Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, formerly called Corpus Cristi. Basically the same meaning, but in the Latin only referring to the Body which obviously implied Jesus’ blood. What does this Solemnity mean for Catholics?
Before answering that question I want to share with you some of my own journey in how I came to better understand this great Divine mystery of the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ which we receive at every mass.
A few years prior to entering Seminary a good friend of mine from work and I would go to informal debates/dialogues with Christian Evangelicals, they being of the Biblical Fundamentalist persuasion. Something like this is called Apologetics, not meaning to apologize, but to present one’s position, basically a defense of one’s beliefs.
Being young in the faith at the time, not yet fully delving into the deeper aspects of the Divine mysteries, but basically just beginning to go beyond my youthful CCD instruction, my friend and I entered these debates to win and not necessarily share faith. Yet, God still worked in us and in them.
One debate as you can imagine centered on the Eucharist. The irony here is that Biblical Fundamentalists will read Scripture quite literally and really defend Jesus’ words when he makes important statements. Yet, when Jesus calls himself the bread of God, and that this bread is his flesh and blood, Fundamentalists will rigorously defend the position that Jesus is speaking analogously, therefore John chapter 6 is not literal but symbolic. I want show you the passage in question in full here so that we can analyze it more deeply.
Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst. But I told you that although you have seen (me), you do not believe . . . Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me . . . The Jews murmured about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven," and they said, "Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph? Do we not know his father and mother? Then how can he say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" Jesus answered and said to them, "Stop murmuring among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. 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." The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?" 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. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. 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. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever." These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. Then many of his disciples who were listening said, "This saying is hard; who can accept it?" Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, "Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe." Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him. And he said, "For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father." As a result of this, many (of) his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him. Jesus then said to the Twelve, "Do you also want to leave?" Simon Peter answered him, "Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God." (John 6:35-37, 41-42, 48-70)
The reason Fundamentalists believe the Eucharist to be figurative or symbolic is that Jesus referred to the Eucharist as the spirit that gives life and that the flesh is of no avail. Jesus was simply instructing the crowd that he was giving them this food “his body and blood” in a supernatural way through the work of the Holy Spirit. He was not going to give them carnal flesh to eat since that would be a gross violation of the natural and Divine law, i.e. cannibalism. We receive the supernatural Jesus, yet it must be clear, we receive Jesus fully, his Body, Blood, Soul, and even Divinity, the entire person.
Jesus says at least five times that it was going to be him that they receive, the bread is no longer manna from the desert, but the manna is now Jesus. Regular bread can only satisfy for a short while, Jesus can satisfy for eternity that is why he replaces the old with himself, since it was the old that was the symbol of what was to come.
Also, if a person was speaking analogously or figuratively they knew to use words such as, “like” or “as.” When you see those words it’s a dead giveaway that someone is speaking figuratively. I.E. "He is as strong as a bull." All of us know that no human is as strong as a bull; the reference is here made to denote that the person is quite strong. Another way of saying it is, “He has the strength of a bull.” Even though like and as has not been used I still know it is symbolic. If the person goes on five or six times telling me his is a bull, I would question the person. “You can’t be serious?” No one can possess a bull’s strength. If the person was speaking symbolically they would have told me at the end of the conversation. If they insisted in the literal I have two choices, one is to believe the person making the claim or to walk away. Just as some of the apostles walked away, some stayed. Those who walked away did so because Jesus was clear, “His body and blood is the bread- literally.” If they understood him speaking symbolically no one would have walked away.
St. Paul also strongly reminds us not to eat this bread (Jesus) unworthily since it will bring condemnation on those who do. Why does he do that if he understood that the bread was just bread? Can bread condemn you? Bread is neutral, if not a good of the earth, but it cannot condemn, only God can judge us. Unless what we are eating is not bread at all, but rather Christ the Lord. If that is the case, receiving Him unworthily could surely bring commendation.
It took me a while to begin to understand the Eucharist and it was during my apologetical debates that helped begin that understanding. And yet, I have only scratched the surface. There is so much more to reflect on and a thousand lifetimes would not be enough to understand fully what it is we partake in when we receive Jesus.
I pray we all receive Jesus worthily for in receiving Him we are given Divine life, the real and true bread of angels, The Body, Blood, and Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Fr. John
