The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, Sunday, June 11, 2023

John 6, 51–58

Jesus said to the Jewish crowds: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”  The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

The Solemnity of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ was instituted by Pope Urban IV in 1264.  For some years prior to that the feast was localized in parishes and dioceses in Central Europe.  The institution of the feast followed a short period of controversy among theologians as to what exactly happened at the moment of the consecration of the bread and wine at Holy Mass.  This controversy led to the devising of the term “transubstantiation”, which has been used ever since.  Originally, this solemnity was celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, but this region’s bishops have decided it should be celebrated on the Sunday after Trinity Sunday.  Celebrating this feast on a Thursday links it with the celebration of Holy Thursday during Holy Week, during which the Lord Jesus instituted the Most Blessed Sacrament and the Holy Mass.

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven.”  The Lord Jesus Christ makes this declaration following the miracle in which he fed a crowd of five thousand from a few loaves of bread and fish.  He calls himself “the living bread”.  This contrasts with manna, which was not living.  But if the manna preserved the lives of the Israelites during their forty years in the wilderness, then “living” bread should do far more than that.  Jesus calls himself “the living bread”: Moses never called himself “manna”, so Jesus is claiming a greatness beyond that of Moses.  Jesus further identifies himself as the living bread “that came down from heaven”.  So what is this bread, if it is not the manna that came down from heaven?  Jesus says that it is “the bread that I will give [which] is my flesh for the life of the world.  Thus, Jesus teaches that he has come down from heaven, that he possesses true flesh, and that he will offer his flesh for the life of the world — its redemption for sin.  He will trade his life for its.

His hearers quarrel among themselves rather than ask Jesus what he means: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”  They take very literally the Lord’s words, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever.”  They concentrate on the eating rather than on the receiving of eternal life.  But their arguing among themselves as though they had the wisdom to understand him which made asking him directly unnecessary.  Since they do not ask, the Lord does not explain, but repeats with greater emphasis: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.”  

Jesus says to them: “My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.”  It is as though he were prompting them to ask questions, but they do not.  His flesh and blood are “true” food and drink just as his flesh is “living” bread.  They are true food and drink in that what we eat and drink is modeled in its creation after the Lord’s Body and Blood.  The food and drink we eat and drink is based on and to some extent participates in the Body and Blood of our Lord.  His Flesh and Blood is not like our ordinary human food; our human food is like his Flesh and Blood.  “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.”  Jesus here teaches the doctrine of Holy Communion.  Unlike ordinary human food, the true food the Lord offers us, his own Body and Blood, puts us in communion with him whose it is.  That is, in such a unity that he shares his divine life, which he has from the Father, with us: “Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.”

“This is the bread that came down from heaven.”  We should think of Jesus gesturing to himself with his hand, here.  “Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.”  The manna, he is saying, was a sign of the true bread that would come down from heaven, centuries later, for the redemption of the world.  

Those who heard the Lord on this occasion struggled to understand and believe because they were convinced that he was the son of David who would lead them to victory over the Romans.  This was what the Pharisees had told them the Messiah would do.  The Messiah was not supposed to give his life for the life of the world, he was not supposed to give his flesh and blood as food and drink to those who wanted to live forever.  The Lord challenges their preconceptions of the Messiah, which the people believed him to be, but they harden their hearts and will not accept a different vision, even one offered by the Messiah himself.  

As we celebrate this great solemnity, let us rejoice in the food and drink — which is the true food and drink — which the Lord Jesus gives us so freely, and which enables us to share in his divine life.