Friday 3rd Week of Easter 15th April 2016
“Then the Jews started arguing amongst themselves, ’How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ Jesus replied to them’ in all truth I tell you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise that person up on the last day.”
The words of Jesus have a strong impact against the Jews, provoking strong discussions amongst themselves.
As far as we are concerned, these words might very likely no longer awaken marvel within our hearts. We risk to no longer be provoked into a state of gratitude nor of adoration.
We ’know’ how we can be threatened by routine in our lives! Fortunately, the Saints were always in a state of marvelling when faced with the Mystery of Faith : they adored it and lived from it each day, not doubting for one moment Jesus’ Words :
’Loving us as a mother, Chrsit nourished us from His own Flesh. He placed before us Bread and Wine, his Body and Blood, food of immortality. As we eat them, we recieve the grace of the Holy Spriti who flows out to us, making us immortal and uncorruptible in hope’ tells us Saint Theodore of Mopsueste.
We do indeed need to enter into the perspective of Jesus. It was said to Mary at the Annunciation :’The Holy Spirit will come down upon you’.
The Body that Mary weaved in her flesh will regenerate the whole world. Mary is the Immaculate Creature, totally renewed in the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus and here she will understand this and will be confirmed by it.
At the Cross, a Woman, the New Eve, is born from the ’open side’ of Adam. A new humanity which is much more beautiful is born, created in the Infinite Love of God and regenerated in the Holy Spirit and in the gift of the Body and Blood of Jesus.
“For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my fesh and drinks my blood lives in me and me in that person.”
Jesus-Host takes possession of each one of us to recreate in the Name of His Father a new humanity, a new people of God, a family. Jesus become Sacrement creates us anew into people who ar blessed,and he speaks to us with tenderness, showing the greatest Love towards us.
When Mary welcomes Jesus in her heart after the sharing of the Living Bread she feels again how the Holy Spirit envelopped her with His shadow, she who was full of grace. She hastily takes us towards our brothers who are in need of light, as for her it is us who are all enlightened.
Jesus tells us : ’The Living Father has sent me! ’
The Father is source if Life that the Son gives, he is at the origin of our faith in the person of the Son :’I live by the Father’ said Jesus.
It is by small touches that we enter into God’s mystery : ’The Word became flesh.’
God’s Word took on our humanity with all its weakness. Jesus gives us his flesh, he gives us the whole of himself, to death’s extremity, so that the world may have life. This is how God makes all things new! Jesus’ Divne Pedagogy when faced with the Jews takes up evrything again beginning with the origins. In Cana, the water transformed into wine annoucnes the wine that is transformed into Blood!
We need to pass through this ’new Incarnation’ so as to find again the life that nourrishes our soul, ourheart and our body, fundamentaly transforming us.
“As the living Father sent me, and I draw life from the Father, so whoever eats me will also draw life from me. This is the Bread that comes down from Heaven it is not like the bread our ancestors ate: they are dead, but anyone who eats this bread will live for ever. This is what ehetagught at Capernaum.”
’Great is the mystery of Faith.’
During the Eucharsitic Celebrations which give Jesus Chriqt to us in a very real manner, we like to sing this!
We pray Jesu to come to our aid so that we may understand ever more deeply this marvellous mystery and to come to love it even more.
O Jesus, we give you thanks for having ’invented’ this Divine means in order to stay always with us, until you come again in Glory!
Jesus offers us the possibility of remaining with Him in the Life that he has recieved from the Father from all time and for ever.
To be in communion with the Body and Blood of Chrsit Jesus is to remain in relationship with HIm, He, the One who goes as far as a total sacrifice of Himself, and who leads us into doing the same.
Jesus always does all things New : He gives back life, he heals the lame, he raises the dead back to life.
Jesu came into our flesh and he has come into our humanity on a practical level in order that everything that is going to be lived in the flesh be in harmony with God the Father.
Thus we are introduced into a whole new perspective! Jesus communicates His Life in His Body and in His Blood that is given up for our Salvation! The Passion and Resurrection of Jesus gives us True Life.