Body and Blood of Christ 2020
Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14-16; 1Cor 10:16-17; John 6: 51-58
I wrote this on Monday in the wake of the reading at Mass about the drought and famine in Israel, allegedly brought about by the prayer of Elijah. For one thing, it reminded me that drought and famine are still a reality today for millions of people, a situation which is likely to worsen because of deforestation and environmental degradation. That in itself served as a call to prayer and to consideration of what actions we can take as individuals and as the Body of Christ.
And there comes the cat, leaping out of the bag: the Body of Christ, formed by the Holy Spirit in Our Lady’s womb, but formed anew as the Church, as you and me, by the outpouring of that same Spirit, and maintained, kept alive, as all bodies are, by food and drink.
We are what we eat, say the nutritionists. What are we, and what do we eat? We are the Body of Christ, and we eat the Body of Christ. Without food, we die, we cease to exist as corporeal beings, living and walking on the earth. Without the food which is the Body of Christ, we die as the Body of Christ, we cease to exist as that Body, living on earth and in eternity.
Nor is it only the nutritionists who tell us this: it is our own experience as we see the television pictures of people with skeletal forms and swollen bellies, dying of hunger before our eyes. In the case of the Body of Christ, we also have the authority of Christ Himself, of Him whose Body we are, who describes the reality baldly, almost brutally: “If you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you will not have life in you.”
Pardon? Exactly! The Lord Himself tells us that if we do not eat and drink His Body and Blood, we are dead as far as being His Body is concerned.
This is a breathtaking statement. Many of those who heard it at first hand refused to take it. “This is intolerable language,” they said. “Who can accept it?” These were not only hoi Ioudaeoi, shorthand for the Jews who refused to accept Jesus, and who had already been questioning His words: they were, says John, hoi mathetai, His disciples.
What was Jesus’ reaction to this grumbling? Did He explain more fully? Did He water down the starkness of His words? No; He was prepared to allow “many of His disciples” to leave Him rather than have His words compromised. Indeed so fundamental was His declaration that He would have allowed all His followers to leave, asking the Twelve “You don’t want to go too, do you?” the Greek negative meh denoting a question which expects, but does not insist on, the answer “No”.
So Jesus will not water down those shocking words “The bread which I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world.....if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you will not have life in you”. Even some Christians have attempted to compromise, insisting that He was speaking about a metaphorical “eating” of His word, about the Bible, but this will not do. He has spoken about the necessity of His word quite clearly many times. If He was speaking about it again, why would He not have said so? Why would He have allowed His disciples to leave Him over a misunderstanding?
No, it is undeniable that Jesus is saying “If you do not receive the Eucharist, you are dead as parts of my Body.” There are no maybes, no buts, no compromise. And these last few months have shown how vital the Eucharist is. People are starving for want of the Bread of Life, the Body of Christ which is their food. They are suffering from a spiritual drought and famine.
They can follow Mass on line, they can pray, and hold services of the word, they can make spiritual communions, but they know that none of this is enough. Without food we die: without the food of the Eucharist, we are at best half alive, maintaining that degree of life only because the desire to receive is still there—people would if they could: they will when they are able.
“When your people were starving you gave them new life” says the psalmist. Let us pray that the day may be near when all God’s people may once again receive that food without which they cannot be fully what they are, that food which is the Body of Christ and which makes us the Body of Christ.
