Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ 05-25-08

Scripture Readings
First Dt 8:2-3, 14b-16a
Second 1 Cor 10:16-17
Gospel Jn 6:51-58

Prepared by: Fr. Lawrence J. Donohoo, O.P.

1. Subject Matter
• First reading: The manna in the desert, along with the water from the rock, is both a divine
consolation after divine punishment and a sign of God’s providential love in guiding his
people to the Promised Land.
• Second reading: The Eucharistic bread and cup is a sharing in Christ’s own body and blood
as well as a sign and cause of the unity among those who partake in it.
• Gospel: The flesh of Christ is the new manna that offers an immortality that the manna in the
desert could not provide and sustains believers on their journey to the promised land of
heaven.

2. Exegetical Notes
• “Interpreters generally read the whole discourse as eucharistic (sacramental) of as non-
sacramental. In the latter interpretation the passage is sapiential, concerned with the motif of
belief and eternal life. Many accept that vv. 51c-58 are unavoidably eucharistic, but then
regard them as a secondary addition to an originally sapiential text. . . .Others have
suggested. . .that there are eucharistic hints in an otherwise sapiential discourse. These hints
are resolved in the final section of the discourse, which continues the themes of belief and
eternal life, but in language that situates belief within the context of the eucharistic
celebration of the community.” (Moloney)
• “With the concluding sentence in v 51, . . .the topic shifts from Jesus as revealer of the
Father, who has come from heaven, to specifying the bread that Jesus gives in eucharistic
terms.” (NJBC)
• “The parallel sayings about flesh and blood appear to represent the eucharistic formula used
in the Johannine community. Unlike the formulas in the Synoptics and Paul, the body of
Christ is referred to with the word sarx, “flesh,” not soma, “body.” (NJBC)
• The Jews’ quarreling among themselves “continues the theme of the ‘grumbling’ from
Exodus 16.” (Moloney)

3. References to the Catechism of the Catholic Church

• 994 Jesus links faith in the resurrection to his own person: "I am the Resurrection and the
life." It is Jesus himself who on the last day will raise up those who have believed in him, who
have eaten his body and drunk his blood. Already now in this present life he gives a sign and
pledge of this by restoring some of the dead to life, announcing thereby his own
Resurrection, though it was to be of another order. He speaks of this unique event as the
"sign of Jonah," the sign of the temple: he announces that he will be put to death but rise
thereafter on the third day.
• 1325 The Eucharist is the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that communion in the divine
life and that unity of the People of God by which the Church is kept in being. It is the
culmination both of God's action sanctifying the world in Christ and of the worship men offer
to Christ and through him to the Father in the Holy Spirit.
• 1326 By the Eucharistic celebration we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and
anticipate eternal life, when God will be all in all.
• 2837 “The Eucharist is our daily bread. The power belonging to this divine food makes it a
bond of union. Its effect is then understood as unity, so that, gathered into his Body and
made members of him, we may become what we receive. . . . This also is our daily bread:
the readings you hear each day in church and the hymns you hear and sing. All these are
necessities for our pilgrimage.” (St. Peter Chrysologus)
• 1405 There is no surer pledge or dearer sign of this great hope in the new heavens and new
earth "in which righteousness dwells," than the Eucharist. Every time this mystery is
celebrated, "the work of our redemption is carried on" and we "break the one bread that
provides the medicine of immortality, the antidote for death, and the food that makes us live
for ever in Jesus Christ."
• 1509 [The Church] believes in the life-giving presence of Christ, the physician of souls and
bodies. This presence is particularly active through the sacraments, and in an altogether
special way through the Eucharist, the bread that gives eternal life and that St. Paul suggests
is connected with bodily health.

4. Patristic Commentary
• “Finally, the sacrifices of the Lord proclaim the unity of Christians, bound together by the
bond of a firm and inviolable charity. For when the Lord, in speaking of bread which is
produced by the compacting of many grains of wheat, refers to it as his body, he is
describing our people whose unity he has sustained, and when he refers to wine pressed
from many grapes and berries, as his blood, he is speaking of our flock, formed by the fusing
of many united together.” (St. Cyprian)
• “Let us submit to God in all things and not contradict him, even if what he says seems
contrary to our reason and intellect; rather let his words prevail over our reason and intellect.
Let us act in this way with regard to the (eucharistic) mysteries, looking not only at what falls
 under our senses but holding on to His words. For His word cannot lead us astray.” (St. John
Chryostom)
• “I wish to add something that is plainly awe-inspiring, but do not be astonished or upset. This
Sacrifice, no matter who offers it, be it Peter or Paul, is always the same as that which Christ
gave His disciples and which priests now offer: The offering of today is in no way inferior to
that which Christ offered, because it is not men who sanctify the offering of today; it is the
same Christ who sanctified His own. For just as the words which God spoke are the very
same as those which the priest now speaks, so too the oblation is the very same.” (St. John
Chryostom)
• “Surely the word of Christ, which could make out of nothing that which did not exist, can
change things already in existence into what they were not. For it is no less extraordinary to
give things new natures than to change their natures.” (St. Ambrose)

