#382 The Eucharist: Connecting its Old Testament Roots in Exodus with the Gospel of John with Deacon Mike Alber

I'm excited to be with a good friend of mine , deacon Mike Albert . Deacon Mike and I go back a long way . I think we were just kids at one time when we were teaching RE classes , weren't we ? Deacon Mike , good to be with you .

Well , today we're going to be talking about my favorite of all favorites , and I think yours too , on the Eucharist , which is just this power , just this power . Before we get started , we want to hear just a little bit about you , mike , and I'll just add this I did a parish mission up by you , so maybe you want to talk about that just a little bit .

That was my favorite parish mission that I did this past Lent and you'll talk about that a little bit if you don't mind , because that was just such a treat to come up by you and present that there , and I still feel some grace is coming from that every day . It's just really a beautiful thing .

But , if you don't mind , can you start us out with a prayer ? Do you can , Mike ? Absolutely .

But before we get there , talk a little bit about how long you've been a deacon , sure , a little bit about the family and where you're at now . Michael , because you and I live very close to each other for a long time . I downsize and you downsize . I don't know how much we want to get into all that , but give us a little background .

I was actually ordained in September of 2020 . We were the COVID class . So , we had mass on our ordination , if you remember all that , but it kind of stunk because my parents couldn't come , only your wives and children could come , yeah , so that part of it was a little sad . But I'm married . I have two children , grace and Jessica . Grace is 24 .

Jessica just turned 21 . And when I was ordained , the bishop put me at St Patrick's in St Charles , my home parish , and we had a lake house over in Davis , illinois , which is halfway between Freeport and Rockford we're kind of close to Monroe , wisconsin , or Galena , illinois for the people in Illinois . And what ended up happening ?

There is probably about six months before I was transferred there , I was praying to God and I was in adoration and I said hey , lord , if I'm not in the right place , you just say the word . And my wife and I want to move up to the lake house anyway eventually .

But if you feel that I need to go sooner or that these other parishes really need me out west in Illinois , just let me know .

So they really , they really really need help . They need deacons , for sure , you know , and the priests are very , you know , they welcome the deacons . They can't wait to have them , you know .

So I was praying , praying that prayer and adoration , and about three months later I got a call from St Mary's in Durand and they said hey , mike , I just want to let you know that the deacon here , deacon Steve , was in a really bad car accident and he's in the hospital and he actually died in the hospital before they could even take him into surgery .

Actually , father Bershneider , the pastor , went up there to give him anointing to the sick and I remember hanging up the phone , you know , because I had met with Deacon Steve before we met for lunch a couple times and I was kind of helping him out a little bit at St Mary , st Patrick's .

I would , you know , if he couldn't make like benediction or he , you know , if he could make certain masses , I would , I would assist for him , you know , I would sub in .

So him and I kind of had this plan worked out that , you know , in two years , when he wanted to step away from being a deacon because he was in his mid-70s , he said , you know , hey , mike , then you can move up to the lake and you know , you can , you can kind of take over and do your thing and I was like , okay , great , you know , that sounds

excellent . But you know , sometimes God has a has a different plan . You know , and when you hear God's plan you can never hesitate . You know you have to , you have to go for it . You know , and I remember hanging up the phone from Father Bershneider , secretary , and she told me the tragic news .

And I remember hanging up the phone and I looked at my wife and I said get ready to move . And interestingly enough , we were concerned about my wife's job and two weeks after Deacon Steve died , my wife got a severance package and her job was eliminating her position . So she got a severance package to move on also .

So it was like all these pieces were being put into place and I felt a little bit bad for St Patrick's and St Charles because I just didn't want to pull up my 10 stakes and leave . But they got two more guys coming in September . They're going to have a lot of Deacons there .

So I kind of felt I said to my wife I go , from a human perspective we may be doing this a little bit early , maybe a couple of years early , but from God's perspective we're doing this right on time . This is what he wanted and it's a great parish . At St Mary , st Patrick's , you did the Lenten Mission there . You did great . Jack was awesome .

People loved him . They still talk about him today and you saw the hunger in our hearts , the hunger in their hearts for the word , the hunger in their hearts for the Eucharist . Jack witnessed it firsthand and Jack spoke three nights for the Lenten Mission . Jack , if you remember that , and that church was full all three nights .

