Friday, April 20, 2018
3rd Week of Easter
1st Reading: Acts 9:1-20
Gospel: John 6:52-59
The Jews were arguing among themselves, “How can this man give us flesh to eat?” So Jesus replied, “Truly, I say to you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives with eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day.
“My flesh is really food and my blood is drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood, live in me and I in them. Just as the Father, who is life, sent me and I have life from the Father, so whoever eats me will have life from me. This is the bread which came from heaven; unlike that of your ancestors, who ate and later died. Those who eat this bread will live forever.”
Jesus spoke in this way in Capernaum when he taught them in the synagogue.
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
We have been following Jesus’ long discourse about his flesh and blood. The last time Jesus used the terms flesh and blood was when he told Peter, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven” (Mt 16:17). There were no shocking references in the way these terms were used in reference to Peter. But the way Jesus used these in today’s Gospel reading drove his listeners crazy as they struggled with his instruction that they should eat his flesh and drink his blood.
The prophet Isaiah wrote, “I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh, and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with wine” (Is 49:26). While they loved to see this passage from Isaiah fulfilled to the letter on their enemies, they couldn’t take Jesus literally without reducing themselves to cannibals. Did Jesus intend his message to be understood figuratively? Probably he didn’t. If he was being figurative he could have explained to the Jews the symbolism of his language when they began abandoning him. He insisted, instead, on the literal meaning of his language, saying, “My flesh is real food and my blood real drink”.
The instruction to eat his flesh and drink his blood must be taken literally and not symbolically. That his disciples eat his flesh and drink his blood was so important to Jesus to the point that he reiterated the offer before he died. He even instituted the Holy Eucharist that would facilitate the execution of this instruction. He told his disciples, “As often as you do this, you remember me” (Luke 22:19).
Let us intensify our devotion to the Holy Eucharist where we partake of Jesus’ Body and Blood as we look forward to his promise of eternal life. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M.
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