What is it?

Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ 

“What is it?” 

With child-like simplicity and curiosity, that was the first verbal response in the form of a question which emanated from the lips of the Israelites when they saw this strange fluffy object on the ground, something which had miraculously materialised out of thin air and which they concluded was God’s gift to them. Manna! The Hebrews did not know what it was, and, with a word-play typical of the Bible, etymologised it as ‘man-hu’, Hebrew for ‘What is it?’ 

The Israelites first crisis in the desert was a lack of water; now comes the next crisis, a lack of food. God answers the Israelites’ call and begins the longest running, continuous miracle in the Old Testament—the daily manna from heaven. Each morning, manna rained down from heaven like the dewfall, and this continued to sustain the Israelites for 40 years during their long track through the desert before it finally stopped when they entered the Promised Land. 

But God was not just contented with providing water from a rock and bread from heaven to sustain the Israelites on their long pilgrimage. The wind, or “ruach,” also directed an abundance of quail over the camp of the Israelites. The Hebrew word ruach is the same word for “spirit.” Thus, the Spirit of God provides the Israelites with the bread of manna from heaven, and the flesh of the quail. God provides bread and flesh for the Israelites, as Christ provides the “bread” and flesh of His body, blood, soul, and divinity in the Holy Eucharist. The Eucharist is our daily manna from heaven, where the bread is transubstantiated into the flesh of Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit, ruach. He is our daily manna from heaven that sustains us on our desert wanderings in this earthly sojourn, until we cross over into the Promised Land of heaven. Again, the miraculous in Exodus becomes the supernatural in the New Testament. God is not subtle with His symbology. The supernatural Sacrament of the Eucharist is our daily manna from heaven. 

To the Protestant objection to the Catholic preeminence of the Eucharist by proposing that the Word of God should take precedence, citing our Lord’s reply to Satan after the first temptation (“Man does not live on bread alone but on everything that comes from the mouth of God”), we have to remind our separated brethren as did Moses in the first reading that this text actually points to the manna which God provided in the desert. “Remember how the Lord your God led you for forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, to test you and know your inmost heart – whether you would keep his commandments or not. He humbled you, he made you feel hunger, he fed you with manna which neither you nor your fathers had known, to make you understand that man does not live on bread alone but that man lives on everything that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” Moses was speaking of the gift of manna as God had promised. 

And in response to the second temptation, our Lord responds, “You shall not tempt the Lord your God” (Matt. 4:7). This time, He’s recalling Deuteronomy 6:16, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.” And what happened at Massah? It’s where God had Moses miraculously brought water forth from the rock (Exod. 17:1-7). 

So, our Lord’s first response to Satan recalls the manna in the desert, and His second response recalls the water from the rock. What’s the connexion between these two and the Holy Eucharist? These are the supernatural (or “spiritual”) food and drink that St Paul presents as foreshadowing the Eucharist (1 Cor. 10:1-4): “I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same supernatural food and all drank the same supernatural drink. For they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ.” So, our Lord’s answer to Satan is profoundly Eucharistic. 

This brings us back to the gospel. The context is the discourse which takes place after the miracle of the multiplication of bread and the feeding of the multitude. When the crowds ask for manna in John 6:30-31, they’re falling into the same error as the devil. They want the bread alone, without the theological implications. But our Lord reveals more in His reply: “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world” (John 6:32-33). Our Lord in today’s gospel reveals His true identity: “I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.” 

So, when we talk about living off “comes from the mouth of the Lord,” our minds go quickly to Scripture, and that’s not wrong. But the true Word is Jesus Himself. “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son” (Heb. 1:1-2). This Son, Jesus Christ, is the definitive Word of God, the Word made flesh (John 1:1-5, 14), and our spiritual lives need to be rooted in Him. 

So as we gaze upon this white wafer and this gilded chalice, what do we see? We ask, “what is it?” As the Sequence declares: “Bread is made flesh by words from heaven: Into his blood the wine is turned.” 

What is it? 

“The living body is our food; Our drink the ever-precious blood; In each, one undivided Lord.” 

What is it? 

“Behold the bread of angels, sent for pilgrims in their banishment, The bread for God’s true children meant, That may not unto dogs be given.” 

What is it? 

The true manna sent from heaven; the medicine of immortality; the antidote to death. 

What is it? 

Jesus, the living bread from heaven, truly, really, substantially, body and blood, soul and divinity. 

What is it? Not what but who? 

My Lord and my God!