Yeah , it was a passion , or something I was shocked and we had some Methodists there , we had some Lutherans there , we had some evangelical Christians there . A couple of my cousins were there who are not Catholic , and it was just three great nights and there's a lot of hunger there and it just needs to be filled .

So we're working on that and we're putting a lot of programming in at the parish . So I'm looking forward to it . I'm looking forward to the future .

So when you evangelize and you're going out there and you see so many people suffering , I mean , I think it's one of those things you walk into the story and you say have you thought about returning to God ? Have you thought about praying again for people that have stepped away from the faith ?

But , at the end of the day , the source , the center and the summit of our faith is the Eucharist . And this has gone , I know , in my own life and in your life and in so many people I meet . This is not just information we're sharing today . This is an encounter .

If you want to have an encounter with God , if you want to become one with God , it's like the prayer of all prayers . I just did a podcast a couple of days ago on prayer and how I came back into prayer .

But the prayer of all prayers , michael , is what you're going to be talking about today , and to build this story out a little bit and how God has unfolded this and given us an opportunity to become one with Him is an amazing story , michael .

And so you know , Jack , when I was coming back to the church , I was probably about 22 , 23 years ago , and we had that men's group , men walking with Christ that you know , in St Charles , if you remember , and there were so many men that were great there had , and they really kind of converted me because , you know , you probably didn't know this at the time

, but I was kind of shopping around churches , you know , I was thinking to myself , well , you know , I'm going to go where the best preacher is , or I'm going to go where the best word is , you know , and I'm going to head in that direction . And you know what really changed my heart ?

And this is a little crazy , but it kind of started in the Old Testament with , in the book of Exodus , chapter 12 . And it's where Moses is telling the Israelites how to prepare for the Passover , you know .

And when I read chapter 12 in Exodus , I thought immediately of the foreshadowing of Jesus the paschal lamb saving us , you know , saving us , giving us that salvation . You know , and you know , if you're just taking a few verses out of Exodus , chapter 12 , you know , yeah , let's do it .

Then the whole community of Israel shall slaughter it in the evening . Take a bit of its blood , put it on your two doorposts and upon the lentil of every house in which it is to be eaten that night . Eat its meat roasted , eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs .

And you know , when I read those verses there's a couple of them there , there's actually four of them . When I read those four verses I immediately thought of Jesus , you know , on the cross , you know . And Jesus , he's God , you know . So he's this perfect , he's a perfect sacrifice , right , he's the perfect lamb .

And we end up the Israelites put this blood on that doorpost , you know , on the wood and lentil which goes across the top of the door . So they're kind of doing all around that door there . And a doorpost was kind of like your address , on your house .

That would be a good way to describe it , might have had your name on it in Hebrew , might have had a number or whatever the case may be . And you're going to cover this with blood . And it really it's so interesting how God works . It really foreshadowed Christ .

You know that Jesus puts he's the unblemished lamb , he puts his blood , you know , on the cross , on that wooden cross which really really mimics the blood of the doorposts and the lentil in this Old Testament .

And you know the other interesting thing I thought was in some of the verses later , if you get like out to verse 22 in my Bible , it says use a Hissap branch to dip it in the blood and then sprinkle on your doorposts and on your lentil .

And interestingly enough , you know that's when Jesus was dying on the cross and they were going to raise up the , the murder to him on a Hissap branch . You know , in John's Gospel and how cool that was , that the Old Testament was . You know , foreshadowing the unblemished lamb , the perfect sacrifice in Jesus Christ , that saved us .

You know , that brought us that salvation and how awesome that is .

You know that turns into the body of blood of Jesus on the altar during the second , and one of the reasons for that is because you know the yeast .

Again , I'll probably get , I get excited . So sorry about that , but I know you're going to get to that . But we're on a journey . These people put sandals on , they girded up their loins , they're getting taken out of slavery . Well , what's the main thing of slavery ? Because we're being liberated from sin and death . It's amazing , right ?

That means , you know , like a priest in Deacon we wear those elves , those long , you know , those I hate to say white dress , but those long robes you know we wear , right . So what they used to do is they would lift that up and they would tuck it into their belts so that if they had to flee quickly , that they could run .

