Fr. Piero Lazzarini
20th SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME YEAR B
“What is this man talking about? Eating his flesh and drinking his blood? Are we to become cannibals? The man is mad. He should be locked up in a mad house! Let us go...” The crowd, the Jews, were angry and grumbling and so parted company with Jesus and went away.
Was Jesus perturbed or worried about the reaction of the crowd? Quite the contrary. He continued unperturbed: “If you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you WILL NOT HAVE LIFE in you”. And more:”Anyone who DOES EAT my flesh and DRINK my blood HAS eternal life”. Notice: He says “HAS” (present tense, now) eternal life, not WILL have (future, sometime later).
How many of you (I should say: How many of us, really) would not have felt angry and disturbed, if you/we had been there that day among the crowd? Why did Jesus not tell them right away that he really meant them to eat his body and drink his blood SACRAMENTALLY, symbolically, through bread and wine? They would have understood and not gone away, by leaving him.
But Jesus did not talk only about eating and drinking sacramentally, through material signs... What did he really mean then?
Let us turn to the Liturgy, the Eucharist, in order to understand.
The Church speaks of the Mass/Eucharist as a TWOFOLD TABLE: the table of the WORD and the table of Jesus’ living body and blood. The two tables are closely connected. If you separate the second table from the first one, COMMUNION (as we call it) becomes meaningless and totally ineffective.
Is it not true that many people receive holy communion FOR YEARS to no effect, without any change in their lives, without any improvement in their behaviour, in their spiritual life? Why? Because the spiritual effect of receiving communion (the body and blood of Christ in the form of bread and wine) does NOT happen MAGICALLY, AUTOMATICALLY.
The “bread of life” of the second table must be eaten IN CONJUNCTION WITH the “bead of life” of the first table. The “bread of life of the first table must be eaten FIRST. And what is this “ bread of life”. It is JESUS’ WORD, that is: his message, his teaching, his works and examples, his love and compassion, his person!!!
It is helpful to recall here how in the Bible on some occasions God asked some prophets TO EAT THE SCROLL (the book): Cf. Ezekiel 3,1-3 and John Rev. 10,9-11.
Now Jesus is doing more than asking us to eat he scroll or to eat the book of the Gospel, i.e. to put it inside our hearts. Because we are human, spiritual yes, but also physical, he wants us to experience a human, PHYSICAL communion with him. But of course the eating of the sacrament of his body (bread and wine) is not in view of satisfying our bodily hunger, but to show us how real, concrete, close he is to us, to the point of becoming VISIBLE, EATABLE, DIGESTIBLE.
When we eat food, any food, we say we ASSIMILATE IT, that is, it becomes part of us, it makes us grow. But when we eat and drink the sacrament of his body and blood (bread and wine), something very physical, WE are assimilated, WE become like him, WE BECOME JESUS! He assimilates us. Is this not just phantasy? Imagination? NOOO! It is reality because HE SAID IT! Have you not been listening attentively to the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel passage? He stated: “WHOEVER EATS ME (that is, the sacrament of my body and blood) WILL DRAW LIFE FROM ME!”
That means: He who eats Jesus, becomes Jesus! This MUST surely HAPPEN if he said it... but AT THE APPROPRIATE CONDITIONS, as stated above.
Fr Piero Lazzarini sx
20th SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME YEAR B
“What is this man talking about? Eating his flesh and drinking his blood? Are we to become cannibals? The man is mad. He should be locked up in a mad house! Let us go...” The crowd, the Jews, were angry and grumbling and so parted company with Jesus and went away.
Was Jesus perturbed or worried about the reaction of the crowd? Quite the contrary. He continued unperturbed: “If you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you WILL NOT HAVE LIFE in you”. And more:”Anyone who DOES EAT my flesh and DRINK my blood HAS eternal life”. Notice: He says “HAS” (present tense, now) eternal life, not WILL have (future, sometime later).
How many of you (I should say: How many of us, really) would not have felt angry and disturbed, if you/we had been there that day among the crowd? Why did Jesus not tell them right away that he really meant them to eat his body and drink his blood SACRAMENTALLY, symbolically, through bread and wine? They would have understood and not gone away, by leaving him.
But Jesus did not talk only about eating and drinking sacramentally, through material signs... What did he really mean then?
Let us turn to the Liturgy, the Eucharist, in order to understand.
The Church speaks of the Mass/Eucharist as a TWOFOLD TABLE: the table of the WORD and the table of Jesus’ living body and blood. The two tables are closely connected. If you separate the second table from the first one, COMMUNION (as we call it) becomes meaningless and totally ineffective.
Is it not true that many people receive holy communion FOR YEARS to no effect, without any change in their lives, without any improvement in their behaviour, in their spiritual life? Why? Because the spiritual effect of receiving communion (the body and blood of Christ in the form of bread and wine) does NOT happen MAGICALLY, AUTOMATICALLY.
The “bread of life” of the second table must be eaten IN CONJUNCTION WITH the “bead of life” of the first table. The “bread of life of the first table must be eaten FIRST. And what is this “ bread of life”. It is JESUS’ WORD, that is: his message, his teaching, his works and examples, his love and compassion, his person!!!
It is helpful to recall here how in the Bible on some occasions God asked some prophets TO EAT THE SCROLL (the book): Cf. Ezekiel 3,1-3 and John Rev. 10,9-11.
Now Jesus is doing more than asking us to eat he scroll or to eat the book of the Gospel, i.e. to put it inside our hearts. Because we are human, spiritual yes, but also physical, he wants us to experience a human, PHYSICAL communion with him. But of course the eating of the sacrament of his body (bread and wine) is not in view of satisfying our bodily hunger, but to show us how real, concrete, close he is to us, to the point of becoming VISIBLE, EATABLE, DIGESTIBLE.
When we eat food, any food, we say we ASSIMILATE IT, that is, it becomes part of us, it makes us grow. But when we eat and drink the sacrament of his body and blood (bread and wine), something very physical, WE are assimilated, WE become like him, WE BECOME JESUS! He assimilates us. Is this not just phantasy? Imagination? NOOO! It is reality because HE SAID IT! Have you not been listening attentively to the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel passage? He stated: “WHOEVER EATS ME (that is, the sacrament of my body and blood) WILL DRAW LIFE FROM ME!”
That means: He who eats Jesus, becomes Jesus! This MUST surely HAPPEN if he said it... but AT THE APPROPRIATE CONDITIONS, as stated above.
Fr Piero Lazzarini sx