THE MOST HOLY
BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST
11 JUNE 2023
In
Saint John’s Gospel, Jesus has just fed five thousand people with five loaves
and two fish. Like all seven of Jesus’
signs (or miracles) in John’s Gospel, this sign is intended to draw
participants into a fuller understanding of the true identity of Jesus. That happened when Jesus turned water into
wine at the wedding feast at Cana. His
disciples accepted the invitation to draw closer to him and trust that he could
transform the ordinary water of their human nature into the divine wine of
God’s love. It also happened to the
Samaritan woman at the well. She
understood that he was the Christ who could satisfy her thirst for eternal
life. She came to understand that he was
not talking about satisfying physical thirst.
So, she left her jar at the well and became the first evangelist, telling
her neighbors that the long-awaited Christ had arrived.
However,
this does not happen with the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. Instead of accepting the sign as an
invitation to know the truth about Jesus, the crowds want to make Jesus a
king. They want a Jewish Caesar who
would give them free meals for the rest of their lives. When Jesus withdraws from them, they continue
to seek him out. Then, Jesus tells the
truth. Just as God has sent manna to
their ancestors in the desert, so the Father has sent him. In the mystery of the Incarnation, Jesus is
the living bread that came down from heaven.
As the living bread and the Word made flesh who dwells among them, Jesus
will continue to be present to them as food and drink.
He shocks
them by insisting that they will eat his flesh and drink his blood. They know that the Torah forbids the eating
of flesh and blood together, because blood is a sacred sign of life. Then he doubles down on his statement by
saying that they will not have life within them unless they eat the flesh of
the Son of Man and drink his blood. The
Greek word for “eat” implies the gnawing on or crunching on, which brings their
horror to a new level.
He uses
this word for “eat” deliberately. His
physical body will be gnawed apart and crunched by his horrific suffering and death
on the cross. But his brutally beaten
body will be raised from the dead transformed.
That transformed body will be restored to heaven in the Ascension. We share that life that the Father shares
with his Son when we are baptized. By
the power of the Holy Spirit, we who eat his flesh receive the totality of his
being – body, blood, soul, and divinity.
We who drink his Blood receive his complete life force.
Saint Paul
expresses this Mystery. The cup of
blessing that we bless is a participation in the blood of Christ. His sacrifice on the cross is made present as
we remember it. The bread that we break
is a participation in the body of Christ.
As Saint Augustine reminds us, we become what we eat. Every time we worthily receive the Body and
Blood of Christ, the Lord forms us more completely into who we became at
Baptism: The Body of Christ sent into
the world.
Saint
Thomas Aquinas helps us to understand the Eucharistic presence. We taste and see the appearance of bread and
wine. When the priest prays the
Eucharistic Prayer, the appearance of bread remains the same. But through the power of the Holy Spirit, its
essence is transformed into the Body of Christ.
The ordinary wine is transformed into the Blood of Christ. We who eat his Body and drink his Blood share
in his sacrificial love. The Eucharist
nourishes us to die to ourselves in ways that are sometimes very difficult and
demanding. But the Lord assures us that
our dying with him is not the end. We
who eat this bread will share in his rising and live forever.
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