“The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
John Chapter 6 is called the Bread of Life Discourse. It is in this discourse that Jesus promises to give us His Body and Blood in the Eucharist. He makes other promises as well as central teachings. He promises resurrection from the dead, eternal life, spiritual adoption and unity. He teaches about His ascension into Heaven, the Sacrament of Confirmation, love and free will. All of these promises and teachings flow from and to the Eucharist.
We might ask, regarding the miracle of the Eucharist, “How and why would God perform such a miracle?” Monsignor Guardini’s response [1]: “Love does such things.” Love is powerful, but love cannot be forced upon another. Throughout the Bread of Life Discourse, we see Jesus offering great love.
Saint Catherine of Siena, in the Spiritual Reading writes of what Saint Thomas Aquinas calls the divine exchange. God sharing in humanity, so that man can share in divinity. “What an immeasurably profound love! Your Son went down from the heights of his divinity to the depths of our humanity. Can anyone’s heart remain closed and hardened after this?” [2]
Where do we see Resurrection and Eternal Life in the Bread of Life Discourse?
In the Gospel from the 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Cycle B):
“I will raise him on the last day” (John 6:40): a promise that we will share in the Resurrection of Christ.
“Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me” (John 6:45): We have the honor of learning from God Himself. We have the privilege of listening to Him. What is the result of listening to God and learning from God? We are united to His Son, Jesus Christ.
“Whoever believes has eternal life” (John 6:47): a promise that we will be eternally with God and share in His divine life.
“So that one may eat it and not die” (John 6:50), and “whoever eats this bread will live forever” (John 6:51,58): more promises of eternal life.
Where do we see spiritual adoption in the Bread of Life Discourse?
Saint John maps out for us a program of drawing close to Jesus. Jesus says, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44). The Collect for the 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Cycle B) says it all:
Almighty ever-living God, whom, taught by the Holy Spirit, we dare to call our Father, bring, we pray, to perfection in our hearts the spirit of adoption as your sons and daughters, that we may merit to enter into the inheritance which you have promised.
God draws us to His Son out of love so that perfection might be brought to our hearts, and that we can live out our vocation as His sons and daughters in this temporal life and into eternal life.
How does God draw us close? First, He speaks to us and teaches us. Second, we listen to His speaking and believe His teaching. Third, we eat of the Bread of Life. This three-step process can be summed up in three words: perceive, receive and respond.
We perceive God through the presence and teaching of Jesus Christ. We receive by being attentive to His words and accepting His word in our mind, heart and soul. We respond through action; we eat of the Bread of Life. We perceive His grace, we receive through faith and respond with charity. God shows His grace by speaking to us and teaching us. We show Faith by listening and ultimately believing. charity is shown as Jesus gives us His flesh, and on our part as we eat of His flesh.
Within the Order of the Mass, God speaks to us through the Word of God. We are taught through the homily. It is after this speaking and teaching that we profess what we believe as we profess the Creed. After this speaking, teaching, and professing, we receive the Eucharist. Jesus says, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6:51). Although the speaking, teaching, and professing of the Word of God is life-giving, it is in receiving the Word made Flesh that we have “life to the full” (cf. John 10:10).
How do we see unity (oneness with the Blessed Trinity) offered in the Bread of Life Discourse?
In the Gospel for the 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Cycle B):
“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day” (John 6:54): Jesus is once again promising eternal life and making the connection between eternal life and the eating of His flesh and blood.
“For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink” (John 6:55): Jesus leaves for us something that is true, that is real. We do not have to wonder, doubt, or second-guess. His flesh is true food. His blood is true drink.
“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him” (John 6:56): Jesus gives us the way to remain in Him. Jesus will echo this again when He speaks to the Apostles at the Last Supper (John 13-17). Jesus says to His Apostles:
Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remain on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing (John 15:4-5).
Jesus continues to say, “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love…” (John 15:10). One of His commandments is to eat His flesh and drink His blood. Another of His commandments, which He says in John 15, is to “love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12). This command is shown perfectly in the Sacrifice of the Cross in which there is no greater love than “… to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). It is this Sacrifice to which we are called to unite and to imitate, even if that means martyrdom.
“One who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever” (John 6:57-58) — Jesus again is promising life, now and for all eternity. This bread which is His flesh is the fulfillment of the manna that our ancestors ate. The manna in the desert was the food for the Israelites’ journey to the Promised Land. The flesh of the Son of God is the food for the Christian’s journey to Heaven.
Where do we see the Ascension in the Bread of Life Discourse?
In the Gospel for the 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time (Cycle B):
“What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?” (John 6:62): Jesus prophesies His own Ascension, when His humanity will enter into eternal glory, and also promises the faithful that our humanity will be redeemed and enter into eternal glory.
Where do we see the Sacrament of Confirmation / Holy Spirit in the Bread of Life Discourse?
It is the spirit that gives life… “the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63): It is no wonder that the disciples do not understand clearly about what Jesus is speaking and that the sayings are difficult and even shocking. Jesus speaks of a “spirit that gives life” (John 6:63) in the Bread of Life discourse and then later in the Last Supper discourse. He says, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither see nor knows it” (John 14:16-17). Out of love for mankind, Jesus gives us the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, the gift given at Baptism and strengthened in Confirmation.
Where do we see love and free will in the Bread of Life Discourse?
Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?” (John 6:67). Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). Perhaps this last dialogue between Saint Peter and Our Lord speaks the most about love. Love is not love if it is forced. If Jesus forced St. Peter, the Apostles, the disciples, and by extension all Christians to love Him, it would not be love. Jesus reveals the truth and then out of love invites us to respond.
May we respond as Saint Peter responded, with the realization that there is no other way, for Jesus is “The Way” (John 14:6). The profession that there is no other way than Christ is the profession of the Christian. Saint Augustine, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Saint Paul and countless saints have said and lived out their profession for Christ.
Saint Augustine said in Book I of Confessions, “God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you.”
Saint Ignatius of Loyola realizing that Christ was the one thing necessary wrote in the beautiful prayer Anima Christi:
Soul of Christ, sanctify me. Body of Christ, save me. Blood of Christ, inebriate me. Water from the side of Christ, wash me. Passion of Christ, strengthen me. O good Jesus, hear me. Within thy wounds hide me. Permit me not to be separated from thee. From the wicked foe defend me. At the hour of my death call me. And bid me come to thee. That with thy saints I may praise thee for ever and ever. Amen.
For the Christian, as Saint Paul says, “Christ is all and in all (Colossians 3:11).