20th Sunday of Ordinary Time, B August 18, 2024
Fr. Alexander Albert St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville
N.B. This is the fourth homily in a series. The third is here.
“How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” How indeed. Perhaps we’re so used to the idea of the Eucharist that we don’t appreciate the difficulty of answering that question. These crowds have seen Jesus heal the sick, cast out demons, and multiply food to feed 5000 people. He is obviously no ordinary man, but a miracle-worker and a prophet.
Yet, as miraculous as those other things are, they all seem more… accessible; things that stretch nature in various ways, but don’t quite break it. Our bodies heal a little on their own, so it’s not as hard to accept when someone magnifies that ability to miraculous proportions. Multiplying food is incredible… but at least there was food to start with. Casting out demons is phenomenal, but they already aren’t supposed to be there, so it makes sense that you can sometimes get rid of them.
But this… this idea of a man feeding people with his own flesh and blood? It’s not natural in the same way. Sure, he could perhaps multiply his own body the same way he multiplied bread and make sure everyone gets a small piece… but there’s still the problem that eating a person is not like eating fish or bread. Cannibalism is listed as a curse in the Old Testament. And Jews weren’t supposed to drink even animal blood! “How can he give us his flesh to eat” is more than a logistical question, it’s an expression of moral revulsion, of horror that someone so apparently holy would suggest something so terrible.
When you really take the time to weigh up just how difficult a teaching this is for the ancient Jews, you can begin to understand why some people – including most non-Catholic Christians – think that Jesus is maybe being symbolic. That he doesn’t mean we actually eat his body and drink his blood. After all, Jesus at one point calls God a mother hen, calls himself a gate, and uses hyperbole in a variety of different situations. Surely this is just one more example of that, right?
It’s a tempting idea, but it doesn’t hold up. For one thing, whenever Jesus is being symbolic, he is far less insistent. In just a few verses he says five times that his flesh and blood are food and drink. He also usually explains himself in other ways. But here, Jesus never takes it back or softens it or explains it away. For another thing, every time Jesus starts a saying with “amen, amen I say to you,” we know he is making a very serious claim. And what does he say? “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.” If you add in what the other gospels show at the last supper and what St. Paul says to the Corinthians, it is clear that Jesus really means we have to eat his flesh and drink his blood.
Much to the relief of his followers, however, Jesus provides a way to literally eat his flesh and drink his blood without having to physically cut him up and put him on a table. Part of the answer to the question “how can he do this?” is “because he is God.” When Jesus teaches the crowds about his flesh and blood, he is intentionally straining their trust and understanding. Why? Because he wants them to reach out in faith. They haven’t quite figured out that Jesus is not just a prophet, not just the messiah, but God himself. By putting in front of them this apparent contradiction of holy miracle worker vs. crazy cannibal, he’s making them stretch out in faith that he must be more than just a holy man.
Jesus is God and so has the power to not only stretch nature by healing people and multiplying loaves, but to completely override nature and make it possible to eat his body without literally chewing on his arms and legs. And he does this through the Eucharist. As we see in the last supper, Jesus takes bread and wine and miraculously makes it so that the bread and wine are his body and blood. Not a symbol, but truly.
Most of you know this already. You know we call it transubstantiation. It’s kind of like taking a person and swapping out their soul. They would look and sound the same way, but would be a different person. Well, it’s sort of like Jesus takes the “soul” the invisible “breadness” and “wineness” out and replaces it with his own body, blood, soul, and divinity. How? Because he is God.
Are we sure this is literal and not a symbol? Yes, both for the scripture references I gave earlier and because of the witness of the early Christians. This is something we can only know by faith, but we do know that we are supposed to believe it literally. All of the ancient Christian teachers agree that it is truly Jesus’ body, blood, soul, and divinity. St. Tarcisius died rather than let kids steal the Eucharist from him. Romans accused Christians of cannibalism when they heard and read what we believed.
Throughout history and up to our own day, the Church has never stopped insisting that the Eucharist is literally God the Son, Jesus Christ’s body, blood, soul, and divinity. Over 50,000 Catholics gathered in Indianapolis just last month to celebrate this and when the Eucharist entered the room, an entire stadium fell silent, fell to their knees, and adored. It was no mere symbol.
If you haven’t already, do yourself a favor: go back and watch the moment when Jonathan Roumie acts out this chapter from John’s Gospel and ask yourself: was Jesus being symbolic? You’ll notice his shirt has a famous quote from Flannery O’Connor, southern author and Catholic. When someone told her “the Eucharist is just a symbol,” she responded “if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.” She’s right. It’s either literally Jesus or we’re wasting our time and committing idolatry. I’ve bet my life on this being far more than a cool symbol.
Now, I get it. I actually don’t blame you if you sometimes struggle to believe this… or a lot of other things the Church teaches. We’ll see next week that you’re not alone and how to move forward. For now, however, whether you believe this easily or struggle to understand, take this much to heart: Jesus Christ wants you to live forever in joy with him. He wants it so badly he’s here talking about giving his own flesh and blood to give you that life. Believe in that love because that is really the answer that matters most to this question: “How can he give us his flesh to eat?” Because he loves us so much that even that is a price he is willing to pay to save us. To save me. To save you. Taste that love and you will see just how good the Lord is.