I no longer take pleasure in perishable food or in the delights of this world. I want only God's bread, which is the Flesh of Jesus Christ, formed of the seed of David, and for drink I crave His Blood which is love that cannot perish…. Be careful, therefore, to take part only in the one Eucharist; for there is only one Flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ and one cup to unite us with His Blood…. I am God's wheat and shall be ground by their teeth so that I may become Christ's pure bread (St. Ignatius of Antioch).
On the night He was betrayed our Lord Jesus Christ took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and gave it to His disciples and said: "Take, eat: this is My Body." He took the cup, gave thanks and said: "Take, drink: this is My Blood." Since Christ Himself has declared the bread to be His Body, who can have any further doubt? Since He Himself has said quite categorically, This is My Blood, who would dare to question it and say that it is not His Blood? Therefore, it is with complete assurance that we receive the bread and wine as the Body and Blood of Christ. His Body is given to us under the symbol of bread, and His Blood is given to us under the symbol of wine, in order to make us by receiving them one body and blood in our members, we become bearers of Christ and sharers, as Saint Peter says, in the divine nature. Once, when speaking to the Jews, Christ said: Unless you eat My Flesh and drink My Blood you shall have no life in you. This horrified them and they left Him. Not understanding His words in a spiritual way, they thought the Savior wished them to practice cannibalism. Under the old covenant there was showbread, but it came to an end with the old dispensation to which it belonged. Under the new covenant there is Bread from Heaven and the Cup of Salvation. These sanctify both soul and body, the bread being adapted to the sanctification of the body, the Word, to the sanctification of the soul. Do not, then, regard the Eucharistic elements as ordinary bread and wine: they are in fact the Body and Blood of The Lord, as He Himself has declared. Whatever your senses may tell you, be strong in faith. You have been taught and you are firmly convinced that what looks and tastes like bread and wine is not bread and wine but the Body and Blood of Christ. You know also how David referred to this long ago when he sang: Bread gives strength to man's heart and makes his face shine with the oil of gladness. Strengthen your heart, then, by receiving this bread as spiritual bread, and bring joy to the face of your soul. May purity of conscience remove the veil from the face of your soul so that by contemplating the glory of the Lord, as in a mirror, you may be transformed from glory to glory in Christ Jesus our Lord. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen (St. Cyril of Jerusalem).
One man has died for all, and now in every church in the mystery of bread and wine he heals those for whom he is offered in sacrifice, giving life to those who believe and holiness to those who consecrate the offering. This is the flesh of the Lamb; this is his blood. The bread that came down from heaven declared: The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world. It is significant, too, that his blood should be given to us in the form of wine, for his own words in the gospel, I am the true vine, imply clearly enough that whenever wine is offered as a representation of Christ’s passion, it is offered as his blood. This means that it was of Christ that the blessed patriarch Jacob prophesied when he said: He will wash his tunic in wine and his cloak in the blood of the grape. The tunic was our flesh, which Christ was to put on like a garment and which he was to wash in his own blood. Creator and Lord of all things, whatever their nature, he brought forth bread from the earth and changed it into his own body. Not only had he the power to do this, but he had promised it; and, as he had changed water into wine, he also changed wine into his own blood. It is the Lord’s Passover, Scripture tells us, that is, the Lord’s passing. We are no longer to look upon the bread and wine as earthly substances. They have become heavenly, because Christ has passed into them and changed them into his body and blood. What you receive is the body of him who is the heavenly bread, and the blood of him who is the sacred vine; for when he offered his disciples the consecrated bread and wine, he said: This is my body, this is my blood. We have put our trust in him. I urge you to have faith in him; truth can never deceive. When Christ told the crowds that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood, they were horrified and began to murmur among themselves: This teaching is too hard; who can be expected to listen to it? As I have already told you, thoughts such as these must be banished. The Lord himself used heavenly fire to drive them away by going on to declare: It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is of no avail. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life (Gaudentius of Brescia).
O most admirable banquet, to which it is an unspeakable favor to be invited! O banquet that saves and gives delight! Nothing can be conceived which is of greater value. What is served is not the flesh of calves and kids, as in the Old Law, but Christ himself the true God. What is more wonderful than this sacrament! No other sacrament accomplishes more for our souls. It takes away sin, strengthens virtue and enriches the soul with the abundance of all spiritual gifts. It is offered in the Church for the living and the dead in order that all may benefit from what was meant for all. There is no language adequate to describe the joy one experiences through this sacrament which draws sweetness from its very source and keeps alive in us the memory of the love, of which Christ gave proof during his passion (St. Thomas Aquinas).
We do not all possess the fullness of the priesthood here on earth, with the power to bring about the real presence of our Lord’s body and blood by pronouncing the words of consecration, but all of us are called to exercise a priestly function by offering ourselves to God according to that exhortation of the Apostle Paul: I beseech you to present your bodies to God as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to him, since this is the service required of rational beings. In no other way shall we be permitted to enter into the celestial Holy of Holies, by which I mean heaven itself. (Rupert of Deutz)
The eternal spring is hidden
in this living bread for our life's sake,
although it is night.
It is here calling out to creatures;
and they satisfy their thirst,
although in darkness,
because it is night.
This living spring that I long for,
I see in this bread of life,
although it is night (St. John of the Cross).
