Word to the Wise
Friday, April 15, 2016 - 3rd Week of Easter - Fri
[Acts 9:1-20 and John 6:52-59]"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." [John]
One can imagine what was going through the minds of Jesus' listeners at the synagogue in Capernaum. The principal image would be that of revolting cannibalism! This is one of the major instances of "misunderstanding" in the Gospel of John. Jesus underlines his teaching with another "Amen, amen, I say to you...." We will learn on Saturday that many of his disciples found this hard to accept. In fact, this teaching led certain early persecutors of the church to claim that Christians did indeed practice cannibalism as part of worship!
By the time the Gospel of John was put into writing, it should have been clear to the readers that there was no actual cannibalism of the kind known in history. But there was still the question of how Christians could claim that ordinary bread and wine could be transformed into the very flesh and blood of Christ? This is a matter of faith as well as a "mystery." Jesus declared the bread and wine at the Last Supper to be his body and blood. He commanded his disciples and us as well to do this in his memory. The Holy Spirit was sent to empower those who believe in Christ to do this. If we pay close attention to the celebration of the Mass, there is a prayer to the Lord just before the words of consecration in which we ask God to "make holy, therefore, these gifts ...by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall, so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ." It is not the priest who consecrates but the Holy Spirit acting through the priest and the faithful gathered in celebration.
It is a question of "real presence." Christ becomes present in his entirety. If we emphasize skin, blood and bones, the imagination gets out of hand with cannibalism. But we are not cannibals. We have been given a way to intimately experience the person of Christ through the transformed bread and wine. This is still difficult for some of our brothers and sisters of other Christian traditions to accept, but we must continue to bear witness to it. AMEN
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