Being Eucharist for Others

Friday in the Thrid Week of Easter

Acts 9:1-20; Jn 6:52-59

The Jews quarreled among themselves, we read in today’s gospel because they could not understand how could this man give them his flesh to eat.

It is the same reaction that we do. We too wonder why and how does Jesus give us his flesh to eat.

A few years ago I was delivering a talk about the Eucharist in a youth group and a young man asked me, Who do we actually eat the Eucharist? Wouldn’t simply adoring it and asking God to give us the graces be enough?

No, I replied. Jesus wanted to give us his body and blood so that we eat it and we actually ingest it. That is the beauty of the sacraments. They. Are not just spiritual graces, but they are spiritual graces which reach us through physical things. It is through his body that Jesus saves us body and soul.

There is a certain drama in Jesus’ reply which we do not get because of the translation. But if we were to go to the original text we would read that Jesus does not simply say, whoever eats by body and drinks my blood, but whoever masticates my body! It is a strong word which reminds us also of the suffering that Jesus has chosen to pass through to show us his love and how close he wants to be to us.

St Auguastine used to say that when we eat food it becomes part of us but when we eat the body of Christ, we become part of him.

Just as the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Jesus, so are we changed into his Body.

What does this mean? This means that we have to expect to put our life down for others just as Jesus laid down his life for us. We have to expect to be masticated for the love of God. St Palycarp of Smyrna, one of the very first Chruch Fathers when he was on his way to be thrown into the Coluseum by the Romans to die as a martyr, used to say that he cannot wait until the lions tear his body and grind his bones under their teeth just as grains of wheat are ground to make bread and grapes are squeezed to make wine, which in turn become the Body and Blood of Jesus.

Perhaps the most beautiful image we find in nature and which has always been used in the iconography and symbology of the Catholic Church is of the female pelican which tears the tender of her breast to feed her young.

This is the meaning of the eucharist for us and we are only just scratching the surface.

Today, after having received the Eucharist, how am I going to be Eucharist for others?