The Book of John in interspersed with passionate pleas in which St. John cries out “Be Catholic!” Today, we are blessed with two readings from John, and both send the same messages in which St. John cries out “Be Catholic!:
John 6:51 “I am the living bread that came down from heaven, says the Lord; whoever eats this bread will live forever.” How could St. John make it clearer: those who receive Catholic Communion, in which bread is turned into The Body of Christ through the Miracle of Transubstantiation, will live forever. It is hard to be clearer than that passage, where St. John cries out “Be Catholic!”
That short reading is followed by another passage in which St. John cries out “Be Catholic!” In John 6: 44-51, “Jesus said to the crowds: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent Me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day. It is written in the prophets: They shall all be taught by God.” What does God, in The Person of Jesus, tell us? He tells us “Whoever eats this bread, (His Body), shall not die.” That is clear to all. But, some remain outside The Only Church He Founded. Why? What keeps them from more fully obeying the Jesus in Whom they say they believe but Whom they ignore on this vital, life and death issue?
Jesus makes it even clearer as, once again, St. John cries out “Be Catholic!”
“Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from Him comes to Me (Protestants do NOT learn from Him, and do not come fully to Him.). Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; He has seen the Father. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. (We see from St. John that belief is a “first step”. Then, St. John tells us how Jesus instructed us to make that belief become our truth and our immortal joy):
“I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this (My Body, provided in Catholic Communion) is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. 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.”
Again, St. John cries out “Be Catholic!”
How could that be any clearer? Jesus said “. . .this is the bread that comes down from Heaven so that one may eat it and not die.” Who would be foolish enough to ignore that? What human mind is not capable of putting two thoughts together: “Jesus is God and He is telling us to receive Catholic Communion.”
All may see those words. Some will do what is necessary to “eat it (My Body) and have life in them.” Others prefer death. We must pray and pray that God will send messengers into the minds who are so close, and let them hear as St. John cries out “Be Catholic!”
