Chiara Marino and the Demons of Darkness

Chapter 17: Cosmo's Experiment

"I still don't get the whole Eucharist thing," Mac commented as they all left school Mass one morning and headed to their cafeteria table. "So it's bread and wine, then it's Jesus' body and blood – even though it still looks like bread and wine?"

"I know it's confusing," Chiara responded with a shrug. "You're in good company, though. Scholars and theologians have struggled with understanding it for centuries."

Mac looked amused. "Really? So why do you guys believe in something you don't understand?"

"Well, it's a mystery," Chiara said. "We don't have to understand every detail in order to know something is true. Like how we know wind and gravity exist even though we can't see them directly."

Cosmo mumbled to himself.

"Did you say something?" Mac asked.

"Black holes," he said off-handedly, blinking successively.

"What about black holes?" Zeke asked.

Cosmo took in a breath, as if he were annoyed that he had to spell it out for them. "Black holes bend the very fabric of space-time," he lectured. "Nothing escapes their pull. There's very little we can observe or record. Therefore, we have no direct evidence of their existence. However, we still know they exist based on reasoning and deduction."

"That's a perfect example," Chiara responded. "Just like with black holes, sometimes evidence points to something even if you don't have all the details. See, there's this passage in the Bible where Jesus told His followers that He was the Bread of Life and unless we eat of His flesh and drink His blood, we won't have life within us."

"Kind of gross," Riya said playfully.

"Well, yeah," she conceded. "In fact, a bunch of people got up and left. They stopped following Him because of it."

"Of course they would," Mac said. "They were all Jewish. There's pretty strict Jewish laws that say we can't eat meat mixed with blood. Also cannibalism," she added as a side note.

"Is that kosher laws?" Riya asked.

Mac nodded. "Yup. Cannibalism isn't kosher."

Everyone chuckled as they took their seats at their usual table.

Chiara continued, "Anyway, so usually when Jesus spoke in parables or metaphors, He'd explain the symbolism afterwards. But this time, as people left, He just turned to His Apostles and said, 'Are you going to leave, too?' So, you know, it seems like He meant it literally."

"What did the Apostles say?" Mac asked.

"Peter said 'Where else would we go? You alone have the words of everlasting life.'"

"What? I never said that," Peter said.

"No, not you," Zeke corrected him with an elbow nudge. "Peter the Apostle. Jesus' right hand man."

"Hm," Mac considered it.

"What?" Riya asked.

"Well, it's just that words are super important in the Jewish religion. They have the power to change reality."

Cosmo mumbled under his breath.

"Speak up, Science Boy," Zeke grumbled.

"Scientifically impossible," Cosmo said. "Words can't change the outcome of a scientific experiment. They can't change the laws of physics."

"Ours can't," Mac said. "But there are levels of power. If I said, 'You're under arrest,' nothing would happen, except maybe you'd laugh at me. But if a cop said it, it would literally change reality. You would be under arrest. And we believe that when God created the universe, He spoke it into existence. So it's just interesting that Peter said Jesus had the words of eternal life. Like Jesus could change life just by his words."