"Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood
has eternal life"
Today's Mass Readings
In today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we see another example of an individual who is about to enter into Christian Mystagogy. Like the Ethiopian eunuch from yesterday’s reading, Saul, who becomes known to the world as the Apostle Paul, is not yet following Jesus. Like the Ethiopian eunuch, Saul does not yet understand the Old Testament in light of Christ. Unlike the Ethiopian eunuch, Saul is actively persecuting Christians. Also unlike the Ethiopian eunuch, Saul understands the Old Testament very well, at one level.
Saul was a very well educated Pharisee, and he studied under Gamaliel, one of the greatest Jewish teachers in all of history. Saul knew the Old Testament very well, but he did not understand it in light of Jesus yet. God does not send a Christian to preach the message of Jesus to Saul, since Saul is having Christians arrested and even consenting to their deaths. Instead, Jesus appears to Saul and converts him directly. After a period of physical blindness, which symbolically matched Saul’s previous spiritual blindness, Saul regains physical sight and formally enters the Church through his Baptism, having now gained spiritual sight. Thus he is prepared to enter into the Church’s Mysteries, to receive the Eucharist and live the Christian sacramental life, through the Church’s Sacred Liturgy, and through service to the world for Christ.
In today’s reading from the Gospel of John, we find Jesus using the strongest language possible to emphasize the truth of the Eucharist, of the necessity of eating His body and drinking His blood. Jesus explains that those who do not eat His body and drink his blood have no life in them. It is by eating His body and drinking His blood that we come to eternal life. This is not separate from faith, as the beginning of the Bread of Life Discourse makes clear. Faith is a prerequisite. This is not separate from Baptism, as John 3:3-23 makes clear. Baptism is what prepares us for the Eucharist. Baptism is what enters us into Mystagogy, which is the experience of Eucharist. Jesus explains that whoever eats His flesh and drinks His blood remains in Him, and He remains in them.
Drinking animal blood was forbidden to Israel, because, Leviticus explained that the animal’s life was in its blood. We must partake of Jesus’ blood to partake of His life. The Eucharist enables us to partake of Jesus? life, which is nothing less than the inner life of the Trinity. We participate in the very divine life of the Trinity, we participate in God’s very life, through the Eucharist. This is a reason for rejoicing. The entire Easter season is a season of joy. As the Easter season continues, let us immerse ourselves deeper into they Sacred Mysteries. Let us strive to love others as God loves us. If we truly are able to partake of God’s very life through the Eucharist, surely God will enable us to love others as He loves us.