(Given at the Holy Thursday 6:30 pm Mass at OLP)
In the Old Covenant, it was forbidden to consume animal blood. One main reason was the idea that the lifeforce of the animal was contained in its blood. To consume the blood of a cow meant one was communing in the cow or having communion with it. This would thus debase a human being—how can a creature of higher order commune with a creature of a lower order? How could a rational creature have communion with an irrational creature? —it just wouldn’t make sense. This, of course, is not in force today with the New Covenant. But 2,000 years ago, when Jesus told his listeners that he would give his disciples his own flesh and blood to eat and drink, no wonder so many were scandalized! Many of his disciples fell away and no longer followed him. The twelve stayed but didn’t really understand. Everyone took Jesus literally, and Jesus made no effort to correct them. In fact, he doubles down in the Greek: he who gnaws on my flesh will have eternal life. At tonight’s Mass, we celebrate this reality: Jesus Christ fulfilling his own words recorded in John chapter 6. He does this at the Last Supper: this is my body; this is the chalice of my blood. Not cannibalism as the early Christians were accused of, but a sacramental reality. It’s the only thing that truly makes sense of Our Lord’s words and actions. Jesus institutes the Eucharist: his very body and blood under the appearances of bread and wine. And get this: this radical teaching takes the ban on consuming animal blood and turns it on its face. For God has debased himself in becoming man. He assumed a human nature, in the person of Jesus Christ, and becomes lower than the angels. And then, he offers man his flesh and blood to consume. He becomes our very food. When we eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, we have communion with God himself. We share and receive his very lifeforce! I want to drink God’s blood in order to have his life within me! I want to be received by him and be made a partaker in his divine nature. We see this explicitly taught by the early Christians—it’s why the pagans accused them of cannibalism in the first place! Today, when I eat a medium-rare steak, I’m not communing in the lifeforce of a cow. But in the Eucharist, I am actually communing in the lifeforce of God.