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This Is My Body
Life is the destiny you are bound to refuse until you have
consented to die.
—W. H. Auden, “For the Time Being”In my fifty years as a priest, I would guess I have celebrated the Eucharistic
Meal (also known as the Lord’s Supper) thousands of times. I cannot say it was
the center of my life, although presiding over the liturgy surely gave me many
wonderful occasions to serve people in different settings and cultures, and, I
hope, to preach an enlivening word in that context. Most often it was a true
experience of “communion,” as ordinary Catholics usually speak of it—
communion with God and with God’s people, and often with myself. I knew
and accepted the orthodox theology of Eucharist and offered the prayers gladly,
although I often changed them when they implied the wrong thing. It was all
good, something that I took for granted as part of my work and my faith.
But a few years ago, a new and compelling message made its way into my
mind and heart and body. I realized that Jesus did not say, “This is my spirit,
given for you,” or even “These are my thoughts.” Instead, he very daringly said,
“This is my body,” which seems like an overly physical and risky way for a
spiritual teacher, a God-man, to speak. Indeed, Jesus’s raw proclamation did
shock its first hearers. As John reports, “Many left him and stopped going with
him” (John 6:66). Incarnation is always somehow a scandal, “too much” for us to
deal with!
For most of us, “giving” our body to another person connotes something
intimate, deeply personal, and often sexual. Did Jesus know this? Why would he
talk this way and bring his spiritual message down to such a “fleshly” level? “My
flesh is real food, my blood is real drink,” he insisted (John 6:55). Frankly, even