In this Sunday's Gospel the bread of life dialogue reaches its inevitable climax. Those who have struggled to comprehend and accept what Jesus has been saying declared that, 'this teaching is intolerable'. And many of His disciples left Him.
Here there has been a shift in the extended narrative that is John chapter 6. Previously the writer told us that it was the crowd that questioned, argued with, and then rejected what Jesus was saying. Now it is not just those who have gathered to hear what He has to say, but many who had become His disciples, who had followed Him and his teaching for some time.
And, to be fair, it is difficult to understand. Neither our senses, nor our lived experience of the world can explain what happens in the Eucharist. It can only be comprehended by faith.
As an aside, in my days of parent led sacramental preparation, a number of what I was told were 'challenging' children were placed in my First Communion group. 'You're a school teacher... you'll know how to handle them.' There was nothing at all challenging about these kids. They just had specific learning needs, and I needed to find a way to make the incomprehensible accessible to them.
Come the day of their First Communion I was sitting alongside one of these boys who, after receiving the Eucharist, knelt very quietly in his place before letting out a loud burp... He then said, a little too loudly and with a look of complete innocence on his face, "Mmmm, tastes like Jesus."
I took that as a win! He had a grasp on the real presence.
Jesus' increasingly outrageous teaching escalates beyond all reason to the point where it demands nothing less than a total faith response from us, both individually and as a community. A belief that through the sacrament of the Eucharist we truly become what we receive, the Body of Christ. In true communion with God and one another.
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