Stations of the Eucharist: Answering the problem in our Church right now

Editor’s Note: The following is taken from Eucharistic Revival preacher Father Jonathan Meyer’s presentation at a Catholic men’s conference. This is one of many Eucharistic reflections that will be published by Catholic San Francisco magazine as part of the U.S. Catholic Church’s Eucharistic Revival (eucharisticrevival.org) that began on June 19, 2022, on the feast of Corpus Christi, and continues through Pentecost 2025.

This is part two of Father Meyer’s presentation; part 1 was featured in the March issue of Catholic San Francisco magazine.

The Eighth Station: St. John the Baptist.

This is key. St. John the Baptist is standing at the river Jordan. I want you to realize this: His cousin comes walking by. John the Baptist could have said anything. He could have said, “Hey there’s Emmanuel.” He could have said, “Hey there’s the King of Kings.” He could have said, “Hey there’s the Lord of lords.” He could have said, hey that’s my cousin. That’s what I would have said! But he didn’t say any of those things. What is the one thing that John the Baptist said to point out the Savior, the Messiah of the world? He says, “Behold the Lamb of God.” (Jn 1:29) The only sacrifice that will be accepted. The Lamb of God. The replacement sacrifice for you and me. The Lamb of God, whose body and blood we must consume. The Lamb of God. Every single faithful Jew who had been to Jerusalem had brought a lamb and killed it at Passover and ate its flesh and blood. Every time that there was a sin, every time their child was born, they brought more lambs, and they killed them. Now, John the Baptist is saying, behold the Lamb of God. Everyone would have looked at Jesus and said, “He’s going to die He’s going to replace us. We have to eat Him.” How quickly we’ve forgotten what the Mass is!

The Ninth Station: The Wedding Feast at Cana.

Jesus at the age of 30 goes to a wedding. The Blessed Virgin Mary looks at her son, Jesus, and she begs Him to turn water into wine. She says to the servers, “Do whatever He tells you” (Jn 2:5). Why is it so hard for people to understand that Jesus can turn wine into His blood? There isn’t a Christian in the world who would believe that the first miracle that took place didn’t happen. Every Protestant in the world believes that Jesus turned water into wine. Why would the all- powerful God out of love not also be able to turn wine into His blood for you and me to consume to wash away our sins? Well, “He can, and its a metaphysical miracle.”

The Tenth Station: The Multiplication of Loaves and Fishes.

Not only does our God have the ability to change substance, but He also has the ability to multiply substance. He was able to feed a crowd of 5,000 men. Let’s be honest. If there were 5,000 men, there were probably 20,000 people there. Look at your churches on Sunday. When you go to Mass, look at the ratio of men to women. Five loaves and two fish to feed all those people. Now Jesus feeds the whole entire world with bread and wine that are brought forward. He multiplies Himself to be our food. No longer does He feed the world bread and fish; He feeds the world His very self.

The Eleventh Station: John Chapter 6, The Bread of Life Discourse.

If there is a Bible passage that you should memorize, it should be John Chapter 6. I don’t believe in tattoos. I don’t think you should get tattoos, but if there’s a tattoo you want to get, get a tattoo that says, “This is my body given up for you.” (Lk 22: 19) John Chapter 6 unlocks the truth of who Jesus is and how much He loves you and how He wants you to consume Him. He wants you to become one with Him so you can go out and change the world, so that you can go out to the peripheries, you can go out and serve in the name of Jesus with Jesus in your very body.

The Twelfth Station: Jesus Truly is the Lamb of God.

This is how you killed a lamb in the Old Testament. You took a knife and you slit its throat. The first thing you had to do was pour out all its blood. There was a gutter system in the temple in Jerusalem to take all the blood from the thousands of lambs that were slaughtered. The gutter system was only for blood because the sacrifice required the separating of the blood from the body. What happens at Mass? Does a priest or a bishop take the bread and take the chalice together at the same time and say this is my body and my blood given up for you? No, he doesn’t say that. That’s not how it happens. Jesus took bread and He said, this is my body given up for you. That bread becomes Jesus. The priest holds it up and the thurible is swung, and bells are rung, and we adore the body of Jesus. Then the priest takes a chalice and separately says, this is the chalice of my blood. What do you have? The separation of the body and blood. What do you have? The sacrifice. Why did Jesus do this on the night that He was betrayed? Jesus made it evidently clear that He was giving us access to the one perfect sacrifice that He would offer the following day when He would offer His body and His blood on the cross for you and for me–when He would be the Lamb of God. He is now the lamb whose body and blood has been separated, and we are able to enter into it with a priest who offers bread and wine in the name of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. And it’s not just the fact that we go to Mass to eat His body and blood. His presence is there. It actually is the same redeeming one perfect sacrifice. There is only one perfect sacrifice, and He gives us access to enter it. That’s why we go to Mass, and if it is true that every single Mass is the re-presentation of Calvary, then bring out music, bring out preaching, bring out a beautiful church. Dear Lord, I want to receive You because I want to be one with You on the cross. I want to stand with Mary and John at the foot of the cross. I want to see the blood pouring from Your body and fall on my face because we’re there, because it’s real.

