Monday, May 23, 2005
CHRIST IS RISEN!
Michael Confessor & Bishop of Synnada
Kellia: Deuteronomy 3:1-11 Apostle: Acts 10:1-16 Gospel: St. John 6:56-69
Receiving Life: 56-69, especially vs. 56: "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in
him." St. Basil shows us how to pray to our Lord Jesus: may I "receive a portion of Thy Holy Gifts, and be united to Thy
Holy Body and Precious Blood, and may [I] have Thee, with Thy Father and Holy Spirit, dwelling and abiding in me."
Truths found in St. Basil's prayer are also present in today's Gospel. Furthermore, they are true each time we receive the
Holy Gifts: that which we receive is not ordinary human flesh and blood, but the "deified and glorified" Body and Blood of
God Incarnate, no less. Many people, including disciples of the Lord, have found that "This is a hard saying" (vs. 60).
Hence, in today's reading, to strengthen all who approach the Holy Gifts, the Lord imparts six facts about His immaculate
Mysteries.
"As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me" (vs. 57).
When we receive the Holy Gifts, we receive "Life," we are joined to "Life," true "Life" enters into us. God the "living
Father" sends God the "living" Son into this world, the One Who bestows "life" on all who will receive Him (Jn. 1:12).
The Life in the Gifts is uncreated "Life," eternal "Life," Life Himself. As St. John of Kronstadt says, "in each smallest
particle of the Body and the Blood rests the entire Christ-God, filling every part." "This is the bread which came down
from heaven....He who eats this bread will live forever" (Jn. 6:58). An aspect of the Life we receive in the Holy Gifts is a
Mystery: He imparts eternal life, so that one "will live forever." We do not simply "meet" eternal Life. We are "united to"
the Lord's Holy Body and Precious Blood. We have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit dwelling and abiding in us, so
that we are joined to the eternal, undying Life of God. "This is the bread which came down from heaven - not as your
fathers ate the manna and are dead" (vs. 58). In the course of history, God has given other food to His People
supernaturally. In Paradise, all that was needed He freely provided, even the tree of Life was there, as was the tree of
"learning the knowledge of good and evil" (Gen. 2:9 LXX), concerning which the Lord commanded "ye shall not eat"
(Gen. 2:17 LXX). The children of Israel received quail and manna in the wilderness (Ex. 16). God caused ravens to feed
Elijah with bread and flesh (3 K 17:4-6 LXX), and He sustained both the Prophet and a widow at Zarephath with meal and
oil through the days of a famine (3 K 17:13-16 LXX). None of these gave eternal life.
"When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, Does this offend you?" (Jn. 6:61).
Men have long sought to "explain" the Life-giving Mysteries. In doing so they have erred in two ways: by attempting to
explain Christ's presence in precise, rational, human categories of thought, or by reducing the essence of the Mystery of the
Lord's Body and Blood to "reasonable" symbolism. Both efforts derive from human reasoning and the desire to make the
reality of the Holy Gifts into something understandable. In actual fact, they are covert attempts to make God
"manageable," rather than One to Whom we should submit, One beyond human control, and One dangerous when
approached improperly (1 Cor. 11:29-30).
"It is the Spirit Who gives life" (Jn. 6:63). God the Holy Spirit unites us to Eternal Life, which is why, in the Liturgy, the
Church beseeches God to "send down Thy Holy Spirit upon us and upon these Gifts here spread forth," that He may unite
us to Life through the Holy Gifts.
"No one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father" (vs. 65). We are united to Life by His grace,
"and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship
created in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2:8-10). "May Thy holy Body and Thy precious Blood, O Lord, be unto me for Life
Eternal."