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Readings:
Deuteronomy 8:2–3, 14–16
Psalm 147:12–15, 19–20
1 Corinthians 10:16–17
John 6:51–58
The Eucharist is given to us as a challenge and a promise. That’s how Jesus presents it in today’s Gospel.
He doesn’t make it easy for those who hear Him. They are repulsed and offended at His words. Even when they begin to quarrel, He insists on describing the eating and drinking of His flesh and blood in starkly literal terms.
Four times in today’s reading, Jesus uses a Greek word—trogein—that refers to a crude kind of eating, almost a gnawing or chewing (see John 6:54, 56, 57, 58).
He is testing their faith in His Word, as today’s First Reading describes God testing Israel in the desert.
The heavenly manna was not given to satisfy the Israelites’ hunger, as Moses explains. It was given to show them that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
In today’s Psalm, too, we see a connection between God’s Word and the bread of life. We sing of God filling us with “finest wheat” and proclaiming His Word to the world.
In Jesus, “the living Father” has given us His Word come down from heaven, made flesh for the life of the world.
Yet, as the Israelites grumbled in the desert, many in today’s Gospel cannot accept that Word. Even many of Jesus’ own followers abandon Him after this discourse (see John 6:66). But His words are Spirit and life, the words of eternal life (see John 6:63, 67).
In the Eucharist we are made one flesh with Christ. We have His life in us and have our life because of Him. This is what Paul means in today’s Epistle when he calls the Eucharist a “participation” in Christ’s body and blood. We become in this sacrament partakers of the divine nature (see 1 Peter 2:4).
This is the mystery of the faith that Jesus asks us believe. And He gives us His promise: that, sharing in His flesh and blood that was raised from the dead, we too will be raised up on the last day.
