When our Lord first spoke those words in the synagogue at Capernaum, most people were scandalized. It seemed like nonsense, this “eating flesh and drinking blood.” The Jews were offended. People left Him and wouldn't follow Him anymore. They thought He was crazy or a blasphemer. Even the disciples were deeply disturbed by Christ’s words. What could He possibly mean? They were puzzled, and remained puzzled, until that history-changing night that was to come, the night of the Passover in which Jesus was to be betrayed by one of His own, and would be given over to be tortured and killed.
On that night, the upper room had been prepared and the unleavened bread had been baked. The Passover Lamb had been sacrificed and roasted. Jesus was at the head of the table with His apostles, and He took the large piece of unleavened flat bread that signaled the opening of the Passover meal. He gave thanks to His Father for the gifts. He broke it and gave the pieces to His disciples. Up until this point, this had been a Passover like any another Passover. Along with every other Jew, they had been recalling God's grace to Israel when He had brought them out of slavery in Egypt into freedom, through the blood of the lamb smeared on their doorposts.
But then Jesus spoke, and what He said at that moment changed everything. "Take, eat. This is my body, which is given for you." And again, after the supper, Jesus took a chalice of wine. He gave thanks and then said something that had never before been said at a Passover meal, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood." And with those words, Jesus transformed the Passover meal forever. Under the outward form of the bread, He gives His body as food – the very body He received from His mother Mary; He gives the body that was conceived in her through the Word spoken by the angel by the power of the Holy Spirit; it is the body that was wrapped in swaddling-clothes and laid in a manger; one and the same body that was whipped and beaten, spit at and slapped; He gives us the very body that was nailed to the cross, laid in the tomb, and raised from the dead on the third day.
St Paul asked the question: “The bread that we break, it is not a participation in the body of Christ?” The answer to St. Paul’s question is, of course, “Yes.” In His mercy, our Lord allows it to keep the outward form of bread so that we can eat it, but it truly is His Body. And as if to emphasize the point to us, St. Paul asks a second but similar question: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?” The answer is, of course, “Yes.” Our Lord tells us it is, and He never lies. At the Word of Christ, that which is in the Chalice at every Mass is truly and completely His blood. This is the blood of the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. It was common for medieval artists to depict a chalice at the foot of the cross, with a stream of blood pouring into it from the wounded side of Jesus. The Church has always understood the force of Christ’s words. The blood that was shed on Calvary's cross is our Cup of Salvation. As the Scriptures declare: “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for let; therefore let us keep the Feast.” Jesus Christ was offered up for our sins on the Cross, and in the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, this offering is perpetually brought before the throne of Almighty God where Christ, our great High Priest, pleads His own sacrifice as the propitiation for our sins.
St. Paul wrote to the Ephesians (5:15) to “look carefully how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise…” We’re on a great pilgrimage in this life. It is a pilgrimage on which our eternal future depends, and we are told to walk carefully, with our eyes and our hearts fixed on the truth which God Himself has given us for our guidance, walking by faith and not by sight, with our attention, our affections, taken up not by the petty and passing things of this world, but by the great realities of that kingdom we cannot see. We are to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. We are to follow consciences which have been formed and informed by the study of God’s truth and by prayer and by the diligent use of all of those means of grace given to us by God. And as Christ has made it very clear, He gives us all that we need to make this walk of faith: He gives Himself. Christ is that eternal Food which sustains us on our journey; Christ is that Food which gives us strength when we are weak, and which steadies us when we stumble.
How many people do we know – or perhaps we ourselves fall into the category – of having lives that are confused, or seem pointless, or have problems that seem overwhelming at times. And yet, Christ has given us the sacraments for precisely those situations. Just imagine what this world would be like if people took Christ at His word: when He said, "This My body given for you; this is My blood shed for you." Just imagine what it would be like if everyone believed that, and lived their lives in the light of that truth! But all too often people look for their own solutions. They try map out their own paths, as though they are better able than God is, to determine what they need.
The Son of God paid the price to make us His own, by giving His body and blood on the cross. And we need to believe Him when He says "Take this, all of you, and eat it. This is my body given for you. Take this, all of you, and drink it. This is the cup of my blood shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins." This is the Incarnate God speaking to us that way, and we should take Him at His word.
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Pictured: "The Last Supper"
by Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret (1852-1929)