+ When something is there, it is there – whether anyone "believes" it to be there or not. For example, Niagara Falls is there. It makes no difference if anyone at all particularly "believes" it to be there or not – it really is there!
This reference has everything to do with today's very important Gospel message from Jesus. Jesus truly is the Bread of Life come down from heaven! Our believing it in does not make this fact any more or less so. Either he is or he isn't. And he is! Who are we to contradict Jesus and say that he isn't? Besides this, today, Jesus takes us one step further in his discourse of himself as this "Bread of Life": if you eat this bread and drink this cup you will have everlasting life, and if you don't you won't? Believe it, or not! But can you really afford not to believe it? Was Jesus serious here? Did he really mean that everyone must eat the bread that is his flesh and drink the cup that is his blood in order to share in everlasting life? Well, yes, he did mean it! Jesus would not kid about anything at all – let alone what has direct effect on where we will be spending eternity!
But not even everyone is Catholic – how can Jesus mean this? Does this mean that most of the world will never see heaven? No, not at all; what Jesus is saying here is that the ordinary and most direct route to eternal life is eating his spiritual body and drinking his spiritual blood in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist. If the whole point of eternity is to be totally absorbed into him (as scripture tells us: we will be "all-in-all"), then having us begin that absorption process right here on earth does not seem illogical at all: remember, when we eat any other kind of food it becomes us, but when we eat and drink Eucharist, we become it; we become Christ, we become God's intimate Friend qualifying us for life forever in our Father's house!
Now for those – outside of the Church - who have not yet responded fully to the grace of believing all of this to be so, God credits a sincere search for truth, a heartfelt desire for fullness of life in goodness, kind words said, and self-sacrificial deeds done as sufficiently qualifying them for a real, significant and blessed place in heaven. Such persons have "eaten the bread and drunk the cup" in a proximated but very valid sort of way and it does count if they truly believed what they were doing was right for them and can say that what the Catholic Church had to offer was not yet for them.
But for any who are not Catholic – and who seek the truth, desire the fullness of life in God, speak good words and do good deeds and have been given the
initial grace to consider the strong possibility that the fullness of what they are looking for just might be found in the Catholic Church – and this seems more than just a passing fancy – then they are obligated to follow through and fully investigate the entry process into fullness of life within the Church – which includes the Initiation Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist! They need to talk to a priest! God the Father is always so eager to welcome new members into the Body of Christ his Son – the Church - and to fill them to overflowing with the gifts of the Spirit for their own amazing happiness and his deserved glory! Everyone is invited to join – there is room for all!
Yes, Jesus was quite serious – you must either directly or indirectly spiritually eat his flesh and drink his blood that only the Catholic Church provides in its reality and fullness – it cannot be found really or fully anywhere else.
Yes, Niagara Fall is really there, believe it or not; but, believe it, says the Lord Jesus: whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him –both now and forever!
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