I know this sounds a bit strange, but, 1st Corinthians Chapter 11 holds a special place for Elise and I. As regular readers of ACM know, Elise is Jewish and we were married with both a priest and a rabbi present. The two ministers met up for a few meetings to plan the ceremony and they also required us to meet with each of them in preparation for the wedding. As part of the planning, we needed to come up with a song for the service. We elected the song, “One Bread, One Body” by John Michael Talbot. The rabbi kind of rolled his eyes. I am guessing that he was thinking that this was some type of Gentile LaLa wedding song…until he read the lyrics. The Chorus goes:
One bread, one body
One Lord of all
One cup of blessing which we bless
And we, though many
Throughout the earth
We are one body in this one Lord
And the first verse:
Gentile or Jew
Servant or free
Woman or man, no more
The song seemed to be written for our wedding. And in today’s first reading, Paul addresses the Corinthians about the same need for community. It seems they were not living up to the faith the way had intended. Among others, their issues included following everyone except Christ, they were displaying some pretty sketchy moral behavior, and they are dabbling in idolatry…even after pledging to follow Jesus. And in today’s reading he warns them about eating food that was sacrificed to demons. He declares basically that if you participate in a meal that has been sacrificed to idols and demons then you will develop a somewhat supernatural union with these very same evil spirits. Remember what your Mother said? “You are who your friends are.” Evil hangs with evil and good hangs with good. Jesus says as much in the Gospel when he talks about telling good from evil by the fruit they produce. Good trees don’t produce bad fruit and bad trees don’t produce good fruit. Another old wife’s tail, “You are what you eat”, seems to agree with what Jesus is saying in the Gospel.
Paul continues in today’s reading in his letter to the Church in Corinth:
Because the loaf of bread is one,
we, though many, are one Body,
for we all partake of the one loaf.
We are many parts but all one body. We share in Christ’s presence together as one community with Christ at the center. Passing around a piece of bread and cups of juice cannot cannot accomplish that. When Jesus’ disciples walked away when he said eat my body and drink my blood, he did not call them back to say he was just speaking metaphorically. St. Justin Martyr and St. Ignatius of Antioch put pen to paper in the 2nd Century saying as much. 12 year old altar server, Saint Tarcisius, died a martyr while carrying consecrated hosts to churches around Jerusalem. If the early church believed that the bread was just a symbol, why would they risk the life of a young boy to bring the Eucharist to churches that could simply have served unconsecrated bread.
And this line from Paul’s letter today seems to back up what the early Church believed about the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist:
The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the Blood of Christ?
The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the Body of Christ?
I have always admired apologists, like Patrick Madrid on Relevant Radio. For those of you who don’t know what an apologist is, it is not someone who makes a living by being hired to say “I am sorry” when someone can’t do it themselves. A Catholic Apologist is someone who explains the teachings of the faith. They help you understand why we believe what we believe. An this line from St. Paul goes a long way giving evidence that the belief in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist goes back to the early Church. Just as he warned the Corinthians that eating food sacrificed to idols and demons can create a union between the person and the demon, so too can eating a meal sacrificed at Mass can create a supernatural union with Christ. But that is only if that sacrifice had supernatural value itself. Bread and wine that remain bread and wine, and thus symbols, cannot in any way create that union.
This reading by Paul is then solidified when he later writes in Chapter 11:
Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily
will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord.
A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup.
For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.
So, if the eucharist was just a symbol of Jesus then why would receiving unworthily (with unconfessed mortal sin) result in them having to answer for the body and blood of Christ Himself or would bring judgement on himself. This would only be significant if eating bread and wine prepared during the sacrifice of the Mass brings about a supernatural union with Christ as Paul tells the Corinthians and as he is telling us today. Through the Eucharist we receive Christ and therefore come into greater union with Him and, in each of us doing the same, we come into union with each other. Forming the Body of Christ in the community that is The Church. One Bread, One Body. One Lord of ALL.
Travel back in time 41 years to Spring Lake, NJ to our wedding by listening to the song we listened to all those years ago:
