Friday of the Third Week of Easter

The end of Jesus’ teaching on the Bread of Life brings us straight to the gift of the Eucharist. St. John does not record the words of Christ at the Last Supper, but we may suppose that this part of the teaching was given at the Last Supper. St. John includes it as part of the discourse given in Capharnaum undoubtedly to help us connect the two events. Jesus began teaching about a real gift of food he was to give his disciples before his passion. Food is certainly something that “dies” in order to give life to the one who destroys it. Christ offers Himself to be destroyed, “chewed up,” consumed by those who believe in Him, that their hearts may be resurrected into His own Living Flesh. Eating the Eucharistic Bread with faith causes a transformation of our flesh, most especially the flesh of our heart.

The gift of self in God is total yet involves no suffering. The Father gives His Life, His substance, completely to the Son – the Son completely empties His whole being into the bosom, the heart, of the Father. This exchange is the Holy Spirit. Because of the fall, because of sin, the gift of self now involves suffering. Our own selfishness and the selfishness of others riddles generosity and self-gift with pain and hurt. The sensitivity of human flesh which once revealed pure receptivity to another, now manifests the brokenness and trepidation of the human soul sick with sin. By exposing His flesh to our teeth, Christ destroys the cycle of selfishness protected by the aversion to suffering. Suffering, freely and lovingly chosen, becomes instead the path back to an authentic vulnerability capable of self-gift. The vulnerability and sensitivity of human flesh becomes, in Christ, the nourishing food of eternal life.

Cyril of Alexandria:

How he will give them his flesh to eat he does not yet tell them, for he knew they were in darkness and would never in that state be able to understand what is ineffable.… But the power of learning suitably follows on those who believe.… It was therefore right that faith should first be rooted in them before understanding.… And it is for this reason (I suppose) that the Lord refrained from telling them how he would give them his flesh to eat, calling them to believe before they seek. For those who believed, however, he broke bread and gave it to them, saying, “Take, eat; this is my body.” … Do you see how he does not explain the mystery to those who had senselessly rejected the faith without investigation? But, to those who believe, he declares it most clearly.¹

Augustine:

The Lord and master was inviting his slaves, and the food he had prepared for them was himself. Who would ever dare to eat his own Lord and master? And yet he said, “Whoever eats me lives because of me.” When Christ is eaten, life is eaten. Nor is he killed in order to be eaten, but he brings life to the dead. When he is eaten, he nourishes without diminishing. So do not be afraid, brothers and sisters, of eating this bread, in case we should possibly finish it and find nothing to eat later on. Let Christ be eaten; when eaten he lives because when slain he rose again.²

“Your ancestors ate […] and died…” :

This almost certainly means physical death as contrasted with spiritual life. Yet there was a late Jewish tradition that the generation in the desert died spiritually as well and would have no place in the world to come.³

Even though the verses in 51–58 are remarkably like those of 35–50, a new vocabulary runs through them: “eat,” “feed,” “drink,” “flesh,” “blood.”³

[…] there is really no Hebrew or Aramaic word for “body,” as we understand the term; and many scholars maintain that at the Last Supper what Jesus actually said was the Aramaic equivalent of “This is my flesh.”⁴

Footnotes

Commentary on the Gospel of John 4.2.
Sermon 132a.
Brown, R. E. (2008). The Gospel according to John (I–XII): Introduction, translation, and notes (Vol. 29, p. 284). New Haven; London: Yale University Press.
Brown, R. E. (2008). The Gospel according to John (I–XII): Introduction, translation, and notes (Vol. 29, p. 285). New Haven; London: Yale University Press.

Daily Readings

Saturday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
by USCCB on November 23, 2024 at 9:30 am
Reading Rv 11:4-12 I, John, heard a voice from heaven speak to me: Here are my two witnesses: These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. If anyone wants to harm them, fire comes out of their mouths and devours their enemies. In this way, anyone wanting to harm them is sure to be slain. They have the power to close up the sky so that no rain can fall during the time of their prophesying. They also have power to turn water into blood and to afflict the earth with any plague as often as they wish. When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the abyss will wage war against them and conquer them and kill them. Their corpses will lie in the main street of the great city, which has the symbolic names “Sodom” and “Egypt,” where indeed their Lord was crucified. Those from every people, tribe, tongue, and nation will gaze on their corpses for three and a half days, and they will not allow their corpses to be buried. The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and be glad and exchange gifts because these two prophets tormented the inhabitants of the earth. But after the three and a half days, a breath of life from God entered them. When they stood on their feet, great fear fell on those who saw them. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven say to them, “Come up here.” So they went up to heaven in a cloud as their enemies looked on. Responsorial Psalm Psalm 144:1, 2, 9-10 R. (1b) Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!Blessed be the LORD, my rock,who trains my hands for battle, my fingers for war.R. Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!My mercy and my fortress,my stronghold, my deliverer,My shield, in whom I trust,who subdues my people under me.R. Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!O God, I will sing a new song to you;with a ten stringed lyre I will chant your praise,You who give victory to kings,and deliver David, your servant from the evil sword.R. Blessed be the Lord, my Rock! Alleluia See 2 Tm 1:10 R. Alleluia, alleluia. Our Savior Jesus Christ has destroyed death and brought life to light through the Gospel. R. Alleluia, alleluia. Gospel Lk 20:27-40 Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to Jesus, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us, If someone’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman but died childless. Then the second and the third married her, and likewise all the seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be? For all seven had been married to her.” Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise. That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called ‘Lord’ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.” Some of the scribes said in reply, “Teacher, you have answered well.” And they no longer dared to ask him anything. Readings for the Optional Memorial of Blessed Miguel Agustín Pro, priest and martyrReadings for the Optional Memorial of Saint Columban, abbotReadings for the Optional Memorial of Saint Clement I, pope and martyr - - - Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States, second typical edition, Copyright © 2001, 1998, 1997, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine; Psalm refrain © 1968, 1981, 1997, International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc. All rights reserved. Neither this work nor any part of it may be reproduced, distributed, performed or displayed in any medium, including electronic or digital, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Footnotes

Like this:

Related

Share this:

Footnotes

Like this:

Related