Other Sunday and Holy Day Readings
THE SOLEMNITY OF
THE BODY AND BLOOD—CORPUS CHRISTI (Cycle A)
In the universal Roman calendar, the Church celebrates the Solemnity
of the Body and Blood of Christ on the Thursday after the Solemnity of the Most
Holy Trinity. However, the United States and Canada celebrate the Solemnity of
the Body and Blood on the Sunday after the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity.
Readings:
Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14b-16a
Psalm 147:12-15, 19-20
1 Corinthians 10:16-17
John 6:51-58
Abbreviations: NABRE (New American Bible Revised Edition), NJB (New Jerusalem Bible), IBHE (Interlinear Bible Hebrew-English), IBGE (Interlinear Bible Greek-English), or LXX (Greek Septuagint Old Testament translation). CCC designates a citation from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The word LORD or GOD rendered in all capital letters is, in the Hebrew text, God's Divine Name, YHWH (Yahweh).
God reveals His divine plan for humanity in the two Testaments, which is why we read and relive the events of salvation history in the Old and New Testaments in the Church's Liturgy. The Catechism teaches that the Liturgy reveals the unfolding mystery of God's plan as we read the Old Testament in light of the New and the New Testament in light of the Old (CCC 1094-1095).
The Theme of the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood
of Jesus (Corpus Christi): Sharing in the Life of Christ
When Christians partake of the Eucharist, they receive and
celebrate the mysterious Presence of Jesus Christ abiding within the community
of His Church: "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood will live in me and I
in him, says the Lord" (Communion antiphon). In the Middle Ages,
Christians wanted to joyfully commemorate Jesus's precious gift of the
Eucharist in a Solemnity echoing Holy Thursday. So they introduced the Feast of
Corpus Christi in the spring when their faith communities could hold
processions, street fairs, and other outdoor events. The bread of the Lord's
Body was carried outdoors under a canopy, with music playing and the people
joining in singing their favorite hymns of praise. Latin American and European
Catholic communities continue to observe the Solemnity with joyous processions
and displays.
In the First Reading, Moses presents the forty years the Israelites spent in the wilderness as a test of faith and trust in God. Yahweh disciplined His people in the hardships they experienced, like a human father will chastise and train his children in good behavior. God's discipline is always for our spiritual benefit. The wilderness experience taught the new generation of Israelites to have faith and trust in God's word and to develop the virtue of perseverance. Faith, trust, and perseverance are virtues that New Covenant believers also need on their journey to eternal salvation. God tests His people by giving trials to humble their proud and selfish hearts and teach them to turn to Him, to depend upon Him, and to trust Him to provide for their wants and needs, materially and spiritually. He knows how we will fare in His test, but the purpose is for us to discover how much we need God.
In the Responsorial Psalm, we join the psalmist in offering praise and thanksgiving to God for His blessings on His covenant people. The psalmist praises God as the redeemer of Zion, a symbolic name for both Jerusalem and Israel. Yahweh's Divine Presence dwells in His holy city of Jerusalem, and the city recognizes God through what He has done on behalf of the people: protecting the people from hostile neighbors and giving the citizens prosperity. We ask God for the same protection for our nation and people to remain loyal and faithful to Him.
In the Second Reading, St. Paul St. Paul taught that the Eucharist is not only communion with the Lord Jesus Christ and necessary for salvation but also the means of communion with the Church, the Body of Christ. Therefore, communion with Christ in receiving the Eucharist is exclusively unique, and one cannot compare it with any other form of communion/fellowship. Our word "communion" comes from this passage of St. Paul's letter to the Corinthian Christians and defines us as one with the Lord Jesus Christ by receiving Him Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. St. John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople (martyred c. 403 AD), made this point concerning these verses when he wrote: "What in fact is the bread? The Body of Christ. What do they become who receive communion? The Body of Christ" (Homilies on 1 Corinthians, 24).
