Today we continue with the Bread of Life discourse by Jesus at the synagogue in Capernaum. That this discourse is recorded as having taken place in a specific place at a specific time by a specific person is important. We are constantly amazed, if not scandalized, by the Incarnation and the miracle that is the Holy Eucharist. We can, perhaps, empathize with the congregation at the synagogue who complain just as their ancestors did in the desert, about the power of God. Surely, it is reasonable to say: "How can this man give us his flesh to eat." (Jn 6: 52)? Nevertheless, the fullness of God, revealed in Jesus Christ has power to save and to do so through something so unlikely as the Cross and the Eucharist, in which he gives us the fruit of his sacrifice. As Catholics we need to sit with this discourse and use it to help us reflect on what the Mass is for us and how we receive it: "Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life." (Jn 6: 47) We need not marvel at those who do not believe. All they see is bread and wine. For us, the People of God, the Eucharist is Jesus Christ and we come to know and love him through it as we receive him under the form or bread and wine: "Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God's Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else's scrutiny. 'For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?' But we have the mind of Christ." (1 Cor 2: 14-18)
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