Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14b-16a ‘He fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know.’
1 Corinthians 10:16-17
‘Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body.’
John
6:51-58 ‘My flesh is true food, and my blood is true
drink.’
The LORD rained down upon them manna to eat
and gave them the grain of heaven.
So mortals ate the bread of angels;
he sent them food in plenty. (Psalm 78.24,25)
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We use the word ‘perspective’ in a variety of ways.
Perspective can mean an attitude or opinion: my perspective
on this is such and such.
Perspective can also be the way we see things clear
sightedly: we need a sense of perspective so that things don’t get disproportionate
so that they skew reality.
And perspective is a technique in art and design
that makes three-dimensional objects on a flat surface appear to have depth,
distance, and a realistic spatial relationship to the viewer.
Corpus Christi, today’s feast, the day of thanksgiving
for the institution of Holy Communion is a day to get a sense of perspective:
to see clear sightedly into the ways of Christ and not let polemic and
distortion obscure our sight of Him; to have perspective enable us to see the
depths and beyond the superficial; to have our minds converted so that we can
say, ‘my perspective is that Jesus Christ is the Bread of Life who I receive in
the sacrament of the Altar.’
The crowds of our Gospel reading lack all those
forms of perspective when it comes to Christ, the Bread of Life.
They are us, until we can make our own the words of
the hymn:
Thee we adore, O hidden Saviour, thee,
Who in thy Sacrament
art pleased to be.
The crowds are not willing to have perspective.
They cannot put Christ’s teaching, that they must
eat his flesh and drink his blood, in perspective.
They need to make some connections.
They have seen the five thousand fed, with bread to
spare, but fail to make the connection that God fed the Israelites in the
wilderness.
They have already heard John the Baptist declare
Jesus to be the ‘Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world’, but fail
to make the connection that blood of the sacrificial Lamb will be shed.
Because they can’t put it in perspective, so they
squabble, ‘how can this man give us his flesh to eat?’
They need the perspective that Jesus gives.
Eating and drinking the flesh and blood of the Son
of Man is how his continues to give us his life.
Christ is now risen, ascended and glorified, so how
is He in us and we in Him, other than through his Sacrament as we eat the flesh
of the Son of Man and drink his blood?
But we need the perspective too.
Christ instituted the Eucharist, the enduring Sacrament
and sign of His presence with his people in their wilderness, on Maundy
Thursday, at the heart of the intensity of Holy Week.
With everything else going on – the washing of feet,
the abandonment of Jesus by the disciples, the prayer of Gethsemane, his
betrayal and arrest – it is hard to get a sense of perspective of what this
supper means.
Maundy Thursday was 63 days ago, so how do we put
things in perspective now?
St Paul gives a clear sense of perspective in 1
Corinthians.
This is a sacred meal, not an aide memoire.
So we need a sense of perspective, the ability to
see the depth of the sign.
The Eucharistic bread looks ordinary enough, but it
is so much more: the bread and the wine that is presented, prepared and then consecrated
according to Christ’s command is in fact a participation in His body and blood.
That sense of perspective also helps us see that what
fed the Israelites in the wilderness: the fine, flaky manna fed them in one
sense, but what really sustained them was the very life and power and presence
of God.
There the people are told, that ‘man does not live
by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.’
After a day manna went rancid; our loaves of bread go
stale and then mouldy; God’s word - and Jesus is the Word Made Flesh - is what
gives life, what sustains, what nourishes.
It is this sense of perspective, of reading the
depth of the sacramental sign, that St Thomas Aquinas has in his Eucharistic
hymns, written for this feast.
They express how we are invited to see beyond the externals
to a depth of perceiving, a perspective, a vantage point that only the eye of
faith can give:
Faith, our outward sense befriending,
Makes the inward vision
clear.
(Tantum ergo in Pangue
lingua gloriosi corporis mysterium)
It is from the perspective of being a member of the
Body of Christ, the Church, that we behold the Body of Christ in the Eucharist.
The final perspective we are given is of the banquet
of heaven.
What the Israelites tasted is fulfilled in the Eucharist
and that leads us to the banquet of heaven.
This move from the earthly altar to the heavenly is beautifully
captured by St Alphonsus Liguori in a Eucharistic hymn:
Beloved Lord in heaven above,
there, Jesus, thou awaitest me;
to gaze on thee with changless love,
yes, thus I hope, thus shall it be:
for how can he deny me heaven
who here on earth
himself hath given?
Here is all the perspective we need:
The LORD rained down upon them manna to eat
and gave them the grain of heaven.
So mortals ate the bread of angels;
he sent them food in plenty. (Psalm 78.24,25)
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