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"...The Jews quarreled among
themselves, saying, 'How can this man give us his flesh to eat?'
Thereupon Jesus said to them: 'Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat
the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life
within you.'" The Jewish leaders thought Jesus said and did many strange
things, but they found these words in St. John's Bread of Life discourse
the most difficult to bear.
In the Jewish tradition, going all the way back to the Book of Genesis,
blood meant life and blood was always sacred to God. When Cain slew his
brother it was Abel's spilled blood that cried out from the ground to
God for vengeance. In any form of Jewish sacrifice that involved the
offering of an animal the blood was never to be consumed. Nor was flesh
with the blood still in it to be eaten.
The blood was the life; it belonged to God.
In this passage Jesus
demanded full participation in his sacrifice, which meant consuming the
flesh and blood of the Son of Man. On the day of his great sacrifice, on
Good Friday at Calvary, the blood of Christ was poured out for the
remission of our sins. The gospels testify that every last drop of his
blood was shed in his great sacrifice of love. From that time on his
precious blood has been consumed with reverence at the sacrificial meal
we call Eucharist. When we eat his body and drink his blood we proclaim
his death until he comes again in glory!
When we eat Jesus' body we share in his sacrifice. We enter into
communion with him. This is what it means to possess life. We already
possess Jesus' life here on earth when we accept Eucharist from, and
become Eucharist for, others.
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