You know it's hard to run in that long . Yes , and interestingly enough , jesus in John's Gospel , john chapter six , the bread of life discourse , jesus uses a Greek word there which means to gnaw or to chew , or get a little bit more into that , but it means to kind of eat it quickly , like almost like an animal .

You know , like an animal would gnaw or chew the body of Christ . So we'll , we'll get into that a little bit , but it really flashes forward from this Exodus 12 into the Gospel of John , john chapter six . And you know , jack , when I first read this and we were in men's walking with Christ . You know , this was over 20 years ago , 22 years ago .

The first thing I thought of and I don't know why , you know it had to be the Holy Spirit . But the Holy Spirit said to me . He said I thought of my family , you know , my kids , my wife and I living back in those times and what . What if my wife came to me that night and said you know , the kids really don't like lamb .

So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make these little lamb cakes . You know , we'll just kind of symbolize it . We'll just , we'll just kind of do it figuratively , we'll just , you know , make it kind of a remembrance . You know , the lamb will make these little lamb cakes . What does he eat ? These cakes ? You know we'll do . We'll do the blood on the door .

You know , blood on the door , post lental , we'll do everything else , but we're just not gonna eat the lamb . Jack , what would have happened to me ? I'm the I'm the oldest in the family , by the way . What happened to me the next morning ? I would , I would have died , yeah right , because I didn't eat the lamb .

And not only would I have died , my oldest daughter , grace would have died too , because she's the oldest in the family . And we didn't eat the lamb . You know , we didn't eat the lamb of God . We didn't . We didn't follow that obedience , and when I , when I thought of that , it reminded me of John , chapter 6 , you know .

Those who don't , you know , eat the lamb , who don't go to mass , who who they don't realize the importance of this as the church shrinks , as less and less people really believe in the real presence in the Eucharist . You know , our body . You know , we're a body and a soul .

If we're not filled with grace , if we're not filled with the life of the spirit , then our default position is sin and death . Yeah so we , we are all going there , michael . I mean , you know , if we extend this out to our generation today and the people alive today , we are all aiming for sin and death right here .

I don't know what people realize that , but I think you can sense it . I think people are sensing that something's wrong with the world , isn't it ? I mean ? the average person that doesn't have their head totally buried in woke , which there are plenty of them buried in woke , right . Yeah they're just seeking the truth .

They sense something's a little off right and and they sense the evil being pushed on us . You know , and here's the answer , isn't it ?

You know that I just , I don't know why , I thought that when I was in adoration , you know 20 some years ago , but that's what I thought of and I was like wow and and like you , I thought of , I said to myself I go wow , if I become an evangelical Christian or if I become a Baptist or , you know , a Lutheran or whatever I become , I'm not really eating

the true body and blood of Christ . You know , and that's gonna be a problem . You know that's gonna be a problem . That's a problem already in Exodus 12 and that's gonna be a problem .

You know , foreshadowing John chapter 6 , as we start to , you know , get into the gospel of John , yeah , so , so I wanted to bring up the Old Testament because a lot of times I like to link , you know , I like , I kind of like to link the , the gospels and the New Testament readings back to the Old Testament so we can kind of see how God kind of was

foreshadowing Christ all along and that now you know , 2000 years later , this , all this , all comes true .

He connects his life and and and the reality of the Old Testament , and and it's so beautiful and powerful . So so Jesus himself is doing this . It's amazing when you start to study . When I first came in I'll just throw this out to you quick when I First came back into the church , I I actually did it at one of my brother's Death .

Actually , right , right as he was dying , he brought me back into an encounter with Christ that I encountered in the Eucharist . So this story is very Alive to me . I mean , you know , you can't really argue with with me about it , because I just say hey , dude , I know this isn't just like you did in adoration .

You knew , you know Jesus , you know , and God is going to encounter us in different ways and and for you it was that moment in adoration . I'm sure you have many other moments and and the same for me , but at the end of the day , it's it's Jesus himself that says this has deep roots . This is these .

These roots go so deep , they go into the essence of who we are . Like this isn't more information , my friends . This is the DNA of who we are .

So we started at 35 and you know my , my friend , who's an evangelical christian , he is partially right . You know that Jesus kind of does start out , you know , talking with the bread of life , discourse about faith .

