June 18, 2025

Fr. John Riccardo

“The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever”(John 6:52-58).

I first came across the writings of Peter Kreeft back in the 1980s. I was hooked immediately. I have found few writers as consistently brilliant, understandable, and thought-provoking as the philosophy professor from Boston College. From the moment I first read him, I discovered that highlighters were going to be useless with his books — he doesn’t have any wasted words or throwaway lines! You either highlight everything or nothing. He was gracious enough to visit and speak several times at a parish where I served, and I continue to soak up his works.

I’m thinking of Dr. Kreeft this week since we’re going to be celebrating the solemnity of Corpus Christi, that is, the solemnity of the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ. A convert to Catholicism, Kreeft has what I consider to be the single most helpful book to start with if we want to dive deep into this most magnificent (and often misunderstood or taken for granted) gift Jesus has left to the Church. The book is titled Jesus Shock. If you’re not familiar with it, I can’t encourage you enough to run to pick this up, or download it on your favorite e-reader. Jesus Shock is not only the best primer on the sacraments in general and why the Lord left them to the Church, but on the Eucharist most especially. As we prepare to celebrate this most amazing of gifts that the Word made Flesh has left to His bride, the Church, let’s bask together in the beauty and wisdom of these comments by our wise older brother on the gift of the sacraments in general and especially the Eucharist. And, just a gentle reminder, Kreeft is writing as one who was raised in a Protestant tradition.

“Protestants believe that the sacraments are like ladders that God gave to us by which we can climb up to Him. Catholics believe that they are like ladders that God gave to Himself by which He climbs down to us. The Catholic view of the sacraments is that they are the means of salvation; that God really forgives your sins when the priest pronounces absolution in Christ's name and in His authority; that God really regenerates your soul and removes Original Sin when you are baptized; that Christ really unites Himself to your soul in a spiritual marriage when you receive Holy Communion. Catholics believe that the sacraments are the answer to Kierkegaard's question (in his Philosophical Fragments and Concluding Unscientific Postscript) of how we cross over 2000 years and become ‘contemporary with Christ,’ or rather how Christ crosses over and becomes contemporary with us. The answer is that we meet not just spiritually and subjectively, in our minds; we meet materially and objectively in and through the matter of the sacraments. Matter matters!

“When as a Protestant I discovered that this was what the Catholic Church taught about sacraments, I was shocked. It seemed crude, materialistic, externalistic. And it seemed ‘magical’: automatic and impersonal. That objection, I found, was easily disposed of: it is a sheer misunderstanding. The sacraments are not ‘magical’ because they are not automatic. We can block the grace, and we usually do, more or less, like stopping down a faucet, or pulling down the window blinds. But the water, or the light, comes from God, not from us.

Christ really comes to meet us and sanctify us in the sacraments, however little we may appreciate Him.

“Magic is a one-way operation, like nailing wood. The wood is passive. But sacraments are two-way operations, like sexual intercourse. He is a gentleman; he seduces but He does not rape. We are not rendered passive by His grace, but active.

“Sacramental grace, like all grace, works like a two-part epoxy glue, to glue together our souls and our Savior. The analogy of the epoxy is imperfect because half of the binding power comes from each half of an epoxy, but all the power in the sacraments comes from God. But the analogy does make one valid point: that both parts, ours and God's, are necessary. It's not just God, doing automatic magic without our free will. We can't get grace without God's free will to give it, but God won't give grace without our free will to accept it, to trust it, to believe in it. (The Bible identifies ‘believing’ with ‘receiving’: cf. Jn 1:12). God can supply grace without sacraments, but He cannot supply our faith without our consent. That is why God's sacraments without our faith do not save us (they are not magic), but our faith without His sacraments can save us, for God can make up for His missing half of the epoxy (the sacraments) but He cannot make up for our missing half (our faith). …

“Sacraments are like hoses. They are the channels of the living water of God's grace. Our faith is like opening the faucet. We can open it a lot, a little, or not at all. When the faucet handle is turned off, no water flows to us, even though the water is still objectively present. When it is ‘turned on’ by faith, the water flows out and into us, and we get wet.”

Let’s pray this week for the grace to open as wide as possible the “faucet” of our faith, and to beg the Lord to help us better understand what’s really happening, who we’re really receiving into our mouths, when we receive Jesus hidden under the appearance of bread and wine.

Peter Kreeft, Jesus Shock, pp 114-118.

God’s Ladders

The Real G.O.A.T.