Love itself still among us beating within a human heart…Truth itself in the flesh; truth is a matter of love!!!

Luke 13, 22-30 Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 25th, 2013.

Last week we heard Jesus say, “Do you suppose that I am here to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” Jesus’ teachings and the teachings of his Church will sadly cause division, even in our families, between those who accept them and those who don’t. Again, it is not Jesus or the truth of the Gospel that is at fault of course or the person that proclaims them, but at fault is the rejection of the truth in the hearts and the minds of some men. The Gospel last week taught us that in the end, only those who open their hearts and wills to the truth of God and of His Holy Church will have the peace that leads to unity; only the truth and its acceptance in our hearts and our living it out with our wills in our lives, no matter how difficult, with the help of God’s grace of course, only this will bring us the unity and peace, not to mention, the happiness we all desire.

And so that is why Jesus follows last week’s words with this week’s teaching, the teaching of the Narrow way; which again seems very divisive. He tells us to strive to enter through the narrow gate, many will try to enter and will not succeed.” He says, “I do not know where you come from. Away from me, all you wicked men!” “Then there will be weeping and grinding of teeth…” Jesus’ words seem like so many swords to our modern age of so-called “tolerance.” But here again, because he loves us so very much, Jesus speaks the truth, the hard truth and yes, the sometimes-divisive truth, the truth that even sometimes tears inside of us.

And so, when hearing the tough truths of the Gospel, we can have the tendency to want to soften them, to remove those things that seem to us to be divisive, those things we don’t like or that we think others won’t like—to take the easy way—to just go along, to get along. It’s easy for us to think that in order to bring people together in peace and unity we should just drop those teachings of the Church, which seem to lead to division and a lack of peace.

Over the last forty years, this false notion of preserving the peace and unity by trying to drop controversial teachings has been seen in many areas. One such area has been in the Ecumenical dialogue trying to reunite Christian communities and Churches. After many early successes in the ecumenical dialogue after Vatican II, the “spirit of the age” has sadly rendered this dialogue for the most part uninspiring and unfruitful. Why? One commentator said its because too many Christians, especially Catholics, involved in the discussions are afraid of offending, “Better to get along;” As a result, much of the effort has been spent in trying to reach the goal of “getting along”.

Now, it’s good for us to want to get along, of course, however, the trouble is when getting along is the main goal instead of truth, many of our significance differences are ironed over and ignored and the fullness of the truth is set aside. The truth is, is that many of our separated brothers and sisters have frankly abandoned the full truth of the Gospel for a political correctness, teaching incorrectly for example, that abortion and artificial contraception are morally permissible or that traditional marriage should be abandoned and divorce and remarriage should be allowed. In the end, the attempt to try to “cover up” these errors under the umbrella of “getting along,” does nothing but lead to a false sense of unity and peace; in the end, it actually creates more division.

A few years ago there was an important instruction that came out from Rome regarding certain defects in other Christians communities. Afterwards, commentators in the news and some Christians condemned the then Pope Benedict for being divisive and for hurting the efforts to “get along” with other Christians. However the Holy Father, far from condemning the other Christian communities, was merely stating the truth; that as Catholics we believe that the fullness of the truth that Jesus Christ came to bring into the world for our salvation subsists fully only in the Catholic Church. He was not saying that other Christians are evil or that they have no truth or that there is no way they can get into heaven; he was saying however, that they are missing some of the vital truth that Jesus Christ came to give in order for us to enter into life. We have to remember that the popes are the universal spiritual fathers of all souls on earth, Catholic or not; like a good parent the pope speaks the truth in love that the children need to be happy both in this life and in the life to come. No true happiness without the truth and discipline in that truth.

To help understand even more, let’s look at one of the essential truths the other Christians faiths are missing. And it is really the main truth or teaching that divides us—this is the true teaching of the Holy Eucharist. Only the Catholic Church and the orthodox churches claim to have the true Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus; all the other Christian communities believe the Eucharist is merely symbolic or spiritual, or a commingling of bread and body, but not the true flesh of Jesus and the fullness of His human nature. The Catholic Church however, believes that the Eucharist is not symbolic or spiritual, but that it is truly Jesus Christ still physically present on earth in the flesh, in His resurrected and glorified human body, that after the consecration there is no bread, no wine, but only Jesus.

