St. Peter stayed on with Jesus. Peter tells the Lord, “Lord to whom shall we go? You have the message of eternal life”. The Bread of Life leads us to eternal life.

Let us ask the Lord to have the same faith as St. Peter, who knew that Jesus, the Bread of Life, is the way to eternal life. Let us thank God for so great a gift and mystery- The Body and Blood of Christ, soon to be made present of this altar, for our good and the good of the whole world.