There is no mention of the Eucharist in this Gospel passage which simply suggests that the focus is not on the Sacrament as we are at the cusp of a momentous event that will take place immediately after the Last Supper. Out of convenience, when we shifted the Solemnity of the Body and Blood Christ to Sunday, we may have lost the connexion between these two great solemnities. Both are supposed to be celebrated on Thursday allowing the association between them to stand out as Maundy Thursday commemorate the Institution of the Sacrament of the Eucharist [1] whereas Corpus Christi highlights that the Eucharist is truly, substantially and really the Body and Blood of Christ.
It is not easy to discern the link between Maundy Thursday and Corpus Christi. As we read in John 6, the Jews have all but deserted Jesus when He asked them to eat His Flesh and drink His Blood. “How can it be that this Man gives us His flesh to eat?”. But without hesitation, very early on in the history of the Church, there was already a consensus that the bread after Consecration was no longer bread substantially but was of another reality. Likewise for the wine. St Justin clearly stated that: “For we do not receive these things as common bread or common drink; but as Jesus Christ our Saviour being incarnate by God’s word took flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food consecrated by the word of prayer which comes from Him . . . is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus.”.
This evening, the humble service of Jesus in washing the feet of His disciples is re-enacted at the Mass of the Last Supper. Given that the idea of a hero these days has to be a kind of an anti-hero, it is easy to repaint Jesus in a revolutionary shade. The latest hue has been to sketch Him as a political liberator who takes the side of the poor. It definitely rhymes with the mandate to love. In no way should we deny that His prophetic messages have political implications. But what is most revolutionary of Jesus and if there is something to be said about His radicality is that He changed the Passover meal from just a blessing to a memorial that brings forward what was in the past.
This forms the basis for us to speak of the sacrifice of the Mass as bloodless. What happened on Calvary can be brought right to our altar. In John 6, He told His audience in no uncertain terms that eternal life was centred on eating His flesh and drinking His blood. How can He set such a condition if He did not provide for that possibility?
St Thomas Aquinas called it transubstantiation. That He came to serve was indeed meek and modest and we ought to emulate Him. But the most profound expression of Divine humility is when we can recognise Him in the consecrated Bread and Wine. In the Eucharist, He is unassuming in the manner of His appearance. In Holy Communion, He gives Himself to us as food and drink. At every Eucharist, there is no equivocation with regard to “Whom” we consume. One of the early charges against Christianity was her cannibalism. We cannot be cannibals because we do not eat parts of Jesus. Instead, we consume Him, Body and Soul, Divinity and humanity.
In the focus on Christ who came to serve, we can miss the connexion that the mandate He gave to love and to serve flows from the Eucharist. The more we want to love and serve, the more we need the Eucharist. Perhaps this is the reason for John the Evangelist to emphasise service on the night where Jesus celebrated the 1st Eucharist. We need strength just to love. What more our enemies. Ordinarily loving is already demanding. What more to serve. The spiritual energy needed to embrace and live out the mandate of Christ comes from the Eucharist.
In loving and serving, we can never get enough of Jesus. Perhaps in our world of “can do” we have forgotten how powerful the Sacraments are and how necessary the Eucharist is to our ministries and apostolates. We tend to depend on our own strength. So, this evening, as we gather to recall what He did that night as an example of love and service, we also remember that He left us the Eucharist as the source of the spiritual strength to follow Him in loving and serving others, most especially our enemies.
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[1] Three mysteries are commemorated. (1) The Institution of the Eucharist and (2) the Priesthood, (3) the command to love one another.