The Gospel Reading is from the "Bread of Life Discourse" Jesus gave after the miracle feeding of more than five thousand before His ministry's second Passover and Unleavened Bread festivals. Jesus's message to the Jewish crowd in the first century AD and to us is explicit: consuming His Body and Blood is necessary for eternal salvation. In the discourse, Jesus identified His flesh as the "Bread of Life." The offering of Christ's flesh in sacrifice for the life of the world connects the Incarnation, "the Word made flesh" (Jn 1:14), and the peace/communion sacrifice of the Old Covenant Toda/Todah ("thanksgiving" in Hebrew) to the New Covenant communion sacrifice we call the Eucharist (from the Greek word for "thanksgiving"). The early Church recognized Jesus's words to the crowd in John 5:51 as a Eucharistic formula. The Old Latin and the Syriac liturgies still contain this verse in their Eucharistic prayers: This bread which I shall give is my body for the life of the world.
Today's remembrance of our redemption through the self-sacrificial offering of Jesus's Body and Blood on the altar of the Cross is an excellent time to recall what redemption means to a Catholic Christian. Many Protestants believe that God punished Jesus for the sins of humanity and that in Christ's Passion, the Father saw not His divine Son but our sins and vented His wrath upon Jesus. This view of redemption is not what Catholic Christians believe. Jesus did not serve as our penal substitute to receive the retributive punishment for countless lifetimes of sin since the fall of Adam and Eve. God did not abandon Jesus to suffer the fullness of the damnation humankind had earned for itself. Jesus did not take on the world's sins, becoming sin Himself. If that were the case, Peter would not have called the Resurrected Christ a "Lamb without blemish" (1 Pt 1:19), and Jesus could not have ascended to Heaven soiled by the sins of humanity.
For the Church founded by Jesus Christ, redemption was always about love. The Father never loved the Son more than as He hung on the Cross. "God so loved the world that He sent his only begotten Son" to give His life for our salvation. Therefore, Jesus was not our substitute; He was our representative. He did not exempt us from suffering; instead, He endowed our suffering with meaning and divine power. Christ's sufferings are not punishments; they were the result of a pure and holy offering of love in obedience to the will of the Father that extends to every human in every age, including His persecutors. Jesus's act of divine love in offering up His Body and Blood on the altar of the Cross makes us a new creation in His Kingdom of the Church! See CCC 613, 616 and the book "What is Redemption?" by Father Philippe de la Trinite, published by Emmaus Road.
The First Reading Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14b-16a ~ The Heavenly
Bread of the Exodus
2 Moses said to the people: "Remember how for forty years
now the LORD, your God, has directed all your journeying in the wilderness, so
as to test you by affliction to know what was in your heart: to keep his commandments
or not. 3 He, therefore, let you be afflicted with
hunger, and then fed you with manna, a food unknown to you and your ancestors, so
you might know that it is not by bread alone that people live, but by all that
comes forth from the mouth of the LORD. [...] 14b Do
not forget the LORD, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that house
of slavery; 15 he guided you through the vast and terrible wilderness with its
saraph* serpents and scorpions, its parched and waterless ground; he brought
forth water for you from the flinty rock 16a and fed you in the wilderness with
manna, a food unknown to your ancestors."
*Saraph or seraph is the
Hebrew name for a species of venomous snake; etymologically the term signifies "the
fiery one" (see Num 21:6, also
Is 14:29 and 30:6).
Moses presents the Israelites' forty years spent in the wilderness as a test of their faith and trust in God (Dt 8:2-3). He disciplined His people in the hardships they experienced like a human father disciplined his children (Dt 8:5). God's discipline is always for spiritual profit (see Prov 3:11-12; 1 Cor 11:31-32; Heb 12:5-13). The wilderness experience taught the new generation of Israelites to have faith and trust in God's promises and to develop the virtue of perseverance on their journey to the Promised Land. It is a virtue New Covenant believers also need on their journey through life to their goal of eternal salvation in the Promised Land of Heaven (Eph 6:18-20; Heb 12:7; Rev 3:10). God tests His people by giving trials to humble their proud and selfish hearts and teach them to turn to Him, depend upon Him, and trust Him to provide for their wants and needs materially and spiritually. He knows how we will fare in His test, but the purpose of our trials is to discover how much we need God.
God knows our innermost feelings, even those secrets we cannot admit to ourselves. Psalm 44:22 tells us that God knows the secrets of our hearts, and Psalm 94:10-15 warns us: Shall he who instructs nations not punish? Yahweh, the teacher of all people, knows human plans and how insipid they are. How blessed are those you instruct, Yahweh, whom you teach by means of your law, to give them respite in evil times, till a pit is dug for the wicked. Yahweh will not abandon his people, he will not desert his heritage; for judgment will again become saving justice, and in its wake all upright hearts will follow (NJB). God intends for any temporal judgments we experience from sins to be redemptive. In those times, God wants personal sufferings to call the sinner back to Him. Even when we find ourselves embroiled in our sins, He does not abandon us but patiently waits for our repentance and our decision to return as righteous sons and daughters of a loving Father.
