“Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.” A few years ago, in Boston, I was talking to a group of kids preparing for their first communion, and one of them asked me, “If we eat the body of Jesus, does that mean we’re cannibals?”
I thought it was a good question. What Jesus teaches us about the Eucharist is not easy to understand. In the Gospel, Jesus’ teaching provokes arguments and even causes some of his disciples to leave him. But he doesn’t back down. The Catholic Church, I’m happy to say, has also never backed down from the faith that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Jesus. It’s not a prop in a play. It is not a mere symbolic reminder. It’s not a visual aid from before the days of PowerPoint. It may not look or taste like flesh and blood, but Jesus forces us to make a choice—do we believe our own senses or do we believe him? It’s the same choice required to believe in eternal life, which we have never seen. Do we trust his words? And if we do, does that make us cannibals?
Last week I said that God’s way of being is different than our way of being, just like Harry Potter exists in a different way than J.K. Rowling exists. The great mystery of Christian faith is that God has become one of us to share our way of being. Even more amazing, by entering into our life, he allows us to participate in his life. He gives us access to his divine way of being. Not even J.K. Rowling can do that.
Our best glimpse of the new life God wants to give us is the Resurrection of Jesus. You remember that after the Resurrection, Jesus appeared in the body. His body even had wounds—but those wounds didn’t hurt anymore. He was still Jesus but appeared so differently that at first some of his disciples didn’t recognize him. He was not limited by time and place; he appeared where he wanted, even inside locked rooms. His new way of being changed his body.
When we eat the Body of Christ in the sacrament, we are eating his sacramental body, not his natural body. Our natural bodies are subject to all kinds of limitations—that’s why we get sick and die—but our resurrected bodies will not be subject to those same limitations. And sacraments are those entry points where heaven touches earth, where we pass from our natural way of being to a way of being that is divine and eternal.
If you ate someone’s natural flesh, you’d have to kill him, and that would make you a cannibal. We’ve only got a limited amount of natural flesh. But we’re not eating Jesus’ natural flesh; we’re eating his sacramental flesh. And the sacraments are part of a reality where our limitations begin to give way to a new way of life. When we eat the Body of Jesus, we do not destroy it; instead, the “bread that came down from heaven” makes us a part of him.
Readings: 1 Cor 10:16-17, John 6:51-58
Homily for Corpus Christi
John XXIII College, Perth, Australia
Tony Lusvardi, S.J. 