“‘What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? 

What can you do? 

Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written:

He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’

So Jesus said to them,

‘Amen, amen, I say to you,

it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven;

my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 

For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven

and gives life to the world.’

So they said to him, ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’

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.’”

At St. Pats, Deacon Greg mentioned last week that we are currently reading for our Gospel readings on Sunday from what is called the Bread of Life Discourse from chapter six of the Gospel of John. There are three cycles of readings for Sundays in the liturgical year designated as Year A (Gospel of Matthew), Year B (Gospel of Mark), and Year C (Gospel of Luke). In Year B, we also read from the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John for five weeks. This year, because the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (August 15) falls on a Sunday, it supersedes the readings for the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time and we miss one of the readings from the Gospel of John. In any case, these weeks from the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John are, perhaps, the most theologically developed reflection on the Eucharist in all of scripture. They were, for me, the most pivotal verses when I was challenged in my Catholic faith by well meaning Protestant friends. Even using their method of interpreting scripture, I couldn’t see how the Eucharist wasn’t really Jesus’s enduring body and blood. 

Having already put my trust in Jesus as God and in the scriptures as the Spirit breathed revelation of Jesus, I took seriously this chapter and the actions and words of Jesus contained there in. I didn’t just see them symbolically, metaphorically, or with some other mental gymnastics to rob them of their power. John intended this chapter to speak theologically about the Eucharist. The five loaves and two fish last week that fed five thousand indicated the abundance of God’s grace made present in the Eucharist from our small offering. This week, we see that Jesus himself is the bread (and blood) of life that fills our hunger and thirst. Next week, Jesus will say that whoever eats this bread will live forever and that the bread he gives is his “flesh for the life of the world.” In the Gospel reading we miss because of the Assumption, Jesus will say, “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.” As an indication that Jesus didn’t mean this just symbolically, in the final week of the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John, we will hear that this was a hard teaching and many of his disciples stopped following him because of this. 

The Eucharist is rich with symbol, but it is much more than just symbol. It is the very life and presence of Jesus in his body and blood given for the life of the world, over-abundant with God’s grace, filling the deepest hunger and thirst we experience, and leading us to eternal life. It is our communion with God. Believe and receive.