He , he starts out with this opening statement I am the bread of life , right in verse 35 of john , chapter 6 , and when we look at the gospel of john , we're , we're . The gospel of john was written in kone greek , and kone greek was a very slang greek .

It was kind of a trading language that was used around the sea of gallilee , so all the different ethnicities could , could speak , you know , to one another and to trade with one another . So you know , there's probably a lot of greek in there .

There's maybe a few heber words in there , you know , maybe even some few latin words , all kinds of languages , all Aramaic would have probably been in there . Uh , probably a whole mixture of slew of words .

So it's a very slang language but it , um , it's a language that everyone would have understood and I think that's why they chose to write it at 2000 years ago at kone , greek .

And when jesus starts , you know , probably between verses 35 through 47 , whatever he uses the word eat , he uses the word esthio in in kone greek , and esthio Translates to english perfectly . Jack it was , it goes from esthio to eat it . It transfers perfectly .

And so he's kind of laying this groundwork of you know , we really have to have faith first before we could believe In the body and blood of jesus .

You know , and that's this is probably where a lot of our christian brothers and sisters are , you know , when they're reading , you know , versus 35 through 47 , they're kind of like , okay , cool , this is about faith . This is exactly what my pastor had said to me . But then jesus changes his shift here .

He's got a really big shift changed in his wording and what he actually says . And remember , jesus is divine , so he knows exactly what he's doing here . And starting in verse 48 , jesus changes the word for eat . He changes it from esthio to trogo , as spelled T-R-O-G-O , trogo , and unfortunately in the English language , trogo .

We don't really have a word for a jack . There's no word for like a human consumption . For trogo it's more animalistic . It's the closest word we have in English would be to gnaw or to tear , kind of like a dog gnawing on a bone . So Jesus really emphasized here that , hey , hold on a second .

Here it's not just figuratively , that I want you to actually consume my body and blood , I want you to trogo , I want you to gnaw , to tear at my body . And , interestingly enough , when you get down to this verses 48 to 58 , jesus says this four times , doesn't he ? And he uses the word trogo four times .

And he says you must gnaw my body and drink my blood if you want eternal life . He says it four times . We get a direct order from Jesus himself four times in these 10 verses . Which actually really floored me as I brought the book of Exodus into this , exodus 12 into this , and I was like , oh , wow , it's just like a full circle here .

He's just really fulfilling all this , you know . And when I he changed this word , you know , from SDO to trogo , and I took this to prayer and I was in front of the Blessed Sacrament , I said you know , jesus , how do you want us to consume your body ?

You know how do you want us to trogo and I envisioned a man , a homeless man , who had it eaten in maybe like four or five days . So he was like on the verge of maybe dying here . You know , he hadn't eaten in four or five days . He's super , super hungry , he's at his wit's end and then we sit like this big , hot plate of food in front of him .

Right , if you ever worked at a homeless shelter , if you've ever fed someone who hasn't eaten in four or five days , they're in a point of desperation . You know , and there's no idle chit-chat , there's no house Aunt Betty doing , there's none of that , it's all you know . They pick up the knife and fork and they're going for it .

You know their main thing , that's going on in their brain is to get that food into their stomach as quickly and efficiently as possible . You know , their only concern in their life at that time is to eat that food and that's exactly how Jesus wants us to eat his body .

You know where we're not thinking of all the mail we need to open up when we get home . We're not thinking what we have to do . You know , on Monday or Tuesday we're not consumed with other things , we're just consumed with eating the body of Jesus and getting back to the pew and spending time with him in prayer and giving him our whole hearts .

You know , during that time , you know we're not over consumed or we're not thinking of other things , but we're strictly just consumed and thinking about eating that food that's in front of us , that body of Christ .

But the evangelicals , especially the ones that read the Old Testament too , because I think what happens in so many Protestant parishes and so many Protestant pastors , they don't spend a lot of time unpacking the Old Testament and making this analogy here , you know , because you know I don't know if you're gonna hit 50 , you know verse 52 there .

But the Jews then disputed among themselves saying how can this man give us his flesh to eat ? So these are the same questions that so many of our brothers outside of this tradition and even many in the Catholic church now who don't believe or understand the presence in the Eucharist , these questions are answered right here in scripture yeah , amen , amen .

This is exactly what he's telling us .

