June 26, 2011
The Body and Blood of Christ
John 6:51-58
Gospel Summary
When John records the words of Jesus that "the bread that I
shall give for the life of the world is my flesh," he is giving us his
account of the institution of the Eucharist, which is noticeably absent
from its normal location at the Last Supper. John's radical decision to
move this account from the Last Supper (chapter thirteen) to chapter six
can best be explained by his desire to provide no less than fifty verses
of introduction to this central sacrament. In this introduction, he
spells out in great detail the absolute necessity of faith for a
fruitful reception of the Eucharist. And when John speaks of faith, he
always means a personal decision to replicate in one's own life the
unselfishness of Jesus, which is also the primary meaning of the
Eucharist.
John then goes beyond the other gospels in spelling out the
amazing consequences of both receiving and living the Eucharist. For
Jesus goes on to say, "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 daring statement implies that the one who
participates in the Eucharist will begin to share the very life of
God--the life that courses between the Persons of the Trinity. Such a
life laughs at death and makes our earthly life seem to be little more
than sleepwalking.
Life Implications
The gospel of John was written some sixty years after the
resurrection of Jesus and deals with problems that inevitably occur when
a fresh, new religion begins to settle into a routine of doctrine and
ritual. In this way, the fourth gospel anticipates the perennial
problems of a sacramental religion like Catholicism. And, of course, at
the very center of this religion is the sacrament of the Body and Blood
of Christ.
The problem is easily recognized. Jesus calls his followers to a
radical conversion from the tempting but disastrous tendency to be
self-centered. Jesus offers a new kind of life where the concerns and
needs of others become a major factor in all one's decisions. Jesus
himself modeled this ideal by giving his life for us. Small wonder then
that the central sacrament of the Eucharist, representing his Body
broken and his Blood poured out for others, should be the very heart and
soul of Christian teaching and ritual.
Accordingly, the Christian church has surrounded this sacrament
with elaborate ceremony and has made it the subject of fine art and
music and poetry. The great danger is, of course, that we focus on these
externals and fail to live the message of the Eucharist about behaving
unselfishly. Unfortunately, it is quite possible to be very devout in
one's reverence for the Eucharist and still live in a way that is
self-centered, thoughtless and hardhearted. Today's splendid liturgy
should not be allowed to obscure the real meaning of the Eucharist,
which John sums up elsewhere with the words of Jesus, "This is my
commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you" (15:12).
Finally, the invitation of Jesus to share, through the
Eucharist, the very life of God is a wonderful challenge to enter into a
mystical union with God that promises to drive all fear and anxiety out
of our lives. It is infinitely consoling to realize that this is what
God wishes for us and that only our cooperation is required. Unselfish
love is difficult but the rewards are beyond imagining.
Demetrius R. Dumm, O.S.B.
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