Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator
Chapter six of St. John's Gospel, much of which is called the Discourse on the Bread of Life, is surely one of the most beloved texts of the Scriptures among Catholics. In this discourse, St. John reveals what has become the Church's teaching about the Eucharist, that the bread and wine used at during the celebration of the Eucharist actually become the body and blood of Jesus under the appearances of bread and wine. This mystery is referred to as "transubstantiation" in Catholic Eucharistic theology.
As I was reading today's Gospel passage, I was struck, however, that even within this seminal Scripture, the key theme of St. John's Gospel is included in the discourse: This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent (John 6:29b). From the prologue to the final chapter of the Gospel, St. John keeps reminding us that his purpose in writing is so that we might come to believe that Jesus is God incarnate.
I cannot help but feel that we sometimes lose sight of this pervasive theme. If we are what is commonly called "cradle Catholics," baptized as infants, this truth is something with which we have grown up. From the very first catechism lesson we received, we have always been taught that Jesus is the second person of the Blessed Trinity, the Son of God who became human. However, if we try to put ourselves in the shoes of our forebears in the faith, those who were eyewitnesses to the life, ministry, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, we will soon realize that this truth is not something that they automatically accepted. Only after years of reflection upon the life of Jesus did the first Christians come to realize that Jesus was more than a prophet, greater than Moses, and more than a Messiah. Jesus was God, God who loved us so much that He sent His only Son into our midst.
Only when we realize that this truth took years to be revealed and proclaimed can we really appreciate the courage of people like St. Stephen, the first martyr about whom we also read today. St. Luke's narrative technique of mirroring his Gospel in the Acts of the Apostles is very much in evidence in today's reading as Stephen is condemned for the very same reason as was his Lord and Savior. His example of faith in Jesus is all the more admirable when one considers that the Church was still coming to realize who Jesus was when the first persecutions began.
In this year of Faith proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI, we can only stand back and marvel at this courage and the tremendous gift of faith that the evangelists have left us.