3 He, therefore, let you be afflicted with hunger, and then
fed you with manna, a food unknown to you and your ancestors, so you might know
that it is not by bread alone that people live, but by all that comes forth
from the mouth of the LORD.
God gave "bread from Heaven" to His hungry people in Exodus 16:4-36.
They called it "manna," and He gave it as a sign that He cared for
their well-being and to test their obedience. Israel's test in receiving the
manna was their willingness to gather and eat it only according to God's commands
(Ex 16:4). They were not to hoard it overnight or search for the manna on the
Sabbath (Ex 16:4-5). It recalls another event in salvation history when God gave
the gift of food as a test of obedience in Genesis 2:16-17. In the Garden
Sanctuary of Eden, God gave His human children every fruit to eat except the
fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It was a test of obedience
our first parents failed with disastrous consequences.
so you might know that it is not by bread alone that people
live, but by all that comes forth from the mouth of the LORD.
John Sailhamer wrote: "If Moses is intentionally linking the
gift of the manna and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, then it is
all the more significant that in this text he also links the manna with the
Word of God" (The Pentateuch as Narrative, page 441). Moses
brings the events in the first book of the Torah/Pentateuch together with the
events in the last book. In his allusion to the events in Eden, Moses links
God's test of the men and women of Israel in the wilderness when they first
received the manna with the first man and woman's test of obedience concerning
the forbidden tree in Eden. But he goes further; Moses linked the manna
experience to the past and the future by identifying the manna with God's Word,
who Christians know as Jesus Christ, the Living Word of God.
Notice that in 8:3 that Yahweh gives "life" to Israel by providing the manna but then makes a comparison with the Creation event. God does not give life to Israel only by perishable bread. He who creates by His word (Gen 1:3) gives life to Israel by the spoken words of His divine Law: the commandments that come from His mouth, which He speaks to Moses, and Moses teaches to the Israelites. Obedience to God's commandments ultimately gave life to the Israelites, just as adherence to the commands of Jesus Christ ultimately provides eternal life for baptized believers (Jn 14:15; 15:10; 1 Jn 2:3-5).
What man lost in Eden through disobedience will be restored to Israel through obedience to the words of the Law God gave Israel in the Sinai Covenant. The Law of God gave Israel life (see Neh 9:29; Prov 9:1-5; Wis 16:26; Sir 24:19-21; Amos 8:11). However, the test of obedience is the same for Israel as for Adam and Eve. It is Israel's free will choice to obediently live the Law of God that gives life or to choose disobedience and death, like Adam and Eve. When they ate from the forbidden tree, they brought upon themselves God's judgment: But the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you are not to eat; for, the day you eat of that, you are doomed to die [die die] (Gen 2:17 literal translation IBHE, vol. I). The doubling of the word "die" in the Hebrew text is the way to express superlatives in Hebrew. Yet, the result of their sin was a double death. The consequence of Adam and Eve's sin would yield both physical and spiritual death (separation from God) for them and all humanity until the coming of the Redeemer-Messiah.
Humanity's free will choice of life and prosperity or death and disaster in Eden is the same choice God presents to the Israelites after Moses's third homily (Dt 30:15-16). Obedience means God's protection and prosperity in the Promised Land. John Sailhamer wrote: "Obedience to the Torah is seen as the key to enjoying once again the blessings of the good land and avoiding the curse of death" (The Pentateuch as Narrative, page 442). Jesus will offer the same choice of obedience at the Last Supper when He says, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (Jn 14:15).
14b Do not forget the LORD, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that house of slavery; 15 he guided you through the vast and terrible wilderness with its saraph serpents and scorpions, its parched and waterless ground; he brought forth water for you from the flinty rock 16a and fed you in the wilderness with manna, a food unknown to your ancestors."
