The First Scurrilous Mystery
Jesus goes to great length emphasizing that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood if we would have his life within us. His listeners murmur and quarrel about it. How can he say this? A good number abandon him, complaining that this teaching is too hard. Jesus then turns to his apostles and asks, are you going to leave me too? Peter responds, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Like us, Peter is saying the he does not understand it either; but if Jesus says it, he accepts it. Jesus was preparing them for the sacrament of the Eucharist that he would institute at his Last Supper. Some believers insist that Jesus only meant a figurative or symbolic presence. They refuse to accept a literal interpretation. However, the Jews understood the use of representational language. They abandoned Jesus precisely because Jesus was graphic and insisted on a REAL presence. Similarly, at the Last Supper, our Lord takes the bread and says it is his body. He takes the cup of wine and says this is the chalice of his blood. A new covenant is made. Covenants cannot be established with fake blood. There has to be a real sacrifice. Here too the emphasis is upon a substantial change. This caused great scandal among the Jews who were forbidden to taste blood. This is still a point of contention between Catholics and many Protestant believers. We continue to take Jesus for his word.
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