In this third installment from John Chapter 6, we are beginning to hear more clearly the murmuring and the disbelief of the crowds. They question who really is this man, who claims to be “the bread that came down from heaven”? How can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven’. Is he not Jesus the son of Joseph, do we not know his father and mother?”
Our Lord is going to start asking us to believe in something that will seemingly not make sense. He assures us that he truly is the living bread that came down from heaven. Over and over again, our Lord tells us,
“I am…I am the living bread!” “The living bread, which if you eat of it you will not die. “The bread that I will give is my flesh… my flesh for the life of the world.”
What is the Lord speaking about what is this talk of bread and flesh…of food that perishes & food that endures for eternal life. Today, for our ears, this talk of Jesus giving us His flesh as bread that comes down from heaven and which becomes life to the world does not make any sense. Yet, the mystery of this life giving bread remains as the center of our faith, that thing which gets us out of bed, off the couch, out of our houses, and into those pews…the true, the most real, “not merely the recollection of past events, but the proclamation of the mighty works wrought by God for men” (CCC 1363).
You know the story, you know how it came about!
(From Eucharistic Prayer 4) How the one God living and true, existing before all ages and abiding for all eternity created the heavens and the earth and formed man in His own image and entrusted the whole world to his care, so that…he might have dominion over all creatures.
Yet, through disobedience man lost his friendship with God, but our God did not abandon us to the domain of death. For He came in mercy to the aid of all, so that those who seek Him might find Him. For God so loved the world, that in the fullness of time, He sent His only begotten Son to be our Savior. Made incarnate by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, he shared our human nature in all things but sin.
So then, to accomplish the plan of salvation, Jesus Christ, God incarnate, gave Himself up to death, and, rising from the dead, He destroyed death and restored life.”
He gave His flesh for the life of the world (John 6:51). Christ loved us and handed himself over for us, as a sacrificial offering, a fragrant aroma pleasing to God (Eph 5:2).
“The Bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
This truly is the mystery of faith.
God creates. Man receives the gift of Free Will. Man sins. We waited for the coming of redemption, for death to be destroyed and life to be restored. Christ becomes flesh and offers his very own flesh as life for the world. He tells us, take this all of you and eat of it, for this is my body which will be given up for you.
So then, when Jesus tells us over and over saying, “I am the bread of life. The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
He is telling us that all of the sacrifices and holocausts of the Old Testament and even the great Passover that brought about freedom from Egypt have fallen short and have not brought about salvation.
Not until the true and more real sacrifice, not until our Blessed Lord took on flesh and became man and offered his flesh for the life of the world, only then did salvation come about. When Christ gave his flesh for the life of the world and offered Himself on the Cross and rose from the dead on the third day, when He had accomplished this, He destroyed death and restored life.
So then, we know that the saving action of Christ’s own Passover, His fulfillment of the Paschal Mystery, His suffering, His death, and His resurrection and glorious ascension into heaven has happened once and for all and cannot and does not need to be repeated.
Yet, when Christ offers his flesh to us as bread, as true food & true drink, He is promising a great gift, greater than any other, that will be instituted on the night before He was to suffer, on the night of the Last Supper and would come to its final consummation through His Cross and Resurrection. This gift is the Bread of Life, the bread that is His flesh for the life of the world.
And each and every time that we now celebrate this memorial of our redemption, of Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection, we do not repeat the true and most perfect sacrifice and neither do we celebrate it as a mere recollection of the past events in the life of Christ, but rather this Celebration of the Eucharist, this Holy Mass is the proclamation of the mighty works wrought by God for men.
The Word has been proclaimed. We will profess our faith. We will offer this most perfect sacrifice. And we will go up to the altar of the Cross and receive the bread of life, our Lord’s flesh the life of the world.
Fasten your seatbelts and hold on tight, for the moment you walked into those doors you entered into nothing other than the house of God and the gate of Heaven.