The 11 Station, The Bread of Life Discourse. O Sacrament Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine, all praise and all thanksgiving be every moment be Thine. John chapter six. I always tell people if there is a biblical passage to memorize, it is John chapter six. It is a powerful passage that reveals to us how much God loves us. Yes, John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son." What do we mean by that? I mean, let's flesh that out. Literally flesh that out. For God the Father loved the world so much that he gave us his only begotten Son, Jesus, in the most blessed sacrament. Because in John chapter six, Jesus says, "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life within you." John chapter six is so powerful. John chapter six is where Jesus reveals the mystery of the Eucharist in such a profound way, and we begin to realize that this gift and mystery is so important. Let's go back to the book of Genesis, which is where we started these stations of the Eucharist.

If we go back to Genesis chapter two, Adam in the garden is told, "You may eat freely of any tree in the garden. You can eat from any tree, but one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat of this tree, you shall die. If you eat of this tree, you shall die." What happened? Well, they were tempted. They were tempted to eat from the tree, and spiritually they died. So God the Father says to Adam, "If you eat of this tree, you will die. If you eat this tree, you will die. If you do this tree, you will die." And now we have Jesus in John chapter six, the second person is the most, and what is he saying? He's saying this, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. You die. Unless you eat, you die. Unless you eat, you die." The question is, where do we get this flesh in this blood? We get it from the tree. We get it from Calvary. We get it from Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Son of Mary, who will hang on a tree. And with his body language, he will say to you, and he will say to me, "This is my body, given up for you. This is my blood, which is poured out, which is shed for you and for many."

You see, John chapter six is where Jesus says, "I am the new Adam. My mom, she's the new Eve." Her yes, undid, Eve's no to God's plan and yes to the serpent. And what happened at that tree in the garden of Eden is now being reversed, and the tree of life is the cross, where I will stand and I will offer you my saving body and my saving blood. My dear brothers and sisters, this 11th station of the Eucharist is an invitation for you and for me to receive the very body and blood of our Lord and to have it change us. The sins of Adam and Eve, they left a gap. They created a divide. And we as human beings have been fighting and living in that gap and in that divide. And yet Christ is the replacement sacrifice. Christ is the one who bridges the gap. He's the one who gives us his life. And when we choose to receive it, it changes us. I want to give you a spiritual insight that is really powerful. The next time you go to Holy Mass, I want you to pray to the Lord for a skin graft. We have the ability through science to take parts of one body and to apply it to another part of our body and to heal us and to mend us. Where in your heart is there brokenness? Where are there wounds? Where are there scars that seem to run so deep that sometimes you can't even feel that you can breathe? When you go to mass, I want you to say, "Jesus, I want to receive your body, your blood, your soul, and divinity. I want to receive it and I want you to apply it directly to that wound, to that heart of mine that needs to be mended. And our God who is faithful, our God is true. He will take His body and His blood and He will give it to you in a powerful way. The sins of Adam and Eve, Christ's death on the cross, destroyed death forever and gave us eternal life. And we have that promise in the Eucharist. Let's allow The Bread of Life Discourse, John chapter 6, to give us hope and meaning and peace and joy. Amen.

The 12th Station of the Eucharist, The Last Supper. O Sacrament was holy, O Sacrament divine, all praise and all Thanksgiving be every moment vine.

Every one of us is familiar with The Last Supper. But isn't it true that sometimes when things become familiar, we don't actually realize what's happening. Many of us have heard The Last Supper since we were infants, before we could even comprehend it. Being held in our mother's arms or sitting in a pew next to our grandparents. This is my body given up for you. This is my blood poured out for you. We hear it again and again and again.

It's not by chance that when I had the opportunity to lay out the Stations of the Eucharist, that I chose The Last Supper to be the 12th Station. Because in the Stations of the Cross given to us by St. Francis of Assisi, the 12th Station is the crucifixion and death of our Lord. And you see, what so many of us don't comprehend is what is so crucial to our understanding of what the Eucharist is. The Eucharist is not just communion. Yes, Jesus said, "Take this all of you and eat of it. Take this, all of you, and drink of it." Yes! The mass is communion. Take and eat, take and drink.

And yes, the mass is presence. This is my body. This is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant. So yes, the mass is communion, the mass is presence, but the mass is also sacrificed. And this is the part that I think we haven't completely grasped, unpacked, and been proclaiming as we should. Jesus says, "This is my body, which will be given up for you, which will be given up for you." And that at the end of the supper or after the meal, depending on the translation, then he took the cup and said, "Take this, all of you, and drink of it. This is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you."

What does he mean by this is my body which will be offered? What does he mean by this is my chalice, which will be poured out? And why is it that the chalice is not consecrated until after the meal? Notice what Jesus does not say. He doesn't take bread. He doesn't take wine at the exact same time and say, "This is my body and blood given up for you." That would have just been a presence. But that's not what he did. He didn't just give us his presence. He gave us access. He gave us the ability to be present at Calvary itself. And this is why there are two consecrations. This is my body given up for you. Incense is swung, bells are rung, we adore.

When the supper was ended separately, Jesus took the chalice. He took the cup and he said, "This is the blood of my new everlasting covenant, which will be shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins." You see, when Jesus instituted—when He gave us the Last Supper in the upper room, when He gave us His body and His blood in the upper room, he did it with two consecrations. Because when you separate body from blood, you have a sacrifice. When Abel sacrificed the lamb, he shed his blood. When Abraham sacrificed the adult male lamb with a crown of thorns on his head, he separated the body and the blood. In the Passover lamb, clearly, the blood was put on the doorposts and the lintels. A sacrifice takes place when body and blood are separated. And this is why, the Last Supper, the last thing that Jesus did prior to entering into His passion was give us access to His passion.

You see, God so loved the world so much that He gave His only begotten Son—the night before He died, He gave us His body and His blood so that we could enter into the one redeeming sacrifice. You see, there is only one way that we are saved, and that is the death of Jesus. And yet the night before He died, He gave us this memorial. He gave us this perpetual memorial. He gave us this gift, which is a participation in the one sacrifice. Yes, one on Calvary 2,000 years ago was bloody, but the Mass is the unbloody sacrifice, which is the one same, true, enduring way that God pours His love into you and me. And thus, at every Mass, I am just as present as John, the beloved disciple, as Mary Magdalene, as the Blessed Virgin Mary, to the Savior of the world, the Lamb of God who offers his life as the perfect sacrifice, as the replacement sacrifice. And thus he says, "Take and eat. Take and drink." And we are present. We are present at the greatest act of love that God gave to the world, which was His very self. Jesus's love for us on Calvary is given to us at every Mass. And we hear those words, "This is my body given up for you."

Who are people in your life that have lived that? Who are people that have looked at you and poured themselves into you, laid down their lives in service to you? Was it your mother, your father, a grandparent, a coach, a teacher, a spouse? Is it your child who's taking care of you in your old age? Who in your life has poured themselves into you and said, "This is my body given up for you." Because you see this 12th station of the Eucharist, which is also, if we understand this properly, which also is Calvary, because the mass is Calvary and Calvary is the Mass, teaches us how to love. So who has loved you like Christ? Take the time to acknowledge that today. That God has blessed us with individuals who have surrounded us with individuals who have loved us. And let's allow that love to transform us. Be thankful, be grateful. Calvary is as close to you as the next Mass. Let's get there. Let's run there and allow that great gift and mystery of the Eucharist to transform us. Amen.