Jesus, the living bread

Today's Reflections 

      

 

Jesus, the living bread

Jn 6:51-58

[Jesus said to the Jewish crowds:] ⁵¹“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.”

⁵²The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us [his] flesh to eat?” ⁵³Jesus 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. ⁵⁴Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. ⁵⁵For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. ⁵⁶Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. ⁵⁷Just 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. ⁵⁸This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

THE GIFT PAR EXCELLENCE. No matter how wonderful a gift may be, it still pales before the very source of the gift.

When Jesus ascended on high, he gifted men and women. To the community of believers, he gave some people as apostles, and others as prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers (cf Eph 4:8, 11). But the greatest gift that Jesus gave—as he himself revealed—is the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is “the source of all our store, the soul’s most welcome guest, giver of sevenfold gifts” (Sequence of Pentecost). Moreover, as a divine person, the Spirit is the source of spiritual gifts: wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, mighty deeds, prophecy, discernment, gift of tongues (cf 1 Cor 12:4-10).

From another perspective, the greatest gift of Jesus is his very self. This is made possible through the sacrament of the Eucharist. Pope John Paul II underlines this in his encyclical letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia: “The Church has received the Eucharist from Christ her Lord not as one gift—however precious—among so many others, but as the gift par excellence, for it is the gift of himself, of his person in his sacred humanity, as well as the gift of his saving work” (n 11).

Today’s Gospel speaks of the mystery of Jesus’ person. The crowd, including his disciples, cannot accept that Jesus is from God, the bread come down from heaven. When he draws out its Eucharistic dimension—“My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink”—this troubles most of his listeners, and many of them no longer accompany him. This, however, leads Peter to express the faith of the other apostles and of the Church throughout history: “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (Jn 6:68).

The Eucharist is a mysterium fidei—a mystery of faith. More than any other sacrament, it makes demands on our faith. The Eucharist is the mystery of Christ’s “real” presence because he becomes substantially present, whole and entire, in the reality of his body and blood. But it is through his complete hiddenness that he becomes a mystery of light, if only we open ourselves up to the dimensions of the mystery.