The Thirteenth Station: The Road to Emmaus.

If you don’t know this story, you should. It’s Easter night. Two of Jesus’ disciples–many theologians believe this is a husband and a wife–are turning their backs on Jerusalem. They’re walking away. They encounter Jesus. He begins to talk to them, but He’s disguised. They don’t recognize Him. He begins going through the Scriptures. Now, what Scripture is He going through? You have it right here. The Bible says that He begins to reveal to them who He is. Who is He? He’s the sacrifice of Abel. He’s Melchizedek. He’s the replacement sacrifice of Abraham. He’s the Jewish Passover. What is He revealing? The plan of salvation. They urged Him to stay with them. When they were at table, Jesus took bread and He broke it, and then they recognized Him. Where did they recognize Him? They recognized Him in the breaking of the bread. At every single Mass, bread is consecrated separately from the wine as a sacramental representation of the death of our Lord. When is the host broken? After the Our Father. The priest takes the host in his hands. He takes the host and he breaks it, and then he takes a piece of that host and he breaks it off and he puts it into the chalice. What do you have now? You have body and blood coming back together. As we recognize the resurrected Lord in the breaking of the bread, what do we happen to be chanting? “Lamb of God, You take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.” Fulfillment of the lamb of Abel, You take away the sins of the world…fulfillment of the lamb of Abraham…fulfillment of the lamb of the Passover…fulfillment of the Lamb of God that John spoke of…fulfillment of the resurrected Lamb of God who showed up at Emmaus. And what do we have right there? The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. What does the priest then do? He takes the host in his hands, he holds it up, and he says, behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb.

The Fourteenth Station: The Wedding Feast of the Lamb.

The entire Book of Revelation is showing you and showing me that God ultimately wants to espouse His Church. He wants to marry His Church. He wants to become one with His Church. It is the triumphant Lamb, the resurrected Lamb who is still slain, but is resurrected. When He appears in the upper room on Easter night, He still has the wounds in His hands. The Lamb who is slain wants to marry you and me.

There are many men in this Church who have a lot of white hair. Many of you may have buried your wives. Some of you have buried your children. The majority of us are parents. What is our hope for them? That they are in the wedding feast of the Lamb; that they see God face to face. Why do we have Masses offered for them? No one ever has come to my office and said, “Hey Father, can I have a choir intention? I’d like to pay $10, and before they begin their choir practice this week, could they offer their choir practice for my deceased grandma?” I’ve never had someone come to the parish office say, “Hey Father, you know you got that small group that meets on Saturday morning. I’ll give you $10 if they would pray for my grandma.” But, I’ll tell you this, I can’t get the people out of my office who want Masses offered, who want the eternal sacrifice of Christ, the representation of Calvary offered for their soul, for the souls of their deceased relatives, for peace in our world, for an end to abortion, for an end to human trafficking, because the Mass is Calvary. While Calvary was given to us once, Jesus gives us access at every Mass. Michael J. Fox in “Back to the Future”? He’s got nothing. I can go to Mass every single day, and I am with Mary, I am with John, and I am at Calvary.

What is the problem in our Church right now? It’s not that 70% of people don’t believe in the truth of the Eucharist. It’s that more than 90% have no idea what the Mass even is. But now, who does know? You do. What are you going to do about it? I don’t know you, but I can look into every single one of your eyes, and I know that your life is hard. I know that you have sacrifice, suffering, and that you have trials. Some of you were abused as children. Some of you were neglected. Some of you have been through terrible divorces. You’ve been mistreated at work. You’re financially struggling. Your friends have abandoned the faith. Your wife is an alcoholic. You’re an alcoholic. Where is the only place to go? To Mass. But if we don’t understand that the Mass is a sacrifice, where are we supposed to take our sacrifices? If we don’t understand that the Mass is the re-presentation of Calvary, where do we go? But if what I shared about the Mass is true, then that’s where we go. We take our wounds, we take our pain, and we bring it to the cross, we bring it to Jesus who is our only hope. I don’t know what cross you have today, but what I do know is that there’s a Mass right now in this world being offered at this very moment, and you can unite that sacrifice in that pain and that wound to that cross which is your salvation. In just a few moments, your own bishop is going to offer the holy sacrifice of the Mass, the re-presentation of Calvary, and you will be at Calvary itself. You will be at the resurrection itself as all time and eternity comes right here. And you are not alone. Behold, I am with you always until the end of the age (Mt. 28:20). If you like community and Scripture, if you like preaching, if you like music, if you like to receive our Lord and Holy Communion, that’s wonderful. But my hope is that you love the Mass, that you want the Mass, that you’re hungry for the Mass. Let’s pray to have our minds transformed, our lives transformed to the power and the glory of the Mass. Amen.