So Jesus said to them truly , truly , I say to you , unless you gnaw the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood , you have no life within you . He who gnaws my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life , and I will raise him up on the last day , for my flesh is food , indeed , and my blood is drink , indeed .

He who gnaws my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him , as the living Father has sent me and I live because of the Father . So he who gnaws me will live because of me . Isn't that just totally beautiful ?

This is 4,000 years now when we look back at the Exodus , and up until this point where we're at now a little less than , say , 4,000 years , but getting there , right , we're getting there , yeah , and we think this tradition has been with us all this time . And you know , it's amazing continuity .

This is that positive faith , that what I was going to mention to you . When I came with my brother's story . I didn't really finish that . I guess I left it a little open . When I came back into the church , I went to graduate school and I studied early Christianity and I wanted to know the Jewish roots of our faith .

In other words , okay , I came back into the church . You know where did it come from ? How did it start , et cetera , et cetera . That was my main question .

Then , you know , to myself , when I went back and I linked this like you did so well just now , deacon Mike , it was astounding to me that everything was true , everything I heard little snippets of through my Catholic education and as a kid , when I was told you go holy cow , it's true .

And then when I encountered Christ in the Eucharist after my brother died at his memorial mass , it was like too much for me . Like I just said , I got to give up what I got going in my life . It took me a little while to unwind everything because I own a number of businesses and stuff , but at the end of the day , I'm not here by accident .

Neither are you , are you ?

Jews for Christ , and I just Googled it once and they go back into the Old Testament and then they flash forward it into the New Testament , into the Gospels , and I think at the time they had said in their website there was over 100 biblical verses in the Old Testament that foreshadowed Jesus in the New Testament and they had them all listed .

I think I got to . I think I saw on their website at one time like 60 or 65 already uncovered and they were kind of combing through the Bible and then they would go ahead and post them . I don't even know if that website's up anymore . It's been a long time . I think last time I was there was like four years ago .

But it was really cool because I could go back and I could compare that Old Testament to the New Testament , where it foreshadowed Jesus and now Jesus fulfills it , and so I just thought it was so cool . So it was such a . It was a really cool website . I hope it's still up . I'm not sure if it is , though .

Let's you know , we can unpack this more , but so if you've got more there and you can't get it out in the next minute or two , I do what you can and we'll start to close up here . But and leave us with an idea then of the next podcast , because we , you know we , can continue to open this .

I love the story of when they actually people , actually got up and walked away , and you see this today , but Jesus was setting us up for all of these things that were happening , weren't they ? The other thing I'd love to talk to you about in the future is , you know , is this Ru'ah ?

You know , this breath that God takes this clay and he breathes into it makes human beings different than all the other animals . During the fall , we breathe that out and here's Jesus in his resurrection and he breathes on them and this is the life that he's talking about . When we receive the Eucharist , you know , this is the life that we're talking about .

We're in breathing again the Spirit and we've become a body and a soul filled with grace . It's two different ways to live . You know either the city of man or the city of God . And I'll tell you what , brother , only one of them ends up in heaven , right , and so good luck with good luck .

When you reject him , because we reject it , we just stand at the tree like Adam and Eve . We say , no , I'm going to do this on my own and that's just an old trainwreck ready to happen brother .

You know , call them or meet with them and talk to them why and you know a lot of it was really a lot of nonsense . You know like it was . Well , you know the other church has a rock wall and you know my kid wanted to climb the wall .

Or you know , the other church , my kid wanted to play tambourine in the band or wanted to play the guitar in the church band and I was like , wow , you know , you're walking away from the body of Jesus , the body and blood of Jesus , so that you can climb a rock wall . Or , you know , become a guitarist in a band .

I mean , you know , I always say this to people in Rockford . I always say , hey , look , if you , you want to play it , you want to climb a rock wall , go ahead , and here's 10 bucks . You know , go to the Rockford Park District . You climb a rock wall all day long .

You know you want to play guitar in a band , start your own garage band and you can play one of the local bars on a Saturday night . But , man , if you want to receive Jesus , you know , if you want Jesus to grow inside of you , you want Jesus to be your spiritual muscle . That's when you come to the Catholic Church .

You know you come to the Catholic Church . You gnaw on the body of Christ . You let Jesus turn you into a saint , you let Christ grow within you and you let Christ bring you to salvation Amen .