And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years and in divine and human favor. Luke 2:52

The other evening Father Augustine Mang taught my OCIA (Order of Christian Initiation of Adults) class. The topic was the Eucharist and Father Mang informed me that he was teaching what he learned from his Thomistic Classes at the Pontifical North American College in Rome. He told me he would make it easy to understand for all the people in my class.

I have to say, I was fully expecting him to teach John 6 like we do almost every year when we teach on the Eucharist, and while he did mention that he taught some things I am not sure I was ever aware of. Thank God for the wisdom of the Saints like Aquinas. As Father Mang was teaching I started seeing connections I had never seen before and understanding things I had not previously understood well. I will do my best to relay what he taught, as well as what understanding I was seeing.

Father said that in the beginning, in the garden of Eden, God gave a command to Adam and Eve not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. This part I knew, as do all of you. He said the Tree of knowledge was Divine knowledge, so that when the serpent said, “you will be like God”, there was a sliver of truth in that statement, but as always when it comes to the devil, it was twisted.

Father went on to say that this Divine knowledge from this tree would have eventually been given to Adam and Eve as a gift, but the test for them was obedience to the command. He said the idea that God would have eventually gifted the tree to them can be inferred in scripture by the nature of who God is, a giver of gifts. We all know that they failed the test. Father Mang explained, they grasped for what had not been given, rather than waiting for God to give it. They grasped at Divine knowledge before it was theirs to have and because of this they knew they were naked. It brought shame. They had gained knowledge that was not natural to what God had given them at that time. They had a moral awareness where they would know right from wrong independently from God.

“Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil….” Genesis 3:22

In doing this their human nature becomes fallen and death comes into the world because they grasped at this Divine knowledge that was not theirs to take. Obedience to God is that path to sharing in God’s life, something that through their disobedience made them become independent of God. Knowledge apart from submission to God brings fear and consequences. Obedience would have brought Divine knowledge and Divine nature. Instead, their human nature falls even as they hold on to this knowledge. God had to expel them from the garden because if they then ate from the Tree of Life at that point they would have eternally been fallen, and God did not want them to remain eternally fallen.

“and now, lest he put forth his hand and also take from the Tree of Life, and eat, and live forever – there for God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden” Genesis 3:22-23

It was out of love that God expelled them. He did not want them to live forever in a fallen state. This would have brought not just physical death, but a spiritual death devoid of Divine life. He wanted to give a pathway back to Divine knowledge with Divine life.

It is here I want to pause and relay what understanding came over me while Father Mang was teaching this. The scripture above speaks of Jesus growing in wisdom and knowledge (Luke 2:52) and it started to make more sense to me, along with another scripture;

Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God, a high Priest according to the order of Melchizedek. Hebrews 5:8-10

It seems that by taking on our limited human nature Jesus walked a path of “being made perfect.” And this being made perfect, meant that he never grasped at what was not given. This would be true for the Blessed Virgin Mary as well. What do I mean by that? I mean that when Jesus was a 4 year old, he didn’t try to be a 10 year old. When he was 18, he didn’t try to be 21. He didn’t use the knowledge to gain what wasn’t given. He was in body, mind and spirit, being exactly what he was supposed to be at the time, and he was not grasping for the more that the Father had not yet given, the way that most of us do every day of our lives. My friend Amanda Bagwell, who is an educational expert on brain development, and wife of my friend Jansen Bagwell, pointed out that his brain development would have been exactly what it should have been. He would have been perfectly accepting of whatever state of life and circumstances he was in developmentally. In other words, he let his human nature suffer in the knowledge while waiting for the gift. He let his human nature suffer even unto death because the gift was worth waiting for; the resurrection and the restoration of man.

I should point out though, that He IS God, so we see glimmers, outside of time, of the gift before it was given.

And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became bright as light. Matthew 17:2

Though he could have remained that way, He didn’t. He was letting Peter, James and John see the gift, the gift they would receive if they waited for it to be given. If they suffered in their human nature like he had. By suffering in our human nature in obedience, God elevates us into his Divine nature. We can become like the Apostles at Pentecost, Divine knowledge and Divine nature poured into us.

Now back to what Father Mang was teaching. Obedience brings harmony with God. He said the disobedience came from eating, so the restoration would come also from eating. Which brings us to the Last Supper where Jesus stated, “this is my body and this is my blood” but in relation to bread and wine.

Jesus is God, whatever he says is accomplished.

And waking up, he rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm.  Then he said to them, “Where is your faith?” They were terrified and amazed and said to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water and they obey him?” Luke 8:24-25

If the wind and the storm obey him why would we not think that the bread and the wine wouldn’t also obey him? What he says happens. What he says becomes reality. If he can tell a dead man, Lazurus, to come out of a tomb and he comes out, why in the world would we doubt that he can tell the bread and wine to turn into Himself?

But people will ask, why then does it look like regular bread and wine? This is where Father Mang went on to explain that it is in a Sacramental manner. The Sacrament is a sign that signifies the reality. Jesus Himself in his physical body was both a natural physical human body and sacrament.

He made present his sacrifice of the cross at the last supper outside of time by making the Sacrament of himself present in the bread and wine before the cross happened at the Last Supper. When he spoke the words, it happened. The manner was not that we eat human flesh off of a bone. The manner was that we eat Him in Sacrament in the form of bread and wine, otherwise we would not do it. He is God and He is so good to do this for us.

At the cross, he took on our sins and nailed them to a tree in obedience to the Father. And he rises and becomes the tree of life for us.

This ability for us to receive Jesus’ body, blood, soul and divinity, in sacrament, enables us to be purified. This purification enables us to suffer well. We move forward on a path to who we really are instead of grasping at what we think we should be. We become more human, more fully alive, and our nature is elevated. We share in God’s divine nature.

Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust and may become participants of the divine nature. 2 Peter 1:4

I know the devil did everything he could to get Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge so they could fall. I also know he is doing everything he can now to either get us to deny the real presence or to have us partake in a state of mortal sin. We partake in a state of grace because the church asks us to and obedience is key to divine life. By making obedience no big deal we can be in the same state of rebellion as Adam and Eve. The devil also has convinced so many people that Jesus is not present in the Eucharist. It is why the Protestant Reformation is such a travesty. A large portion of Christendom no longer believes or partakes in the real presence. Lord have mercy on us. They don’t believe that Jesus’ words do what they say.

We have used our divine knowledge to make ourselves god. The technology we have created gets more advanced, and we become less human. We dehumanize one another. But to that I say no. Saying no to the world means suffering. Suffering draws you closer to Christ whose promises are true. Let us suffer well as we trust in the Lord and await a new Pentecost.