Moses reminded the Israelites of God's faithfulness and their dependency on God in this passage through an argument based on Israel's history:
Moses addressed the dangers to their faith in Him that confronted the Israelites on their journey out of Egypt and, at the same time, reminded them of His divine protection. God nourished them in two ways: the miracle of the life-giving water from the rock and the miracle of the manna (unknown to their forefathers) on their journey to the Promised Land. The miracles of the manna and water from the rock prefigured the Eucharist in which God feeds us the Living Bread from Heaven to eat and provides His precious Blood to drink to sustain us on our journey to the Promised Land of Heaven.
Responsorial Psalm 147:12-15, 19-20 ~ God's Blessings on
Jerusalem and Israel
The response is: "Praise the Lord, Jerusalem." Or
"Alleluia."
12 Glorify the LORD, Jerusalem; Zion offer to praise your
God. 13 For he has strengthened the bars of your gates, blessed your children
within you.
Response:
14 He brings peace to your borders, and satisfies you with finest wheat.
15 He sends his command to the earth; his word runs swiftly!
Response:
19 He proclaimes his word to Jacob, his statutes and laws
to Israel. 20 He has not done this for any other nation; of such laws they know
nothing. Hallelujah!
Response:
This psalm offers praise and thanksgiving to God for His blessings upon His covenant people. In his commentary on this psalm, St. Augustine wrote: "Your tongue gives praise for a while; your life should give praise to God all the time" (Enarrationes Psalmos, 146.1). God is the redeemer of Zion, a symbolic name for both Jerusalem and Israel. He dwelled in His holy city of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem recognized God through what He had done on her behalf: protecting her from her neighbors and giving her prosperity (verses 12-14a).
14b and satisfies you with finest wheat.
This verse is traditionally used in the Church's liturgy to
signify the Eucharist. The Eucharist is an ineffable expression of God's
generosity and love for His New Covenant people, greater than the temporal
blessings received by the Old Covenant people (Lev 26:3-13;
Dt 28:1-14). Ours
is truly the "best" by which God fills His New Covenant people with the very
life of Christ: the Living Bread that comes down from heaven in the Eucharist.
15 He sends his command to the earth; his word runs swiftly!
The God of Zion is the God who commands Creation and reveals
manifestations of His powerful word. His divine word proclaimed to Jacob-Israel
made them unique among the nations of the earth (verse 20), and the "Living
Word," Jesus Christ, makes the New Covenant people of God unique among all the
peoples of the earth.
The Second Reading 1 Corinthians 10:16-17 ~ The Body and
Blood
16 The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a
participation [koinonia]in the blood of Christ?
The bread that we break, is it not a participation [koinonia]
in the body of Christ 17 Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many,
are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.
[...] = Greek, IBGE, vol. IV, page 467. Koinonia means
"participation, (to) communicate, communion, fellowship" (# 2842, Strongs Concordance,
page 50).
St. Paul taught the Church at Corinth that the Eucharist was not only communion that reestablished peace with the Lord Jesus Christ and was necessary for salvation, but it was also the means of communion with the Church, the Body of Christ. Communion with Christ is exclusively unique, and there is no comparison between it with any other form of communion/fellowship. Our English word "communion," from the Greek word koinonia, comes from this passage of St. Paul's letter (St. Pius V, Catechism, 2.4.4) and defines us as one with the Lord Jesus Christ by receiving Christ's Body and Blood. St. John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople (martyred c. 403 AD), wrote concerning these verses: "What in fact is the bread? The Body of Christ. What do they become who receive communion? The Body of Christ" (Homilies on 1 Corinthians, 24).
The Gospel of John 6:51-58 ~ The Living Bread and Eternal
Salvation
Jesus told 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." 52 The Jews
quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to
eat?" 53 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. 54
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise
him on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. 57 Just
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. 58 This is the bread that
came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever
eats this bread will live forever."
The Gospel Reading is from Jesus's "Bread of Life Discourse" that occurred just before the second Passover of His ministry and a day after the miracle feeding of the five thousand men (Jn 6:1-14). Jesus's message is explicit: consuming His Body and Blood in the Most Holy Eucharist is necessary for eternal salvation. Verse 51 is the second statement (see verse 35) Jesus made identifying Himself as the "Bread of Life." The giving of Christ's flesh in sacrifice for the life of the world connects the Incarnation, "the Word made flesh" (Jn 1:14), and the Eucharist. The early Church recognized Jesus's words in John 5:51 as a Eucharistic formula. The Old Latin and Syriac liturgies still contain this verse: This bread which I shall give is my body for the life of the world (Navarre Commentary, page 105).
