This entire week, the church gives us the Bread of Life discourse from the Gospel of John. I would argue that it is the most important Eucharistic Scripture passage we have. Yes, the words of institution are immensely important, but it is John 6 that gives the true context to the Institution Narratives. When read together, the Bread of Life Discourse and the Institution Narratives form the Church’s belief in the True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
In today’s Gospel, we are given the part of the Bread of Life Discourse where Christ begins to identify Himself as the Bread of Life and the Bread which comes down from Heaven. The Bread of Life Discourse is laid out in an ascending way. Christ begins by calling the people to faith and making a distinction between normal bread and bread from heaven.1 He then begins to identify Himself as that Bread which is from heaven, and it is meant to bring man to heaven.2 He then identifies this Bread as His flesh.3 He then takes them to a higher calling by telling them that they must consume His flesh to have eternal life.4 This blueprint represents a call to the people by Christ to move from a purely human understanding of eating bread in order to not starve to seeking that which God will give us in faith and finally to receiving the bread that God gives which is His flesh for eternal life.
In today’s section of the Discourse, Christ identifies Himself as the Bread of Life and promises eternal life and the final resurrection through it. This is the core difference between the normal bread that the people were seeking after the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and the bread that Christ is promising to give. We may seek normal bread for the health of the body, but we will eventually be hungry again and we will need to eat. At some point, even eating this bread will not prevent us from dying. But the bread that Christ gives us is not normal bread, it is food for eternal life. This is why He can say to us:
“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in my will never thirst.” John 6:35
He isn’t saying this because the Eucharist which He gives is supposed to satisfy our physical hunger. That is not the purpose. The Eucharist is given to satisfy our spiritual hunger, that hunger that is found deep inside which is a desire for intimate union with the divine.
In truth, the Eucharist is that which divinizes the soul. It makes the Catholic more and more like God every time he receives it. St. Maximus the Confessor beautifully speaks to this in his commentary on the Lord’s Prayer. He says:
“The Logos enables us to participate in divine life by making Himself our food, in a manner understood by Himself and by those who have received from Him a noetic perception of this kind. It is by tasting this food that they become truly aware that the Lord is full of virtue (cf Ps. 34:8). For He transmutes with divinity those who eat it, bringing about their deification, since He is the bread of life and of power in both name and reality.”5
He speaks to the beautiful theology of Theosis, as it is known in the East, and Deification, as it is known in the West. This is a beautiful teaching that is handed down to us through the tradition of the Church that, through the Hypostatic Union, man is lifted above the Angels and into a participated life with the Divine. Essentially, as the Fathers of the Church say:
What Christ is by nature, man becomes by Grace.
This is the outcome of the Holy Eucharist. By consuming the bread of life, the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, we are lifted into Communion with the Divine. The life that is communicated to man through the Holy Eucharist is Divine Life, that inner life of the Trinitarian God.
Today’s gospel affirms that the outcome of our faith in Christ in the Holy Eucharist6 and through the reception of that same Eucharist is eternal life, deification, and resurrection on the last day.
Cf. John 6:25-34.
Cf. John 6:35-40.
Cf. John 6:41-51.
Cf. John 6:52-59.
St. Maximus the Confessor, On the Lord’s Prayer.
St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that the only thing that can detect the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist is the virtue of Faith. See Summa Theologiae IIIa q. 75, a. 1. This is why before revealing to the people the truth of the Eucharist, that it is substantially the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ, Christ exhorts the people to faith in Him. Consequently, we see the response of the people in verse 66 when they leave because the saying is “too hard.”
Thank you, Andrew. This is a beautiful study.
I married a Protestant and presently attend a Protestant church. They share communion every third week, which is better than many Protestant churches. Although they do not convert it to the actual body of Christ during the service, I recognize it as such and with utter, unshakeable confidence. You just explained why, and how I can do so! It is by faith!
A theologian could try and convince me that you have to do such and such to transform it. Thanks, but I can feel Jesus coming in to me when I partake in that communion. It isn't a feeling like "I feel peace." It is an awareness of what entered me and is filling me.
Thanks.