But our culture assails this belief from every side. On the one hand, materialists deny the spirit, claiming that “we’re nothing but our bodies!” Brash advertisements testify to a widespread cult of the body. Omnipresent tanning salons and fitness centers aid our quest for the perfect figure. On the other hand, when we fall lamentably short of the utopian ideal, semi-gnostic literature and cinema sells us the heresy that we’ll all be free spirits once we definitively shuffle off this mortal coil.
A new light about our future resurrection came to me in a dim church nestled in the Tuscan hills. It was the Eucharistic miracle that prompted my pilgrimage to Siena.
It all goes back to the summer of 1730. Imagine a priest on his knees who suddenly rises to examine a white speck protruding from the offertory box. “Could it be one of the consecrated hosts pilfered a few days ago?” Sure enough, once unlocked, the box exposed the culprit’s sacrilegious misdeed. Hundreds of white circles lay strewn amongst the filth, some suspended by cobwebs. The Body of Christ, re-crucified!
But in this tragic plot, the risen Lord would have the final word. Though exposed to the elements, the hosts remained perfectly white and fresh over time. In Siena’s offertory box, as in Jerusalem’s rock-hewn tomb, God “did not suffer his Holy One to see corruption” (Ps 16:10).
But whereas Jesus eventually ascended out of sight, the miracle in Siena looms larger with every passing year. To this day these hosts are as immaculate as the day they were consecrated.
In itself, the Eucharistic miracle made Siena worth the trip. How could I ever doubt Jesus’ teaching that in the Blessed Sacrament he is truly present: body, blood, soul and divinity? But I already had that firm conviction before I trekked to Tuscany. What else were these tiny, white hosts whispering from God?
That’s when it hit me. Of course! These hosts are the heralds of the resurrection of the body!
For if God has buoyed up this bread in an enduring state of freshness, he can surely preserve those who eat it in a perpetual state of glory. As I glared at those brilliant, old hosts, I thought, “I will be forever young!”
I recalled how Christ tied our bodily resurrection to our partaking of the Eucharist when he said, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day” (Jn 6:54). Siena’s Eucharist proclaims the same, as it were, without using words.
So the materialist is right inasmuch as he esteems the body, and the gnostic is right inasmuch as he celebrates the soul, but only we Christians acclaim them both, together, forever. How can we ward off the attacks against this doctrine of our faith? For me, there is no better way to feed our Christian hope in the resurrection than by feasting on the incorruptible Eucharistic Bread of Life.
By Andrew Dalton
By Andrew Dalton
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