My Dear People, 

Once again the Gospel passage uses the Greek word for “murmuring” which is used in the Septuagint and in Exodus and Numbers when the Israelites complained  (“murmured”)  to Moses in the wilderness. 

Jesus responds to the shocked reaction of His disciples by saying:  “It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail.”

This verse is commonly used by Protestant evangelists to argue against the doctrine of Real Presence. “See,” they say, “Jesus wasn’t talking about real flesh and blood after all, because the flesh is of no avail.” Continuing on, they say Christ’s language was spiritual and metaphorical because the Spirit gives life. They go on to argue that Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, is, at most, a spiritual presence, and no change comes over the Eucharistic elements when they are consecrated. They simply remain bread and wine.

The problem here is a misinterpretation of the term “flesh.” The fundamental point one  fails to realize is,  Jesus says, “the flesh is of no avail,” not, “my flesh is of no avail!” There is a huge difference between “my flesh” and “the flesh”! In the writings of John and Paul, “the flesh” is a phrase usually used to refer to fallen human nature apart from the help of God:

You judge according to the flesh. I judge no one (John 8:15). While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit of death. (Rom 7:5).

By contrast, the flesh of Jesus is salvific! Jesus takes on his flesh in the incarnation and then gives his flesh at the crucifixion. The two acts are pillars of our salvation:

And the Word became Flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14). 

The bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh. (John 6:51). 

No one would read John 6:36—“the flesh is of no avail”—and use it to argue that the Word becoming flesh (John 1:14) was worthless and pointless. Therefore, they should not use it to argue that the Eucharistic flesh of Jesus in John 6:54—“whoever who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life”—is ineffective or insignificant. 

Dr. John Bergsma says that the New Testament Scriptures themselves are completely clear on the point that the Eucharistic bread and wine simply are the flesh of Jesus and that is the plain sense in all the texts of the New Testament that discuss the Eucharist. Protestants pride themselves on taking the Scriptures in “plain sense”. Nonetheless, if it had been the case when  the Christian fathers explained to the early Church that these apparently obvious texts needed to be taken in a symbolic sense, I would accept it. However, that is precisely what we do not find. 

At the end of this Gospel reading, the crowds and disciples dispersed. Jesus is left alone with only the twelve. He puts the decision to them, just like Joshua put the decision to the twelve Tribes in the First reading: “Do you also want to leave?”—meaning—Choose whom you will follow. Are you still with me, or do you want to look for a different savior?”

The situations of Jesus and of Joshua (from the First Reading) are more similar than we realize! At stake in both situations is fidelity to God’s covenant. We might miss the covenantal connections in the Gospel readings because the word is not used. But recall that in the Last Supper accounts of the other three Gospels, Jesus calls the Eucharistic cup the “New Covenant”!

This cup is the new covenant in my blood. (Luke 22:20) This means “consisting of my blood.” In other words, Jesus’s Eucharistic body and blood are the new covenant that supersedes the Mosaic Covenants that Joshua was renewing in the First Reading with the people of Israel. 

People don’t really get it, but the Eucharist is the New Covenant, and therefore, if you are not participating in the Eucharist, you are not fully partaking in the New Covenant. This has implications for our separated brothers and sisters who essentially reject the Eucharist because they will not admit the Eucharist is the self-same body of our Savior Jesus Christ, who suffered for our sins, and whom the Father in His goodness raised up again. 

The response of the Apostles is summed up by Peter: “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

In other words: “You are the only game in town. There’s no hope in anyone else.”

This, too, has to be our response in the face of the challenges to our faith. 

Jesus teaches the way to salvation, but His teachings about the Eucharist are not easy. They sometimes offend our cultural sensibilities and how we think things ought to be. Jesus’s teachings require faith on our part. They don’t immediately make sense, and so, we are inclined to walk away.

But where do we go? It’s clear to me, at least, that the secular atheism dominant in our culture has no answers and no salvation and is indeed the most depressing philosophy of life that could be invented. Dr. Bergsma’s study of other world religions quickly reveals their  moral teachings and views of the human person are not in the same category as Christ’s teachings that have been passed down in the Church. 

The ending of the Gospel reading is particularly poignant for Catholics in America, who have been disgusted by relations of egregious failures of men in the hierarchy which could cause one to become disenfranchised with the institutional Church. But then the question is: Where do you go?”

At the end of the day, where do you go? Dawkins has no answers. Nietzsche has no answer. Mohammed has no answers. Buddha has no answers. Nor do Confucius, Zoroaster, Plato, or anyone else. 

Only in the Church does Jesus Christ still come to meet us in our poverty and affliction, embodied in the Holy Eucharist. There He hears our cries—the cries of the poor— and we taste Him. And, we see that the Lord is good. 

[Source, Reflection on the Sunday Mass readings for year B by John Bergsma} 

Yours in Christ,

Fr. Vincent Clemente