In the last three Gospels of this week, John 6: 44-51, John 6: 52-59 and today's, John 6: 60-69, Jesus tells the people that He is "the living bread that came down from heaven" (Jn 6: 57). Whoever "eats this bread," Jesus says, "will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my Flesh for the life of the world" (John 6: 51). In John 6: 52-59, the Jews are quarreling and asking: "'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 true drink. Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood remains in me and I in him'....These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum" (John6: 54-59).
In today's Gospel, John 6: 60-69, many of the disciples of stopped following Jesus, saying: "This saying is hard; who can accept it" (John 6:60)? Jesus knows what the people are quarreling about and says to them: "Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before. It is the Spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe" (John 6: 60-63). To this very day many people walk away because they do not believe the words of Jesus concerning the Holy Eucharist celebrated by Catholics.
The Spirit that overshadowed Mary when the second person of the Blessed Trinity took on human nature is the same Spirit that overshadows the bread and wine at Mass when the priest utters the words of consecration: "This is my Body; this is my Blood". The ordinary bread and wine become the body and blood, the soul and divinity of Jesus. Just as many of the disciples of Jesus stopped following Him when he said to them "unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood, you do not have life within you" so, too, today do many people abandon their Catholic faith, saying: "I won't believe" or "I don't believe!"
May my faith, and yours, remain strong in Jesus' words, said by Jesus Himself in the person of the priest. "Take this, all of you, and eat of it, for this is my Body given up for you....Take this, all of you, and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my Blood, the Blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory of me" (Eucharistic Prayer II--The Word Among Us, May 2018, p. L15).
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