‘Eat my flesh, drink my blood’: shocking, but true

Corpus Christi, Year A
First Reading: Dt 8:2-3, 14-16
Second Reading: 1 Cor 10:16-17
 Gospel Reading: Jn 6:51-59 

Jesus said that by eating his flesh and drinking his blood, we will live with his kind of life, God’s life, which will last forever. St. Paul said that by all feeding on the same body, we will become one.

It is as shocking as the belief of those who martyred St. John Brebeuf and his companions: that if they ate their victims’ hearts they would share their victims’ courage.

However, it is true. At the Last Supper, Jesus declared solemnly that what still looked like bread and wine were now his body and blood; and he did not just order his apostles, but actually empowered them, to do what he had done.

That is what a priest does at Mass. In spite of appearances, the bread and wine are no longer “what nature has formed, but what the blessing has consecrated,” St. Ambrose said; “nature itself is changed.”

This conversion, or transubstantiation, of bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood “cannot be apprehended by the senses,” St. Thomas Aquinas said, “but only by faith, which relies on divine authority.”

“Do not doubt whether this is true,” St. Cyril said, “but rather receive the words of the Saviour in faith, for since he is the truth, he cannot lie.”

Faith is a supernatural gift from God. However, it is also a virtue, and therefore must be nurtured – but how?

First, by our behaviour in church: arriving early, modestly dressed; genuflecting; talking to Jesus instead of our neighbours; replying “Amen” at Communion when the minister says “The body of Christ”; and staying afterward.

Second, by our language. A teacher told me that once, when a student asked what “momentum” was, he gave the classic definition: “mass times velocity.”

“I know how to calculate it,” the student replied, “but what is it?”

The teacher thought for a moment, and then said, “Do you know what time is?” The student nodded. “What?” asked the teacher.

The student was silent. “You know how to tell the time,” said the teacher; “you can talk about it, measure it, and solve problems with it. You have a sense of time and a feeling for time, all without understanding what time is.”

“Learn about momentum as you learned about time,” he advised: “read about it, discuss it, and solve problems with it. That’s all you can do.”

In this process, language is critical, the teacher told me. “I never let students say ‘the voltage through a light bulb,’” he said; “voltage is not something that moves; it’s a difference between the two sides of the bulb. My students think I’m picky, but I know that unless they talk about voltage properly, they’ll never get a sense of it.”

We cannot understand the Eucharist any more than we can understand time, momentum, or voltage. However, we can develop our “sense” of it, and, even more important, our belief in it – but not unless we talk about it correctly.

For example, we should never say – as one hymn says – that “we come to share the wine.” We come to Mass because it is not wine, but Christ’s blood. We should never say – as a priest once said – that people had received “only part of Christ’s body” because he had had to break the hosts. Even the smallest part of a consecrated host is Christ’s body, blood, soul, and divinity, whole and entire.

Words are important. “One does not live by bread alone,” Moses cautioned the people, “but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

In talking about the Eucharist, we say “breaking the bread,” “sharing the cup,” “going to Mass,” “celebrating the Lord’s Supper,” “receiving Communion,” and “consuming the host.” Both the Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church use these phrases.

However, let us never be too embarrassed to use Jesus’ own frank, prosaic, unvarnished language: eating his body and drinking his blood.