Notice the use of the future tense in verse 51: the bread that I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world. It points to Jesus's sacrifice on the altar of the Cross and the miracle of the Eucharist. His sacrifice became present for every generation, beginning with the offering of Himself in the bread and the wine at the Last Supper. Jesus is the true bread of life not only because He is God's Word incarnate but also because He is the spotless victim who offers His flesh and blood in sacrifice for the life of the world. Ever since Adam's fall from grace, God has required humanity to offer sacrifices to atone for sins. Under all previous covenants, the animal offered in sacrifice died in place of the sinner:
The idea of a sacred meal was not foreign to members of the Sinai Covenant. In the Jerusalem Temple, a priest collected the blood of the sacrificed animal and poured it out against the altar. After skinning the animal, the presiding priest laid the animal's body on the altar fire as a whole burnt offering (communal or individual). But for a sin or communion sacrifice, after offering parts of the animal to God in the altar fire, the rest was cooked and consumed in a sacred meal. The priests ate the people's sin sacrifices. But for a sacrifice reestablishing peace with God by forgiven sinners, they ate the meat of the victim in a communion meal called the Toda/Todah, the "Thanksgiving," consumed by the offeror, his family, and friends (Lev 6:17-19; 7:11-21).
In the Old Covenant, the ritual of sprinkling the blood of the sacrifice on the altar was a symbolic gesture of justification, while burning the flesh of the animal on the altar fire was a figure of sanctification. Therefore, eating the sacrifice symbolized the redeemed person in a mystical union with Yahweh (Offerings, Sacrifices, and Worship in the Old Testament, page 163). The entire Old Covenant sacrificial system prefigured Christ's sacrifice on the altar of the Cross and the sanctification and redemption of humanity. In his book Feast of Faith, Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) noted the connection between the sacred meal offered by Christ of Himself at the Last Supper and the Todah/Toda "Thanksgiving" offering, reestablishing peace with God in the Old Covenant sacrificial system. A man or woman who had experienced some form of providential deliverance offered Yahweh a sacrifice in "thanksgiving." Then, they ate it in a sacred meal within the Temple in the Holy Place with friends and family. The word toda/todah, thanksgiving in Hebrew, is rendered in the Greek translation of the Old Testament as eucharistia and is where we get our word "Eucharist."
The Old Covenant communion Todah offering was not restricted to a bloody sacrifice of flesh but also the unbloody offering of bread and wine consumed with the sacred meal. Pope Benedict XVI wrote that the Lord's Supper became the Todah of Christ in the New Covenant. He also pointed out the Rabbinic tradition that when the Messiah came, all sacrifices would end except for the Todah: "The Toda of Jesus vindicates the rabbinic dictum: 'In the coming (Messianic) time, all sacrifices will cease except the Toda Sacrifice. This will never cease in all eternity. All (religious) song will cease too, but the songs of Toda will never cease in all eternity'" (Feast of Faith page 58). For more information on the sacrificial system of the Sinai Covenant, see the document "The Levitical Sacrifices of the Old Covenant" and the book, "Jesus and the Mystery of the Tamid Sacrifice."
Animal sacrifice ended with the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in AD 70. We have the continuing sacrifice of the New Covenant in the unblemished offering of "the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world" (Jn 1:29). However, for the sacrifice to be effective and celebrated, the covenant members in a state of grace must eat the "Thanksgiving"/Eucharistic sacrifice of the Lamb of God in a sacred meal. Our High Priest, Jesus Christ, has called us into a royal priesthood of believers. St. Peter wrote: But you are a chosen race, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, a people to be a personal possession (1 Pt 2:9, also see 1 Pt 2:5; Rev 1:6; 5:1-10, and CCC#1546).
