Christ’s 3 Promises on the Eucharist

Khrystos voskres! Χριστὸς ἀνέστη! Christo ha resucitado! Christ is risen!

I am shy to share to you what today’s readings say to my heart. But courage! Let me speak. We have just heard Jesus say: “He who eats my flesh anddrinks my blood (1) abides in me, and I in him, (2) lives by me just as I live by my Heavenly Father, (3)already lives in eternal life”. And Jesus adds that welcoming these truths are at the same level as contemplating Him ascended to where He was before His Incarnation,

contemplating His eternal relation as eternal Son with the

Father, contemplating the glory that Jesus was receiving from His Eternal Father before the creation of the world. Do we take time to welcome in our hearts such truths proclaimed by Jesus do we entrust ourselves to intense immersion in today’s words of Jesus? Do our hearts allow the Life-giving Holy Spirit to infuse quietly moment after moment Jesus’ words, so that we come to embrace the truth contained in them? “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood (1) abides in me, and I in him, (2) lives by me just as I live by my Heavenly Father, (3) already lives in eternal life”.

christ is the Vine, we are the branches.

Jesus declares abruptly: “You have absolutely no capacity in yourselves to receive the truth in these words of mine! None of you can come to Me unless it is granted you by My Father.” Will we

then follow the footsteps of St Peter: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You are putting us in a situation of utter poverty. We remain totally suspended to whether or not we will receive from on high the gift of communion with You?”

Having attained a tiny bit of consciousness of our helplessness, will we throw ourselves in the arms of Jesus in an act of unlimited faith: “Lord, You have the words of eternal life; I dare say to You: we have

believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” I am at a loss of how to help us receive this teaching. I am afraid it be for most of us just a passing encounter with words of Holy Scripture like any other day of the year?

St Maximus the Confessor helps awaken me to how distant I am from appreciating what God says to me in Holy Scripture. He comments on today’s reading from the Acts: Peter in Joppa went up on the housetop to pray and within his prayer he suddenly saw the heaven opened, and something descending, like a great sheet, let down by four corners upon the earth. In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of

the air. And there came a voice to him, “Rise, Peter; sacrifice and eat.” This happened three times, and the whole was taken up again to heaven. According to St Maximus when Peter prays, he is bidding to be

enlightened from God concerning the “how” of the great commission received to preach the Gospel to all nations. This is the moment for God to manifest to Peter something of the hidden treasure of God’s goodness lavished on all mankind, something of the perspective of the invisible designs of the Divine Counsel.

What does God ask Peter here? Three times God invites him to rise higher than his habitual level of prayer: (1) to convert

from allowing at times his mind be happed in prayer by all sorts of passionate attachments and frenzies,

becoming thus in the semblance of all kinds of animals, (2) to convert from a mind prone to drag down to earthly- bound thoughts in the imitation of crawling reptiles, (3)to convert from soaring upward by pride and arrogance, to a mind with the pretense of resembling birds of the air.... In this vision, God then asks for the sacrifice of all attachments to such mindsets that can creep in during prayer. Having in hand the sword of the Spirit, open to the

Word, to let infusions the Holy Spirit, “rise up” (1) practice gentleness, attachment to communion with my brother to counter my animal-like passions and frenzies, (2) set my mind on heavenly realities rather than remain a reptile crawling in errors of judgment stemming from earthly perceptions realities, (3) to love God and be humble rather than soaring in mind as a bird flying in the air.

When God adds “eat”, in this vision, He indicates engagement in works of virtue: (1) ascetic practice, (2) application of the mind to spiritual realities, (3) disposition to be enlightened by the divine and invincible unity of the Three Divine Persons, the mystery of true theology. The

sheet was taken up three times insisting on the necessity to proceed in successive steps with ascetic practice, contemplating spiritual realities and opening up to enlightenment by the Holy Trinity. This purification in prayer is the path by which a heart becomes disposed to serve in depth God’s eternal designs for Cornelius and his

household and all nations, for true cooperation in the works of universal salvation. In short, Holy Scripture calls us to engage fully in purifying our prayer by offering in sacrifice all our animal-like, reptile-like, bird-of-the-air-

like attachments, and to espouse a heavenly mind in our prayer Thus we can have access to the truth transmitted

by Jesus’ words: “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood 1 abides in me, and I in him, 2 lives by me just as I live by my Heavenly Father, 3 already lives in eternal life”.

Khrystos voskres! Χριστὸς ἀνέστη! Christo ha

resucitado! Christ is risen!