5. Examples from the Saints and Other Exemplars

• St. Thomas Aquinas, who intentionally wrote in dry and abstract prose for the sake of clarity,
abandoned this style and manifested an extraordinary eloquence in composing the Liturgy of
Corpus Christi.
• Though often suffering terrible physical pain, St. Catherine of Siena lived for long intervals on
practically no food other than the Blessed Sacrament, yet she was always radiantly happy
and full of practical wisdom for others.

6. Quotations
• “[Jesus] anticipated his death and resurrection by giving his disciples, in the bread and wine,
his very self, his body and blood as the new manna (cf. Jn 6:31-33). The ancient world had
dimly perceived that man's real food—what truly nourishes him as man—is ultimately the
Logos, eternal wisdom: this same Logos now truly becomes food for us—as love. The
Eucharist draws us into Jesus' act of self-oblation. More than just statically receiving the
incarnate Logos, we enter into the very dynamic of his self-giving.” (Benedict XVI, Deus
caritas est)
• “Union with Christ is also union with all those to whom he gives himself. I cannot possess
Christ just for myself; I can belong to him only in union with all those who have become, or
who will become, his own. Communion draws me out of myself towards him, and thus also
towards unity with all Christians. We become ‘one body’, completely joined in a single
existence. Love of God and love of neighbour are now truly united: God incarnate draws us
all to himself. We can thus understand how agape also became a term for the Eucharist:
there God's own agape comes to us bodily, in order to continue his work in us and through
us.” (Benedict XVI, Deus caritas est)
• “The saints—consider the example of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta—constantly renewed their
capacity for love of neighbour from their encounter with the Eucharistic Lord, and conversely
this encounter acquired its realism and depth in their service to others.” (Benedict XVI, Deus
caritas est)
• “This communion, this act of ‘eating’ is really a meeting between two persons; it is to allow
oneself to be penetrated by the life of the One who is Lord, who is my Creator and
Redeemer.” (Benedict XVI)
• “The Eucharist is food for the healthy, but it is also medicine for the sick.” (Luis de Granada).

7. Other Considerations
• In the Incarnation, the divinity and humanity are joined without violence to either nature. The
human viewpoint is retained in the Incarnation. But matter, the lowliest substance of being,
has no viewpoint, because it is not personal. Bread and wine, however, as the work of
human hands, are directed to human consumption. So here God gives matter a viewpoint by
making it himself in the Blessed Sacrament, and he takes on the human meaning by
becoming our food and drink.
• “O Sacred Banquet, in which Christ becomes our food; the memory of his Passion is
celebrated; the soul is filled with grace; and a pledge of eternal life is given to us.” The
dimension of the present (“the soul is filled with grace”) and of the future (“pledge of eternal
life”) are addressed in today’s Gospel.
• “[T]he Real Presence in the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ overcomes the ‘real absence’
that besieges our life. . . .[T]he bread come down from heaven imparts to us ‘eternal life’;
right now we begin to ‘live forever’ through divinization. The sign that we do have Christ’s life
within us is that we assume the attributes of heaven. By partaking of the Eucharist, we
partake of the divine nature.” (Peter John Cameron)

Recommended Resources
Benedict XVI. Benedictus: Day by Day with Pope Benedict XVI. Edited by Peter John Cameron.
Yonkers: Magnificat, 2006.
Benedict XVI. Deus Caritas Est (God is Love).
Brown, Raymond A., Joseph A. Fitzmyer and Roland E. Murphy, eds. The New Jerome Biblical
Commentary. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: 1990.
Cameron, Peter John. To Praise, To Bless, To Preach - Cycle C. Huntington: Our Sunday
Visitor, 2000.
Moloney, Francis J. The Gospel of John. Sacra Pagina Series, vol. 4. Collegeville, MN: The
Liturgical Press, 1998.
Paul VI. Mysterium Fidei