There is another aspect to the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist. Incredible as it might seem to you, you and I have the strength of God, for God is in us and He has said, "Amen, amen, I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do he also shall do, and greater than these he shall do..." (Jn 14:12). Now the road to sobornost (unity) is yours for you are penetrated with God. Now nothing is impossible to the prayer of faith, and to you. Now sobornost (unity) becomes a reality. It is truly clothed with flesh - the flesh of Jesus Christ. Yes, the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist penetrates the faithful beyond our ken. Now we stride across mountains like gazelles, following our Beloved, and mountains become our habitat. Nothing can stop us. The most holy sacrament of the Eucharist brings sobornost in such a fashion that we must thank God and praise Him for it…. Listen well, "Let Him kiss me with the kiss of His mouth" (Sg 1:2). Not only does He become one in me, but He kisses me. Go deeper, friend, and understand the sobornost that binds us through the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist. The Bridegroom comes. Hear Him? He leaps over the mountains like a gazelle. Yes, the Bridegroom comes. Sobornost becomes the breath of the Lover, the Beloved…. The mysteries of the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist are high and deep, high and wide. He will reveal them to each of us within the enclosed garden of His love…..There is no way to clarify this aspect of sobornost except to fall flat on our faces upon having received the Most Holy Species and His kiss, and lay prostate before the Unity that God the Father has sent us, for the sign of that unity and its substance is Jesus Christ (Catherine Hueck Doherty).
The marvelous example of Christ’s humility shone forth when, girt with a towel, the King of Glory diligently washed the feet of the fishermen and even of his betrayer. The marvelous richness of his generosity was manifest when he gave to those first priests, and as a consequence to the whole Church and the world, his most sacred body and his true blood as food and drink so that what was soon to be a sacrifice pleasing to God and the priceless price of our redemption would be our viaticum and sustenance. (St. Bonaventure)
One of the most striking and luminous gestures in the Gospel [is] the moment when Jesus, during the last supper, offers a morsel to the one who is about to betray him. It is not only a gesture of sharing: it is much more; it is love’s last attempt not to give up. Saint John, with his profound spiritual sensibility, tells us about this moment as follows: [During supper, when] “the devil had already induced Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot, to hand him over… Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass … he loved them to the end” (Jn 13:1-2). To love until the end: here is the key to understanding Christ’s heart. A love that does not cease in the face of rejection, disappointment, even ingratitude.
Jesus knows the time, but he does not submit to it: he chooses it. It is he who recognizes the moment in which his love must pass through the most painful wound, that of betrayal. And instead of withdrawing, accusing, defending himself… he continues to love: he washes the feet, dips the bread and offers it. “It is the one to whom I hand the morsel after I have dipped it” (Jn 13:26). With this simple and humble gesture, Jesus carries his love forward and to its depths, not because he is ignoring what is happening, but precisely because he sees it clearly. He has understood that the freedom of the other, even when it is lost in evil, can still be reached by the light of a meek gesture, because he knows that true forgiveness does not await repentance, but offers itself first, as a free gift, even before it is accepted. Judas, unfortunately, does not understand. After the morsel – says the Gospel – “Satan entered him” (v. 27). This passage strikes us: as if evil, hidden until then, manifested itself after love showed its most defenceless face. And precisely for this reason, brothers and sisters, that morsel is our salvation: because it tells us that God does everything – absolutely everything – to reach us, even in the hour when we reject him.
It is here that forgiveness reveals all its power and manifests the true face of hope. It is not forgetfulness; it is not weakness. It is the ability to set the other free, while loving him to the end. Jesus’ love does not deny the truth of pain, but it does not allow evil to have the last word. This is the mystery Jesus accomplishes for us, in which we too, at times, are called to participate. How many relationships are broken, how many stories become complicated, how many unspoken words remain suspended. And yet the Gospel shows us that there is always a way to continue to love, even when everything seems irredeemably compromised. To forgive does not mean to deny evil, but to prevent it from generating further evil. It is not to say that nothing has happened, but to do everything possible to ensure that resentment does not determine the future.
When Judas leaves the room, “it was night” (v. 30). But immediately afterwards, Jesus says, “Now is the Son of Man glorified” (v. 31). The night is still there, but a light has already begun to shine. And it shines because Christ remains faithful to the end, and so his love is stronger than hatred.
We too experience painful and difficult nights. Nights of the soul, nights of disappointment, nights in which someone has hurt or betrayed us. In those moments, the temptation is to close ourselves up, to protect ourselves, to return the blow. But the Lord shows us the hope that that another way exists, always exists. He teaches us that one can offer a morsel even to someone who turns their back on us. That one can respond with the silence of trust. And that we can move forward with dignity, without renouncing love. Let us ask today for the grace to be able to forgive, even when we do not feel understood, even when we feel abandoned. Because it is precisely in those hours that love can reach its pinnacle. As Jesus teaches us, to love means to leave the other free — even to betray — without ever ceasing to believe that even that freedom, wounded and lost, can be snatched from the deception of darkness and returned to the light of goodness. When the light of forgiveness succeeds in filtering through the deepest crevices of the heart, we understand that it is never futile. Even if the other does not accept it, even if it seems to be in vain, forgiveness frees those who give it: it dispels resentment, it restores peace, it returns us to ourselves.
Jesus, with the simple gesture of offering bread, shows that every betrayal can become an opportunity for salvation, if it is chosen as a space for a greater love. It does not give in to evil, but conquers it with good, preventing it from extinguishing what is truest in us: the capacity to love. (Pope Leo XIV)