Friday of the Third Week of Easter
Acts 9:1-20  +  John 6:52-59
May 5, 2017

“‘For my Flesh is true food, and my Blood is true drink.’”

Jesus, like any good teacher, responds to the ignorance of those to whom he’s speaking.  The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can he give us his flesh to eat?”  And Jesus replies not by saying that “eating his flesh” is just a figure of speech.

Instead, Jesus replies by saying, “if you do not eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you have no life in you. …For my Flesh is true food and my Blood is true drink.”

Jesus is speaking about the flesh and blood that he is going to offer on the Cross on Good Friday.  Jesus, at this point in the Gospel, does not offer this real bread and drink just yet.  He does not say, “The bread I am giving you is my flesh.”  Instead, He says, as we heard in yesterday’s Gospel account, “The bread I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.”

Jesus gave His Flesh and Blood for us on the Cross on Good Friday, but He established the Sacrifice of the Mass on the night before He died.

In that upper room, with His apostles, he prepared a banquet for those in the future who would follow Him to the Cross:  for the apostles, for His mother, and for you and me.