Sunday again, that went fast!

Did you know, if you're a Catholic (or Russian Orthodox or Greek Orthodox or part of another church that believes in the transubstantial Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist) the next time a fundamentalist Protestant says, "Ew! Your ideas about Holy Communion are so disgusting and weird! Cannibals!" you can point out in Scripture where many of Jesus' erstwhile disciples felt the same, and "left him and stopped going with him." Maybe that will give them the Jolt that Converts ;)


See below an excerpt from these excellent reflections by Fr. John Hardon. (Click here to see them all)

From Part I:

... Another reason why prayer before the Blessed Sacrament is so praiseworthy is because it is a profession of faith in the real bodily presence of Jesus under the sacramental veils. On the same occasion when the Savior foretold the Eucharist He so intertwined two objects of faith as to make them almost inseparable. Let me change it ‑ so closely did He intertwine them that for all time they remain inseparable: faith in His divinity and faith in His Eucharistic humanity, otherwise known as the Real Presence. Recall what happened after hearing what He said. Many of His followers said to themselves, "This is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it:?" After this we are further told "many" – note - "many of his disciples," not merely the onlookers or the crowd, but "many of his disciples left him and stopped going with him." Everyone who prays before the Blessed Sacrament is in effect choosing to not only go along with Christ, but physically comes to Christ. Why? Because he believes. Believes what? Believes that behind the external appearances of bread is a Man and behind the Man is God. He or she believes that the Christ who is in the church or chapel is the same who was conceived at Nazareth, who was born at Bethlehem, who fled into Egypt, who lived for thirty years in the same town in which He was conceived, who preached and worked miracles throughout Palestine, who died on the cross on Calvary, rose from the dead and ascended to His Father at Jerusalem. The same Jesus who was there in a definite geographic locality is now here also in a definite geographic place in whatever city or town where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved. This is the Christ of history and the Christ ‑ how I like to say it ‑ of geography.

If, as the apostle tells us, without faith no one can please God, so without faith no one can hope to obtain anything from God. On both counts the believer who prays before the Eucharist is a believer indeed. He believes that Jesus Christ is the man from Nazareth, but that this man is the eternal God. He further believes that this same Jesus who is God made man is present as man on earth today: that He is only feet away from me when I pray before Him; that in the Eucharist He has the same human body and soul, hands and feet, and Sacred Heart as He has now in heaven, as He had during His visible stay in the area we now call the Near East. The pray‑er before the Eucharist believes that time is erased by the miracle of the Real Presence and so is distance and space. He believes that what Martha told Mary on the occasion of Christ's visit is being told to him or her: "The Master is here and He wants to see you." Hearing this, we are informed, Mary got up quickly and went to Him. That is what every worshipper before the Eucharist does: gets up quickly from wherever he or she may be and goes to the Master who is here waiting for us ...