A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. And this is a continuation of the readings we have been having, which bear upon the holy Eucharist, which is the question or the doctrine of the dogma of the real presence of Jesus under the appearances of bread and wine. And by that, I mean his physical reality. And so we continue. The Jews quarreled among themselves saying, remember, our blessed lord has just said, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you can't have life.
He's talking to Jews who absolutely abhorred with even the thought of cannibalism. Now what does Jesus say when they take him literally? Our lord says, the Jews quarreled among themselves saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? Thereupon, Jesus said to them, let me solemnly assure you, if you do not eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. He who feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has life eternal, and I will raise him up on the last day.
For my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink. The man who feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I remain in him. Just as the father who has life sent me, and I have life because of the father, so the man who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and died, nonetheless, the man who feeds on this bread shall live forever.
Jesus said this in a synagogue instruction in Capernaum. This is the gospel of the lord. The name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. Now as regards this text of Saint John, this promise of our lord to give us his flesh to eat and his blood to drink, There is no question here about its authenticity.
There's no question about the the text itself. There's no difficulties of translation. These words would seem so strong like flesh and eating and drinking blood. You can't get out of it. It's in the Greek.
There is no way. And you can take any translation you wish and you'll come out with almost identical. There's no problems here of translation. The only problem here is one of astonishment, incredulity. How can you believe such stuff?
And that's exactly the reaction of the Jews who heard Jesus in a synagogue. Notice, he wasn't talking. He was talking in a synagogue, in a place of worship. Now notice how Christ keeps repeating this. You must eat my flesh.
You must drink my blood. Unless you eat my flesh, you won't have life. Unless you drink my blood, he just keeps repeating this. You think, doesn't the man have any sense? He's affronting.
He's scandalizing his hearers. He's turning his hearers off. And you know you must never turn your hearers off. You must always tell your audience what they want to hear. It's the only way you can get votes.
Now I wanna keep something before you, a totality. And I I'm going to keep repeating this so that those of you who are so faithful to these morning services at the holy sacrifice of the mass, you may remember this. The first thing is this text of Saint John. It begins with chapter four and goes to six, four to six of Saint John, where you have three outstanding miracles, one after the other, then you have this absolutely incredible, this repugnant, this repulsive statement of our lord about eating flesh and drinking his blood. Now let's not hesitate to say that it is repulsive.
Can you imagine going over and drinking a man's blood? Saying this to people who who absolutely abhorred the thought of eating flesh, human flesh, which was not remember, this was not uncommon in their world. It had to do with sacrifice, human sacrifice. That's the promise. Then you have the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the the statements of the last supper.
I don't have to give you the text, it comes at the last part of it. Where our blessed lord took bread and blessed and gave, took wine, blessed and gave, said this is my body, this is my blood. I'm the first one to say those words can be interpreted in many ways if that's all we have to go on. But don't forget Saint John chapter four to six. Don't forget these texts that we haven't that that we've been reading the last three mornings.
And then in the third place, you have this confirmation from Saint Paul talking now notice, Saint Paul is talking to Corinthians. Now you know where Corinth is. It's across the Aegean. It's it's going west from the Holy Land, from Palestine. In those days, Corinth was a long way from Capernaum.
In those days, for for news to get, say, from Capernaum or Jerusalem over to Corinth, it took time. Now the text of Saint Paul in the first letter of his to the Corinthians chapters ten and eleven. Ten and eleven, first Corinthians. Now, just as the main main bit of evidence, human evidence, in this text of Saint John is the incredulity of Christ's hearers. And the fact that Jesus keeps repeating, I'm going to give you my flesh and I'm going to give you my blood, and unless you eat and you drink you will not have life, and he repeats it and he repeats it.
The force of this is that if Jesus Christ did not mean his words literally, then who's at fault for misleading millions and millions down the centuries? It is Christ himself. If he did not mean his words to be taken literally and the Jews took them literally, why didn't he correct them? Not only did he not correct them, not only did he refrain from saying anything, look, you people, don't be so dumb. Don't take that literally.
I I you mustn't these are these are these are metaphors. Christ said nothing like instead, he repeats it, and he gets even more literal. So there is no mistaking this promise of Christ in Saint John chapter six. There is no mistaking it. Christ is saying, unless I'm going to give you my flesh, I'm going to give you my blood, and unless you eat and drink, you will not have life.
You can't escape it. That's the promise. Now when you come to Saint Paul over there in the city of Corinth, way over there in Greece, it's only about a generation after Christ died. Keep this in mind. About thirty years after Christ died, you have Saint Paul appealing to the faith of the people, not to his faith.
He's telling those Corinthians, look, you people. You cannot behave the way you're behaving, participating in pagan sacrifices and eating that sacrificial food. You cannot leave these lives of adultery and fornication. You cannot leave do that. Why can't you do that?
Because Saint Paul says to those Corinthians, because you are defiling the body and blood of Christ. In other words, Saint Paul, in trying to reform the Corinthians, appeals to their belief in the physical presence of Jesus Christ in the wine and the water which he says have been blessed. Now keep all of this together. Saint John four to six, the promise of the Eucharist, then the actual fulfillment of that promise in the synoptic gospels or the the accounts of the last supper. And then do not forget, and above all, not forget the statement of Saint Paul in the first letter of his to the Corinthians chapters ten and eleven.
They're right together there. You can read the whole business in minutes, then you will get the force of this argument. Then you will see there's more to this than what saying what we have of about the last supper. Then you will see the absolutely spectacular and dramatic way that Jesus Christ tried to impress upon us the great truth, the unbelievable truth, the incredible truth, the repugnant truth, repugnant truth, the repulsive truth that the true Christian truly eats his flesh and drinks his blood. In the name of the father and of the son and holy spirit.
Amen.