This weekend’s gospel reading leaves us with another cliffhanger. Jesus tells the crowds: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world” (John 6: 51). If you were in the crowd that day, how might you have responded? We will read their response next weekend: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (John 6:52). It’s a very logical question, especially because they had not yet witnessed the Last Supper or the crucifixion.
It is those two events that answer the question, “How?” He gave his flesh for us on the cross, and he anticipated this gift at the Last Supper when he gave his Body as food and his Blood as drink. From hindsight we can understand this, to some extent. Nevertheless, the Eucharist is hard to believe if we try to understand it scientifically. But we believe other things which cannot be explained scientifically, like love, beauty, and goodness. Such things can be best understood, not by answering the question “How?” but rather “Why?” Why did Jesus give himself as “the living bread that came down from heaven?”
Jesus answers this question briefly in the very same verse: So that “whoever eats this bread will live forever” (John 6:51). Why does he want us to live forever? Because he made us to enjoy an eternal relationship with him; because he loves us. Why does he love us? Because Jesus reveals the good Father [“Whoever sees me has seen the Father” (John 14:9)] and a good Father loves his children.
Shall we continue asking the question “Why” like annoying children? Why does he express his love for us by giving us his flesh to eat? Because he wants to unite himself to us, to dwell within us; the Lover desires communion with the beloved. Why did he do all this through Jesus? Because God made us in his image and likeness, but we were tarnished by our sins. Jesus washes away our sins and restores us to holiness. When we receive his divine presence—willingly and conscientiously asking him to be the Lord of our lives—we are transformed into his Body.
So the answer to the final question, “Why” is so that we can become like Jesus. He wants to share his divine life and love with us. Are you hungry for that? If so, then why would you ever freely choose to miss Sunday Mass?
“The Liturgy is about praise, about rendering thanks for the Passover of the Son whose power reaches our lives. The celebration concerns the reality of our being docile to the action of the Spirit who operates through it until Christ be formed in us. (Cf. Gal 4:19) The full extent of our formation is our conformation to Christ… It does not have to do with an abstract mental process, but with becoming Him. This is the purpose for which the Spirit is given, whose action is always and only to confect the Body of Christ. It is that way with the Eucharistic bread, and with every one of the baptized called to become always more and more that which was received as a gift in Baptism; namely, being a member of the Body of Christ. Leo the Great writes, “Our participation in the Body and Blood of Christ has no other end than to make us become that which we eat.” (Pope Francis, Desiderio Desderavi, 41)