Fountain of Youth

Seeing the full significance of the Eucharist

08/12/2024

Jn 6:41-51 The Jews murmured about Jesus because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven," and they said, "Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother? Then how can he say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" Jesus answered and said to them, "Stop murmuring among yourselves. 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. Everyone who listens to my Father nd learns from him comes to me. 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. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this 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."

Have you heard the old proverb, “A minute on the lips and a lifetime on the hips”? It means, for example, you might enjoy the taste of a chocolate donut for a minute but you will carry the hundreds of calories from that donut around on your hips for a lifetime. While that saying may be a bit of an exaggeration, it points to something undeniably true: what we eat, ingest, and consume produces lasting effects on our bodies.

Have you heard about Bryan Johnson, the tech millionaire who is trying to stop his body from aging and even become younger by receiving plasma transfusions from his 17 year-old son? Bloomberg news reported this back on May 22, 2023. In a sense, Johnson acknowledges that old adage: what we put into our bodies can have a lasting impact. But he believes that his teenage son’s plasma may be “the fountain of youth.” Heck, he hopes it might even be the key to unlocking the door to eternal life on earth.

In the gospel today, Jesus also picks up on this proverb of “a minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips,” but gives it a novel twist. Jesus says: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will life forever.” In other words, in Jesus’ reckoning it is not by receiving transfusions of a teenager’s plasma that will help someone to live forever, but by receiving the Bread that is the Body of Christ in Holy Communion. You see, Bryan Johnson ask the right question but he gives the wrong answer.

Now here is the novel twist that Jesus gives to that old truism. That is, when we eat something on the natural, biological level it becomes part of our body, because after all, we are what we eat. However, on the supernatural, sacramental level things are the opposite. When we receive Holy Communion, it would be more accurate to say, not that Jesus becomes part of our body, but that we become part of Jesus’ Mystical Body. A minute of Communion on our lips is an eternity on Jesus’ holy hips.

But also note this sacramental “fun fact” (as the kids say). The Jesus who is present in the Eucharist is NOT the Jesus who walked in Galilee healing the sick, doing miracles, and raising the dead. Instead, the Christ contained in Holy Communion is the resurrected and glorified Jesus whom the apostles, Mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Saul the Pharisees saw after he rose from the dead.

That is, we receive the Resurrected and glorified Body of Christ in Holy Communion, and that is why we believe that our bodies will be resurrected and glorified like Christ’s Body! Bryan Johnson wants to live like a teenager by receiving his son’s plasma. We Catholic Christians, on the other hand, want to live like the Trinity by receiving the Flesh and Blood of Christ.

By the way, have you ever wondered how old you will be in heaven? Think about this: will people who die in their 90’s be 90 years-old in heaven forever - walking with a cane? Will a baby who only lives a few months and dies be forever a tiny baby in heaven - unable to stand, walk, or run? That doesn’t sound very heavenly, does it?

St. Thomas Aquinas brilliantly proposed that everyone who makes it to heaven – no matter at what age they die on earth – would have a 33 years old body forever. Can you guess why he said that? It is because Jesus was 33 when he died and rose from the dead. When we receive our Lord’s 33 year-old resurrected and glorified Body in Holy Communion, we, too, one day will be 33 forever. I turned 55 this year and 33 sounds pretty heavenly right now.

My friends, I would suggest to you that there is nothing selfish or necessarily sinful in Bryan Johnson’s search for the fountain of youth and to try to unlock the door to the eternal life. If we are honest with ourselves, we will admit that no one wants to die. Johnson’s only trouble is he has not found the right key to turn the tumblers and open the doors to eternal life. The right key to the fountain of youth is Holy Communion. And you even don’t have to be a tech millionaire to come and drink from it.

Praised be Jesus Christ!