(gentle music) - Well, the arc of our readings
tonight show the development of the theology of the Eucharist, which is the main event of Christian life in the center of our worship and praise and adoration this weekend. In 1996, an Argentinian priest, a pastor, found a host in his church, and it was a consecrated host. Sometimes this would happen in hymnal or something, regrettably. Well, he put it in the tabernacle and then he came to see
it a few days later, about four days later,
and he saw that the host, instead of dissolving
and just being into water that you could pour into the ground or down the sacrarium had
this blood-like liquid in it, a dark liquid, rather
than the clear water. Well, they decided to do
an independent examination and found a forensic pathologist. And he said, "What happened
here? What is this?" And they said, "It's really
important that you don't know. "It's really important
that you do this blindly." And so he takes a look at it, and he says, "I can tell you exactly what this is. "This is flesh from a muscle of the heart. "It's the part of the heart
that gives the heart its beat "and the body life, and I
can see white blood cells, "which tells me that this heart was alive "at the moment the sample was taken. "And these white blood
cells go to address injury, "meaning that this heart has suffered. "This is the sort of
thing I see in patients "who have been beaten
severely around the chest." Well, there's no book of science that says bread can
turn into living flesh, but there is one book that explains how it might be possible, and
we read from that tonight. It's a book of the gospel
of John, where Jesus says, "I am the living bread
that came down from heaven, "and whoever eats this
bread will live forever, "and the bread that I
will give is my flesh "for the life of the world."
