Jesus, who is the bread of life, was born in a manger (same root as “mangia” which, in Italian means to eat - “mangia!” in the town of Bethlehem. And what does Bethlehem mean? House of Bread. So the bread of life was born in the house of bread and placed into a feeding trough. It seems pretty straight forward…
Back to John 6
The Apostles were all at this exchange. Jesus said, "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.” The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us [his] flesh to eat?”, and ultimately left being dissatisfied with the answer that Christ gave. They were not willing to trust him beyond what they understood. His Apostles were no less confused, but they had not placed their understanding above their trust in the Lord (cf Prov 3:5-6). And so when asked by our Lord, “Do you also want to leave?” , Simon Peter answered him - expressing the fact that they trusted Him above everything, including their earthly understanding, said: , “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.” Their faith in him transcended their inability to understand all that he told them. And there is an important lesson in this for all of us.
Christ did eventually answer this question for them, but it was much later - much like answers to prayer, which often come much later than we wish to receive them. "While they were eating, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his disciples said, “Take and eat; this is my body. Then he took a cup, gave thanks,
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In the Acts of the Apostles we find that the faithful were “devoted …to the breaking of the bread” (cf 2:42). This breaking of bread is placed on par with “prayer” and the “teaching of the Apostles”.
In Paul’s 1st letter to the Corinthians we learn that Christ revealed to Paul the events of the Last Supper and Paul has some interesting things to say…“Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord…For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment
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There is also one last confirmation of this difficult teaching which comes from one of St John’s (ie the one who penned John 6) disciples. Ignatius of Antioch - a canonized Saint and Martyr (eaten by lions) of the faith - on his way to certain death tells his Smyrnean flock:“consider those who are of a different opinion with respect to the grace of Christ which has come unto us, how opposed they are to the will of God. They have no regard for love, no care for the widow, or the orphan, or the oppressed; of the bond, or of the free; of the hungry, or of the thirsty. They abstain from the Eucharist
%between% and from prayer because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ
%between%, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father
%between%, of His goodness, raised up again.”
When one considers all the evidence - and this is not even close to all of it - in Scripture, in the ECFs, in the miracles, and other sources it is not so hard to see that the Eucharist is not merely a remembrance and not merely a Spiritual presence indistinguishable from those gathered in prayer. It is, and always has been uniquely different.
Blessings!
(I hope I don’t sound like Bill Clinton.)
