May We Be One

Holy Thursday.  The beginning of the end starts today or maybe its the beginning of the beginning.  I have been very anxious this Holy Week.  Not sure if after all this time I am finally getting it or what.  Just have this feeling like something big is going to happen this week.  Now I know what happened two thousand years ago it just seems like this week is different in celebrating it.  I just don't have the words to explain how I am feeling.  Maybe it will be something that next week or month when I look back it will be easier to see or understand.

Today is the day we celebrate the Lords Supper or Last Supper.  For us Catholics it doesn't get much better than this.  Jesus on this day over two thousand years ago gave us his own flesh to eat, his own blood to drink.  I know many of our Christian brothers and sisters do not see it this way.  I honestly don't get how they can read chapter 6 of John and not see it.  "I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world." John 6:51  or in John 6:53-56


"Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him."

All I can believe is that they do not understand that they now are those Jewish disciples who found this teaching much to hard to believe so they got up and left.  I once had Jehovah Witnesses come to my house.  I used to ask them to leave until a good priest friend of mine told me it was my opportunity to witness to them.  So when they asked if they could come in and share with me I said sure as long as i could share with them.  I listened to their litany and the time came when I could share with them.  I asked which one of them was a former Catholic (they always have former Catholics.)  The man said that he had been raised Catholic than I said this reading is for you.  I read them John chapter 6.  I said to the man that I was afraid for him that he was one of those Jews who found Jesus teaching to hard.  The woman of the group said she found this very interesting because many times she had asked Catholics to explain the Eucharist and they could not.  I told her I was sorry for the those who did not have proper catechisis.  I offered to the male part of the group that I thought he might have a lot to answer for at the last day for leaving the church like those disciples left Jesus.  They left soon after that.  Funny thing I have not had a Jehovah Witness back at my home since.  I no longer get Mormons either.  I actually miss them now that I found a way to speak to them using the Gospels.

It is days like today where we celebrate the Lords Supper and on Sundays that I miss them the most.  See Jesus did not want it to be this way.  Later in John he said, "I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me."  John 17:20-21.  Jesus did not want to have fractures in His Body.  He wanted us to be united in Him.

My prayer for this day is that we all may be one.

"The Church of God is called by Christ to manifest to a world ensnared by its sins and evil designs that, despite everything, God in his mercy can convert hearts to unity and enable them to enter into communion with him." Blessed John Paul II- That They May Be One