2nd Week of Lent - Preparation and Promise

"His face shone as the sun, and his garments became white as snow." St. Matthew 17:2.

Pope Pius X had a special love for little children. At one of the many audiences he granted them, a tiny girl ran up to the Pope to tell him about her first Holy Communion.

"Whom did you receive?" asked the Holy Father.

"Our Lord, Jesus Christ," she answered.

"Was it our Lord in heaven or our Lord on earth?" questioned the Holy Pontiff.

The little one replied: "Our Lord came down on the altar for me."

But the Pope continued to question: "Then there was Jesus Christ on earth and a Jesus Christ in heaven. Are there two Jesus Christ's?"

For just a moment the child was silent, but she soon gave an answer that delighted the affectionate Pontiff: "No, Holy Father, there is only one Jesus Christ; our Lord in heaven and our Lord in Holy Communion are the same Jesus Christ."

How did that little girl know that the same Jesus Christ is in heaven and in the tabernacle? She knew it, as all Catholics should know it, from the words of Jesus Himself, as another child put it: "Because Jesus said so."

Yes, Jesus did say so. He promised to give us Himself and He kept that promise. In making and keeping that promise there are four steps or stages: The Preparation, the Promise, the Promise Kept, and the Acceptance. First, Jesus prepared his hearers for this tremendous truth. Secondly, he clearly promised to give His flesh and blood. Thirdly, Christ kept His promise at the Last Supper. Fourthly, the Apostles and the early Church accepted Christ's words in their literal meaning.

One year before His death Christ miraculously fed five thousand people with "five barley loaves and two fishes." St. John, 6:9. That same evening Jesus worked another miracle by walking over the water to come to the disciples who were in a boat. (St. John, 6:16)

"The next day" He made His promise. And what a promise! Yesterday He fed five thousand. Today he promises to feed millions. Yesterday He fed five thousand at one time and in one place. Today he promises to feed all men in all places.

When Jesus told His audience: "Do not labor for the food that per­ishes, but for that which endures unto life everlasting" St. John, 6:27, the Jews reminded our Lord that their fathers ate manna in the desert, daily, delicious bread, that was a beautiful figure. of the Eucharist.

Jesus told them: "I am the bread of life." They seemed unable to understand, unwilling to accept. Again Christ told them: "I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the desert, and have died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that if anyone eat of it he will not die. I am the living bread that has come down from heaven. If anyone eat of this bread he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world." St. John, 6:48-52.

The Jews argued: "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" St. John, 6:53. Did Jesus take back His words or change them by saying: "0h, I did not mean that I would give you my flesh to eat"?

No, Christ repeated and insisted: "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life everlasting and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. . . This is the bread that has come down from heaven. . ." St. John, 6:54-59.

That His hearers understood Christ to mean His own flesh and blood is clear from verse 62: "This is a hard saying. Who can listen to it?". And from verse 67: "From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him."

When Jesus asked the Apostles if they also would go away, Simon Peter answered for them, as the Pope has always answered for all Catholics: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of everlasting life, and we have come to believe and to know that You are the Christ, the Son of God." St. John, 6:68-70.

In this story of the promise we see why the little girl told Pope Pius X: "No, Holy Father, there is only one Jesus Christ; our Lord in heaven and our Lord in Holy Communion are the same Jesus Christ." Christ promised that very thing. And Christ kept that promise.

That promise Christ keeps this very hour as we repeat His words at the consecration at every Holy Mass, and as we all look to the sacred Host held aloft. We have recently read about the Transfiguration of our Lord. Just as in the Transfiguration He appears this very hour and every hour of every day of every year throughout the world. On every altar, as on the mountain, His face shines as the sun and His garments are white as snow. It is the shining face of Christ in the Eucharist; it is the white garment of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.

In the words of St. Peter, "It is good for us to be here." Yes, it is good for us to be here, here where Christ comes down on the altar, here where Christ comes into the hearts of each one of us. Truly - it is good to be here. Amen.
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Adapted from Talks on the Sacraments
by Fr. Arthur Tonne, 1947