In the Bread of Life Discourse, Jesus spoke literally and sacramentally, using extremely powerful language. We must eat His flesh ("sarx" in Greek) and drink His blood. Father Raymond Brown (The Gospel According to John) points out that Jesus is not speaking in a Hebrew idiom, as some scholars have suggested. There were two Hebrew/Aramaic idioms. One was like our expression "flesh and blood," meaning "life." We, for example, as well as the Biblical expression of kinship, express family relationships as "they are my kin, my flesh and blood" (Gen 2:23; 2 Sam 5:1) or "flesh and blood" as a reference to the human condition. The second Hebrew idiom was "to eat the flesh" or "drink the blood of the enemy," referring to the horrors of war. If Jesus used either of these idioms, He would have to use the words "flesh and blood" or "eat the flesh" together in one phrase. Instead, He very distinctly separates these words and phrases in such a way that leaves no doubt as to His meaning: 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. To eat His flesh and drink His blood is to consume "life" that is supernatural, and in doing so, He elevates us to become sharers in His divine nature (2 Pt 1:4).
These are the words that the disciples recognized when they received the Eucharist from the hands of Jesus in the Upper Room a year later at the sacred Passover meal on the night of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The Passover sacrifice was during the day, and that night, the beginning of the first day of Unleavened Bread, was the sacramental meal. In the Bread of Life Discourse, Jesus said, "And the bread that I will give is my flesh [sarx] for the life of the world" and "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. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him" (Jn 6:52-56). That night of the Passover sacred meal in the Upper Room, Jesus said: "Take and eat; this is my body [soma]" and "Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood" (Mt 26:27).
A significant difference you will have noticed is that while Jesus spoke of His "flesh/sarx" in John's Gospel, He used the word "body/soma" in the Synoptic Gospels accounts of the Last Supper. Fr. Raymond Brown pointed out in his commentary that there is no Hebrew or Aramaic word for "body" as we understand the term. Many scholars maintain that at the Last Supper, what Jesus said was the Aramaic equivalent of "this is my flesh" (see Brown, The Gospel According to John, pages 284-85). The letters of St. Ignatius, the third Bishop of Antioch, succeeding St. Evodius, the immediate successor of St. Peter after he left Antioch for Rome, support this theory. The Romans martyred Bishop Ignatius in circa AD 107. St. Ignatius used "flesh" in numerous references to the Eucharist (Letter to the Romans 7.3; Letter to the Church at Philadelphia 4.1; Letter to the Church at Smyrna 7.1). This terminology of Jesus's "flesh" is also found in the letter St. Justin the Martyr (circa AD 155) sent to the pagan Roman Emperor Antonius Pius explaining the Christian faith (see Apology I,66).
The Romans charged some Christians with cannibalism in the 2nd century AD because they insisted that they were eating the flesh of Jesus in the Eucharist. However, consuming Christ in the Eucharist was not cannibalism. The definition of cannibalism is eating a human who is dead. Jesus is not dead; He is more alive than we are in His glorified flesh. The restrictions under the Old Law were against consuming flesh and drinking blood on the natural level of life. It was forbidden under Old Covenant Law, and a violation resulted in ex-communication from the covenant people (Gen 9:4; Lev 3:17; 7:26; 17:10-12; Dt 12:16 & 23). To consume Christ does not pull us down to the level of animals but elevates us to life in Christ:
It is interesting to note the different verbs for "to eat" that Jesus used in the discourse. In the earlier part of His address (verses 49-53), He used the usual Greek verbs for humans eating or consuming food = phago/phagos. He continued using the usual word for "eat" until becoming frustrated with the people's lack of understanding. He then increased the intensity of His words (beginning in verse 54) and abruptly changed the verb. When Jesus spoke about Himself in verses 54, 56, 57, and 58, He used the verb whose Greek root trogo means to "chew or gnaw." Greek literature used this word to describe the feeding of animals such as mules, pigs, and cattle; however, it was not used in the 1st century AD to describe people's eating habits. In the Bread of Life Discours in John Chapter 6, Jesus used this verb four times in the second half of the discourse. It appears five times in the Fourth Gospel (the fifth time is in Jn 13:18), and in every case, it appears in connection with Christ. Jesus's use of the verb trogo marks a change of emphasis from everyday eating to the necessity of faith in the supernatural consumption of the Eucharist. This verb's graphic and almost crude connotation adds even greater force to the repetition of Jesus's words. He demanded that we express our faith by eating in a real and physical way His Body and by consuming in a real and physical way His Blood in the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist.
