Last week, I mentioned we would talk more about Jesus being the way, the truth, and the life today. I also made a statement that may have come across as rather bold: The Eucharist is the dividing line of salvation.
We see a sense of this statement reaffirmed in our Gospel reading today: No one comes to the Father except through Me.
More bold language that comes on the heels of perhaps some of the most shocking statements of all of Salvation History. I am of course referring to the Bread of Life discourse that you heard throughout last week.
In many ways, it is the Gospel of John (along with the Book of Revelation) that gives us the blueprint for the way Jesus references. The Gospel of John gives us a blueprint for living the Sacramental Life Jesus Christ instituted in the Catholic Church.
As we have said in a recent homily, the Gospel of John is loaded with signs and miracles that are all sacramental in nature. These are the Sacraments, the Holy Mysteries, as they are referred to in the Eastern Churches, that confer divine grace in our lives. Ultimately, the Gospel of John reveals the deepest, richest mysteries of our faith!
The Wedding of Cana in Chapter 2 not only foreshadows Holy Matrimony, but strongly eludes to all seven of the Sacraments, particularly through the stone jars used to turn water into wine.
It is in Chapter 3 of the Gospel of John that Jesus stresses the importance of Baptism to Nicodemus. And, later at Capernaum, as we heard last week in Chapter 6, He stresses the importance of eating the Eucharist, truly the Flesh of the Son of Man.
The promise of the Holy Spirit for the Sacrament of Confirmation is declared by Jesus in Chapter 14, the institution of Holy Orders completed in Chapter 17, and the institution of the Sacrament of Reconciliation in Chapter 20. Even themes related to Anointing of the Sick can be found throughout the Gospel of John.
What does this mean for us more practically? The Catechism has this to say:
“Celebrated worthily in faith, the sacraments confer the grace that they signify. They are efficacious because in them Christ himself is at work: it is he who baptizes, he who acts in his sacraments in order to communicate the grace that each sacrament signifies. The Father always hears the prayer of his Son's Church which, in the epiclesis of each sacrament, expresses her faith in the power of the Spirit. As fire transforms into itself everything it touches, so the Holy Spirit transforms into the divine life whatever is subjected to his power.
The Church affirms that for believers the sacraments of the New Covenant are necessary for salvation. ‘Sacramental grace is the grace of the Holy Spirit, given by Christ and proper to each sacrament. The Spirit heals and transforms those who receive him by conforming them to the Son of God. The fruit of the sacramental life is that the Spirit of adoption makes the faithful partakers in the divine nature by uniting them in a living union with the only Son, the Savior.”
All of this to boldly reaffirm that the Sacramental Life of the Catholic Church, particularly the Sacraments instituted by Jesus Christ, is the narrow path of the way. In every Sacrament, it is ultimately Jesus who acts to sanctify the recipient.
It is through the way, which is the Sacramental Life, that we are made like Him. The more we are made like Him, the more we participate in His reality…the reality where the Father says, “You are my Son; this day I have begotten you.”
Thanks be to God!
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