Today we learn to what lengths Jesus went to in order to make
people think about, pay attention to, what He was saying. Jesus never sought popularity with the
majority of people; but He did, most passionately, want those few -- initially
drawn to Him by His Father -- to hear with a measure of understanding the
simple words with which He addressed them, that thus they might begin to gradually
appreciate His teaching, and hopefully even to modify their lives and purify
their aspirations in accordance with it.
In the gospel reading He declared:
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats
of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the
life of the world is My flesh.
The Jews were outraged at such words, and murmured among
themselves:
How can this man
give us His flesh to eat?
What did Jesus do? He went
on to say something yet more difficult for those pious Jews even to hear, let
alone accept:
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of
Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.
For a Jew, that last statement was absolutely outrageous
because it seemed quite contrary to the command God had given Noah and his sons
in the beginning:
God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: "Be fruitful
and multiply, and fill the earth. Every
moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants,
I give you everything. But you shall not
eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.” (Genesis 9:1-4)
This same command, moreover, was most emphatically confirmed in
the Law given to Moses on Mount Sinai (Leviticus 7:26-27):
You shall eat no blood whatever
in any of your dwellings, whether of fowl or of animal. Whoever eats any blood, that
person shall be cut off from his people.
What then is the significance of the blood? Let us learn more from the Old Testament
books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy (Leviticus 17:11; Deuteronomy 12:23, 27)):
Be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life;
you may not eat the life with the flesh.
The blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the
LORD your God, but the flesh you may eat.
Why, therefore, did Jesus speak so provocatively to the Jews by first
of all saying, “eat My Flesh” and then following it up by the even more
provocative and objectionable words, “drink My Blood”? What was He trying to express that was so
important, so sublimely important, that He felt the need to go to such lengths
in order to make His hearers give close attention to, and think deeply about,
what He was saying?
The reason is that here we are given a startlingly clear picture
of the Christian awareness of the extent
and the nature of God’s love for us, as also of the divine humility of Jesus. For, although Jesus’ blood -- the Blood of the God’s only begotten Son -- was
most sinfully poured out by us, nevertheless, St. Paul (Ephesians 2:4) assures
us:
God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He
loved us,
willed to turn that supreme evil into a supreme blessing. Since Jesus poured out His blood so willingly
for us God allowed us to use that
blood for our spiritual benefit! In
the light of the Christian revelation and by the grace of the Holy Spirit, we learn
that, being allowed to drink the Blood of Jesus we are thereby enabled to imbibe
life -- ETERNAL LIFE -- and a share, ultimately, in the sonship of
Christ Himself! St. Paul continues (Ephesians
2:5):
Even when we were dead in our trespasses, (God) made us alive together
with Christ.
How great is the Father’s love for us, People of God! The blood of all creatures pertains to Him
alone; how dear beyond all measure, therefore, is the blood of His
only-begotten Son-made-flesh? How
unimaginable is the humiliation which Jesus so willingly and so lovingly embraced
out of obedience to His Father and compassion for us: pouring out His own Most Precious
Blood willingly, for our use, our benefit, our profit … and our Salvation.
How sublimely, then, has that text of Leviticus been fulfilled:
The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it (the Blood of the Immaculate Lamb of God) for you on the altar to make
atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life
(because it is the Precious Blood of the Risen and eternally living Son-of-God-made-Man).
People of God, we live in evil times, we live in a society which
condones, and admires, all sorts of excesses and contradictions; a society
which, too often, teaches its children to get, not give; to look for pleasure
rather than practice discipline; to use others, not to serve them; to seek advantage
and success rather than to strive for honour and integrity.
We however -- as disciples of Jesus, and in response to God’s
wondrous love -- must, as our first reading said:
Leave (our) simple ways,
and live and walk in the way of insight.
And it is here that we can appreciate another, essential, aspect
of Jesus’ insistence that we eat His flesh and drink His blood.
In our world money is supreme, and most of it -- and consequently
most of the world’s advantages and benefits -- goes to those who are top-dogs: the
already rich, the important ones, the famous and the popular; the underdogs, the
poor, the insignificant and the unpopular, have to be satisfied with what
remains over. Jesus saw it all and
warned His disciples:
You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their
great ones exercise authority over them. (Matthew
20:25)
Jesus knew that such a situation was an expression of sin’s
presence in the world, and having become man in order to conquer sin and bring
redemption for mankind, He therefore went on to say:
It shall not
be so among you.
To that end, therefore, Jesus insisted repeatedly that no one
could be saved by their own native genius or power of whatever sort. Personal salvation cannot be won by personal
endeavour using natural cunning or charm; it cannot be bought, it can only be received as a gift subsequent on a
personal encounter with, and spiritual response to, Jesus:
If you do not eat
My flesh and drink My blood you do not have life in you.
In Jesus’ Church, and in preparation for the coming Kingdom of
God, everyone thus starts once again on an equal footing (1 Corinthians
10:16-17):
The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a
participation in body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are
one body; for we all partake of the one bread.
That one bread and the one cup are the source of all grace and
blessing for us, and on receiving them we encounter Christ, the Risen Lord,
Himself; and, in that encounter we are in the presence of, and alone with, Him:
there is no one else listening to our conversation; we are free to say, ask
for, what we want, totally free to be ourselves with Him Who knows, and what is
much more, appreciates, not only what we are but also what we want to be. St. Paul puts it this way:
Now you have come
to know God, or rather to be known by God. (Galatians 4:9)
My dear People, the natural gifts each of us may have, have not
been given to directly further our personal salvation, rather they have been bestowed
upon us for our earthly benefit and the benefit of the society in which we live,
and indeed, in exceptional cases, of the whole world. Eternal salvation, however, does come to us as the result of our correspondence
with the guidance and calling of God’s own Most Holy Spirit over the years and
with our personal faith-awareness of, and loving response to, Christ in our
daily lives as witnessing Catholics and Christians; above all, however, salvation
comes to us as a result of our personal encounter with Our Saviour Himself in our
reception of the Holy Eucharist. Therefore, as we heard in the second reading:
Look carefully how you walk,
not as unwise but as wise, making the best of time, because the days are
evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will
of the Lord is, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Indeed, giving thanks,
above all, for the wondrous beauty and goodness, the infinite mercy and
compassion, of God our Father, made manifest to us in and through the Life,
Death, and Resurrection of Jesus His Son and our Redeemer.
We must realize, therefore, that although we are obliged to struggle
at times in order to resist and overcome earthly inclinations which would lead
us, through sin and self-indulgence, to death beyond the grave; nevertheless, as
disciples of Jesus, our life -- as a whole -- rather be experienced as an ever deepening
and developing awareness of the love and beauty surrounding and awaiting us.
Seeking to live in and with Jesus, we should seek above all to
learn from His most Holy Spirit how to grow in love for our heavenly Father, that
we ultimately receive -- as adopted children of God -- a share in the ineffable,
heavenly, joy of our Saviour Himself.
To the One God, therefore, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be all glory, praise, and honour, for ever and ever. Amen.
