Eat of this Bread

This week we continue to reflect on Chapter 6 of St John’s Gospel. This Gospel is quite different in character from the other three gospels. It is highly literary and symbolic. It is the product of a developed theological reflection. And we have been using Fr. Michel de Verteuil’s gem of a book ‘Eucharist as Word’ to help us in our reflection.

Chapter 3 of his book deals with ‘the eating of the living bread.’ As we reflected on yesterday, Jesus in the Gospel narrative says ‘I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever’. The Jews are scandalized by this reference to eat him.

Fr Michel takes up this statement by saying that the scriptures have a long history of using the idea of eating to receive holiness. In both Ezekiel and in the Book of Revelation the prophets are told that for them to preach, they have to eat a holy scroll (book). The idea being that eating the holy scroll (book), the words and meaning become them, so they can preach the words.

When we eat Jesus, in the Eucharist, we are becoming physically one with Him. We are entering into the truth that the human body is holy. Jesus at the Last Supper says ‘on that day you will learn that you are in me and I am in you’. This however is a process. We are ‘becoming’ Christ. St Paul tells us - until we become the perfect man, fully mature with the fullness of Christ himself.

We can however celebrate our own becoming. We enter gratefully into the little victories of grace in our lives - we reconcile with others, we feed the hungry, we clothe the naked, we evangelize, like Jesus - we give our lives (body and blood) for others.

Last evening, at our prayer meeting, we listened to each other’s struggles of ‘becoming Christ’. We shared memories of people in our lives, who have given their body and blood to make us who we are. We thought of spouses, parents, teachers who in their process of becoming have lifted us up, so we also can become for others.

‘Becoming Christ’ is deeply intertwined with the sacrifices and love of those who have walked beside us. Like Jesus, they have offered their own lives—sometimes in small, everyday ways, and sometimes in profound, self-sacrificing gestures. These individuals, through their actions, have fed us spiritually and emotionally, helping us grow into the fullness of Christ.

We recognized that this process of becoming is not solitary but communal; it is through the relationships we nurture and the love we receive that we are shaped into the image of Christ. As we continue on this path, we are called to extend that same sacrificial love to others, becoming the living bread for those around us, just as others have been for us.