Flesh and blood have been on the pope’s mind of late.
In at least three public addresses last month he highlighted what many consider the hardest words ever spoken by Christ.
“If you do not eat of the flesh of the Son of man or drink of his blood, you shall not have life within you,” the pope said, quoting directly Jesus’ words as recorded in chapter 6 of John’s Gospel.
Speaking to crowds gathered Aug. 23 outside his papal summer home in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, Pope Benedict explained that the first century followers who heard this teaching were “scandalized by the words of the Lord, to the point that many, after having followed him up to that time, exclaimed: ‘This is a hard saying! Who can listen to it?’” (John 6:66).
The crowds around Jesus wondered “How can he give us his flesh to eat?” (John 6:52).
Earlier in the month, Pope Benedict addressed that very point in another reflection. This time, he spoke Aug. 12 about how the God of the universe took on the tissues, tendons, bone and matter of humanity.
“He took it from the Virgin Mary,” the pope said of Christ’s physical body. “God took from her a human body to enter into our mortal human condition.”
The pope added that God “also has need of Mary, of the ‘yes’ of a creature, of her flesh, of her concrete existence, to prepare the matter of his sacrifice: the body and blood to be offered on the cross as an instrument of eternal life, and, in the sacrament of the Eucharist, as spiritual food and drink.”
As Catholics, we have always seen spirit and matter as mysteriously and seamlessly woven together in Christ.
First, God asked Mary to cooperate with him in allowing Christ to be born with a warm human body. As we know, Mary said ‘yes’ and God became man.
But this mysterious union between spirit and matter does not end with Christ’s earthly mission. He left his Body and Blood to nourish us each time we attend Holy Mass and partake of the Eucharist, which is the actual Body and Blood of Christ present under the form of bread and wine but no longer bread and wine.
When we eat this spiritual food, we are transformed and united to Christ in our physical bodies. And as Pope Benedict explained: When a whole church unites through the Eucharist, they become Christ’s Body in human history.
The pope’s recent focus on this great mystery — a mystery in which Christ remains united to his church in a very concrete way — is a great gift to the faithful. We would all do well to follow the pope’s lead and meditate on the reality of Christ with us. He is actually among us — with and in and living through his Church today.
As the pope said: “He is the Head and we are the members. He is the Vine and we the branches. Whoever eats of this Bread and lives in communion with Jesus, allowing himself to be transformed by him and in him, is saved from eternal death.”
What a great mystery!
