Prov 9:1-6; Eph 5:15-20; Jn 6:51-58
The desire of man to feel and experience God is as old as man himself. Only a few individuals had that opportunity. Moses met God on mount Horeb. Then people saw that God was within him. The prophets encountered God, and people experienced the presence God. The saints saw God, and lived in his
Presence. Meeting God requires a total transformation; and transformation is a painful process.
The caterpillar becomes the butterfly, and it is a story of transformation. It is a process in which , a being that operates on two-dimensional surfaces—the caterpillar—begins to create a cocoon around itself in response to some internal prompting. Over time the caterpillar begins to dissolve itself completely into green gooey stuff which slowly begins to reform itself into a completely new being—the Butterfly–that can now fly through three-dimensional space.
There is much scientific research into this process, which has been used to map and guide an internal experience of psychic transformation. During the phase of deepest dissolution within the cocoon, there are imaginable cells, which hold the beginnings of the new form. Initially there are not enough of them to precipitate the change and they are destroyed. Eventually, however, enough of these new cells emerge to move the transformational process along to the formation of the butterfly.
While this story of a biological process provides a wonderful metaphor for how change is often experienced intra-psychically, to extrapolate it to a collective process or one that is physically experienced brings up difficult questions of how such a dissolving and reforming would be experienced at a world level.
In today's passage we hear Jesus speaking to his listeners about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. It seems to be a difficult passage for us to understand. These ideas would be quite normal for those brought up in the background of ancient sacrifice. The sacrificial animal was very seldom burned entirely. Although the whole animal was offered to God, part of the flesh was given to the priest. At the feast set with this flesh, God himself was beheld to be a guest. It was beheld that God entered into the flesh and so when the worshipper ate it he was literally eating God. When people rose from such a feast they went out, as they believed, literally god filled.
Further, in that ancient world the one live form of religion was to be found in the Mystery Religions. Some of the prayers and sayings of the mystery religions are very beautiful. In the mysteries of Mithra the initiate said, "Abide with my soul; leave me not, that I may be initiated and that the holy spirit may dwell within me.
We must remember that those ancient people knew all about the striving, the longing, the dreaming for identity with their god and bliss of taking him into themselves.
In this process of striving to identify themselves with their God some people went to the extreme of declaring themselves gods. One of the examples is that of Philip II of Macedonia.
In the Greek world, the first leader who accorded himself divine honours was Philip of Macedonia. Greeks had set kingship aside, and who had extensive economic and military ties, though largely antagonistic, with Achaemenid of Persi, where kings were divine. At his wedding to his sixth wife, Philip's enthroned image was carried in procession among the Olympian god. "his example became a custom, passing to the Macedonian kings who were later worshipped in Greek Asia, from them to Julius Caesar, and so to the emperors of Rome".Such Hellenistic state leaders might be raised to a status equal to the gods before death.
As against these kings who were human beings, but trying to assume divinity; in Jesus we see God taking human life upon him, facing human situation, struggling with our human problems battling with our human temptations, working out our human redemption. So Jesus said, "I am the Bread of Life. "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day."
Following this demand St Paul advises during today's Second Reading, "Brothers and sisters, be careful how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is." Knowing the will of the Lord and applying it are two different things. It is no different then words without actions. Those who believe in Christ must apply the love of Christ towards God and others through their actions.
The result of our receiving the body of Jesus should reflect in our actions. When Jesus comes to us, our actions should be that of Jesus, our thoughts should be that of Jesus, our words must be that of Jesus.
May the body and blood Jesus transform us.
May the body and blood Jesus transform us.