7 June 2026 – Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ
Deut 8:2–16; 1 Cor 10:16–17; Jn 6:51–58
Homily
The Gospel passage we have just read is the conclusion of Jesus’ long discourse on the Bread of Life, found in chapter 6 of John’s Gospel. At the beginning of this chapter, John had recounted the feeding of the five thousand, after which the disciples had set off by boat for the town of Capernaum and Jesus, fleeing the crowds who wanted to make Him king, had gone up into the mountains to pray, before rejoining His disciples. The next day, as the crowds were once again chasing after Him, He addressed them with this long discourse on the Bread of Life, the conclusion of which we have just read. In fact, the following verse should have been included, which was not retained in our liturgical lectionary, but which is very important for understanding the text as a whole. Here is that final verse: “Such were the teachings of Jesus in the synagogue at Capernaum.”
Why is this final little verse important? Quite simply because it reminds us that the primary and most important meaning of Jesus’ words is the meaning they had for those to whom He was speaking at that moment. These words would later be reinterpreted in the light of the practice of the Eucharist, but Jesus is addressing the large crowd that had followed Him to Capernaum. He is not speaking in the future tense. He does not say, ‘Whoever will eat my flesh and drinks my blood after my death and resurrection.’ Jesus is still alive and he says to this crowd, in the present tense: ‘Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.’ Throughout this discourse of Jesus, what is at the center is Jesus’ message – the message e received from his Father and which he came to bring to the world. ‘Whoever believes,’ He says, ‘has eternal life.’ Jesus presents Himself as the Father’s messenger. As the Son of God, He identifies with the Message, since He is the Word of God. But as the Word made flesh, He takes a back seat to the Message, to the point of emptying himself (kenosis), of becoming obedient unto death.
This, in fact, marked a turning point in Jesus’ ministry. Many of his disciples who had enthusiastically followed this new prophet – this new messenger – then abandoned him, finding his message too hard to live by. This led Jesus to ask the Twelve: ‘And you, do you also wish to leave?’ and Peter to reply: ‘To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life?’
By re-reading these words of Jesus in the light of the Eucharistic practice, when he wrote his Gospel many years later, Saint John shows us that this original meaning of Jesus’ words—the meaning they had in concrete terms for those who listened to Him during His lifetime—is indeed the profound meaning of the Eucharistic mystery. When we gather, as we do this morning, to celebrate the Eucharist, we partake of the Word of Life that came from the Father, the Word that became flesh in Him. We affirm our faith in His message. By expressing our faith together, we are the Church.
In this discourse on the Bread of Life, Jesus alludes to the manna on which the Jews had subsisted during their long exodus through the desert. And this brings us, in today’s liturgy, to the reading of a most beautiful passage from Moses. Moses is a fine example of a messenger who constantly takes a back seat to the message he is called to convey. His life is divided into two periods of forty years. The first, spent in the palaces of the Pharaoh, is a life of luxury that ends in personal disaster. Throughout the second, throughout the forty years of the Jewish people in the desert, Moses is constantly the one who conveys God’s messages to the people. He Himself will not enter the Promised Land. The Book of Deuteronomy places in his mouth three great speeches delivered before this entry into the Promised Land, which have been called the ‘Testament of Moses’, from which we heard a fine excerpt as the first reading. The key phrase of this text is ‘Remember’. “Do not forget the Lord your God… It is He who…” This little phrase “It is He who…”, repeated several times, shows us how Moses, like Jesus later on, is a messenger who steps aside before the Message.
For us too, an attitude of adoration towards this Message means allowing it to penetrate our very being, letting it become flesh of our flesh, blood of our blood, so that we too may pass it on to today’s world, to all those with whom we live, without seeking to draw attention to ourselves, or even to be recognised as messengers, but by effacing ourselves before the Message. Like John the Baptist, whose feast day we shall celebrate in a few weeks’ time, let us say: ‘He must increase, but I must decrease’.
Armand VEILLEUX