Here is a breakdown of the verbs used in the discourse:
Jesus said:
| Verse 49 | "Your fathers ate [phagon] manna in the desert, and they died" |
| Verse 50 | "... that a person may eat [phage] it and not die" |
| Verse 51 | "Anyone who eats [phagon] this bread will live forever" |
| Verse 52 | "How can this man give us his flesh to eat [phagein]?" |
| Verse 53 | "If you do not eat [phagethe] the flesh of the Son of man" |
| Verse 54 | "Anyone who does eat [trogon] my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life" |
| Verse 56 | "Whoever eats [trogon] my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me" |
| Verse 57 | "...whoever eats [trogon] me will also draw life from me." |
| Verse 58 |
"...it is not like the bread our ancestors ate [phagon]" "...but anyone who eats [trogon] this bread will live forever." |
56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains [menei]
in me and I in him.
Another interesting Greek word is the verb menei/meno,
meaning "to remain, abide, or live." When one receives Christ in the Holy
Eucharist, He "remains"/abides/lives in that person. The Greek verb meno
is one of the most important theological terms in John's Gospel. The Father menon
(remains-lives-abides) in the Son (Jn 14:10), the Spirit emeinen (abides)
in Jesus (Jn 1:32), and believers menei (abide) in Jesus and He in them
(Jn 6:56 and J15:4). Just as Jesus has His life from the Father and the Father
is in Him, so too believers who receive Christ in the Eucharist have "life"
because Jesus's life remains/abides/lives in them. He promises He will always
remain/abide with us until the end of time (Mt 27:20). Reference: The Interlinear
Bible: Greek-English, Volume IV: New Testament; The Gospel of John; Logos
Library System.
Offering Christ's flesh in sacrifice for the life of the world connects the Incarnation, "the Word made flesh" (Jn 1:14), and the peace/communion sacrifice of the Old Covenant Toda ("thanksgiving" in Hebrew) to the New Covenant communion sacrifice we call the Eucharist (from the Greek word for "thanksgiving"). The early Church recognized Jesus's words to the crowd in John 5:51 as a Eucharistic formula. The Old Latin and the Syriac liturgies still contain this verse in their Eucharistic prayers: This bread which I shall give is my body for the life of the world.
CCC 787: "From the beginning, Jesus associated his disciples with his own life, revealed the mystery of the Kingdom to them, and gave them a share in his mission, joy, and sufferings. Jesus spoke of a more intimate communion between him and those who would follow Him: 'Abide in me, and I in you...I am the vine; you are the branches.' And he proclaimed a mysterious and real communion between his own body and ours: 'He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.'"
CCC 789: "When his visible presence was taken from them, Jesus did not leave his disciples orphans. He promised to remain with them until the end of time; he sent them his Spirit. As a result, communion with Jesus has become, in a way, more intense: 'By communicating his Spirit, Christ mystically constitutes as his body those brothers of his who are called together from every nation.'"
Catechism References (* indicates Scripture quoted or
paraphrased in the citation):
Deuteronomy 8:3 (CCC 1334*, 2835)
John 6:51 (CCC 728*, 1355, 1406, 2837*); 6:53-56 (CCC 2837*); 6:53 (CCC 1384); 6:54 (CCC 994*, 1001, 1406, 1509*, 1524); 6:56 (CCC 787, 1391, 1406); 6:57 (CCC 1391); 6:58 (CCC 1509*)
The Holy Eucharist (CCC 790*, 1003*, 1322-1325, 1326, 1327, 1328*, 1329*, 1330*, 1331*, 1332, 1333*, 1334*, 1335*, 1336*, 1337*, 1338*, 1339*, 1340, 1341*, 1342*, 1343*, 1344*, 1345-1346, 1347*, 1348, 1349*, 1350-1354, 1355*, 1356*, 1357-1362, 1363*, 1364*, 1365*, 1366*, 1367*, 1368-1371, 1372*, 1373*, 1374-1375, 1376*, 1377-1379, 1380*, 1381-1383, 1384*, 1385*, 1386*, 1387-1390, 1391*, 1392, 1393*, 1394*, 1395, 1396*, 1397*, 1398-1402, 1403*, 1404*, 1405*, 1406, 1412-1419)
The Eucharist and the communion of believers (CCC 805, 950, 2181-2182; 2637, 2845*) The Eucharist as spiritual food (CCC 1212, 1275, 1436, 2837*)
Michal E Hunt, Copyright © 2014; revised 2023 Agape Bible Study. Permissions All Rights Reserved.