Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. The body and blood of our Lord being our nourishment to strengthen us and imbue us with our Lords very self, is the most central tenet of our faith. The Eucharist and its nature can be both a grace our Lord gave us, but also a stumbling block of belief if we do not accept the words our Lord spoke.
There is perhaps no passage in the New Testament that has caused more controversy, and at the same time provided more hope than those found in John 6. At the time that our Lord spoke this discourse, He had well over a hundred followers that had been with him wherever He went. Yet at the close of what He taught that day, He was left with only the twelve disciples. You see the very words that tell us the path to nourishing our spirits so that we can gain the strength we need to persevere were simply too much for many of those gathered there at the time, just as many find them difficult to accept today. Our Lord knew the audience He was addressing at that time, and that many would not be able to accept the idea of consuming His body and blood, because like most of the Jewish people, they believed that the teachings they had always heard warning them against the consumption of blood sacrifice still applied there. What they could not grasp was that those things which apply to the actions of men, did not apply to God, and so many left Him. Our Lord knew this would happen, and He did not mince words in what He described, and He did so for a reason – the people needed to eventually understand His sacrifice that was to come, and that it would require His body and blood, as the new Paschal Lamb to bring them to salvation. That He would shed all of this on their behalf, and that they needed to partake of His gift in order that they might live. This accepting of His words and partaking of His body and blood is an ultimate act of faith, and that is what our Lord requires of all who profess to believe in Him.
What we receive in the Eucharist is truly His body and blood. Yes, it looks like bread and wine through human sight, but when we look with the eyes of the soul, we see far more clearly what has been placed before us. When our Lord healed, it was always with the soul as His primary focus through forgiving sins, the healings of the physical body were secondary. Just so, when He nourishes us, it is with our true bodies, our spiritual selves in mind, that He is nourishing and strengthening so that we can live with Him eternally.
The Deacons Bench 