Even if other Christians claim to believe in the Eucharist in this way, according to Catholic teaching it would not be possible for them to have the true Eucharist. Why? Because they don’t possess apostolic succession. Only the Catholic and Orthodox Churches have, and can claim to have, apostolic succession.
Apostolic succession means this, that the divine power to confect the Holy Eucharist, to change bread and wine into Jesus Himself, was given only to the twelve apostles at the Last Supper when Jesus laid His hands on them and ordained them as priests and bishops, commanding them to, “do this in commemoration of me.” This divine power to make present the sacrifice of Calvary and the true Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity was then passed on to the apostles’ successors, the bishops (and through them to priests), also by the Laying on of the hands, known as ordination. Only the Catholic Church and orthodox churches have kept intact Apostolic Succession, and so only they have transmitted through out the centuries that same divine power that Jesus gave to his apostles; that is why we are the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church

Why is this truth so important for unity and salvation, not to mention for our daily lives? Because the only way we can reach the Father is through the Son, and particularly through the human nature of the Son, that is through His Human Body, Blood and Soul. Jesus Human nature is the bridge, the only bridge, which spans the infinite gulf between God and man. The Eucharist is this Human Body, Blood, and Soul of Jesus, united to His divinity. And so, only through the Eucharist can anyone, anyone possibly be saved, “Unless you eat my body and drink my blood, you will not have life within you.”

So if anyone is to be saved, he or she can be saved only through the Eucharist. If no one is saved apart from Jesus, and the Eucharist is Jesus, then no one is saved apart from the Eucharist (“For there is no other name under the heavens and the earth through which men can be saved”). In fact, all the grace that comes from the Father comes through the Son, and any prayers from us also return to the Father through the Son, and the Eucharist is the Son in His fullness. So if someone is to be saved who is not a Catholic, the grace He needs for salvation only comes through the merits of the Holy Sacrifice the Mass, which makes present the Holy Eucharist by the power of Jesus Christ given to the priest by the laying on of the hands of the bishop, successor of the apostles; Grace then flows out into the world only through the hearts of those who believe truly and participate actually, fully, consciously and so fruitfully in the Holy Eucharist.

You see the truth matters, especially the truth of the Eucharist. How can we as Catholics say that other Christians communities who do not have the Eucharist are not defective; how can we in order to “just get along,” say they are not missing something vital to their life and Happiness. Only through an honest and straightforward dialogue with other Christian communities about our differences can we ever hope to have peace and unity. Even more, if we love other Christians and people of other non-Christian faiths, and people in our own family who have left the faith, how can we not want them to have the Eucharist, which is not only necessary for salvation, but which, WHO is Jesus Christ, God in the flesh still among us, Love itself still among us beating within a human heart…Truth itself in the flesh; truth is a matter of love!!!

Faith in the teaching of the Eucharist is part of the narrow way, but according to Jesus, it is the only way to enter into life because it is Him—When Jesus first gave the teaching of the Holy Eucharist as recorded in the Gospel of St. John, the crowds found His words impossible to accept-“how can he give us his body to eat or his blood to drink?” Many walked away, but that did not keep Jesus from, in love, proclaiming the truth needed for them and for us to reach heaven.

As our Gospel of the last two weeks have taught us, only by the truth and its acceptance in our hearts, especially the truth of the Holy Eucharist, and living our lives in conformity to the truth, only then, will we ever have true unity and peace, within our families, in our parish and with all the other faiths as well, not to mention in our world. Peace is not just the absence of conflict, peace only comes by proclaiming the truth and by struggling to accept, live and proclaim it against all evil, against all error, no matter what the cost, even to the cross.

Recently Our Holy Father said to the youth of world at World Youth Day, “don’t water-down the faith! God back to your dioceses and stir things up.” The media reported this as a call for the youth to oppose the Church and her teachings and oppose bishops and priests. But what the Holy Father was really saying to the youth, is for them and for all of us not to be content with a watered down faith; that if we open ourself up to the fullness of the truth of Gospels contained in the teachings of the Church we will stir things up, we will upset the “peace.” By living the truth in our lives we will upset others, not just in society but even in the Church, who are not living the truth; we will upset even those priests and bishops that aren’t speaking the fullness of the truth anymore for fear of upsetting the people and stirring things up.” But ultimately acceptance of the truth will lead to peace and unity amongst Christians, in our dioceses, our parishes our families and in our world.

Let us turn to our Lady for help. Holy Mary Mother of all Christians and of all people and nations, pray for us lead us closer to your Son who is the truth, and to adore Him as the True God bodily present in the Holy Eucharist, the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. Help us to be faithful to the truth even to the cross in order to spread His love and mercy throughout our world. Amen.