57. This Is My Body! This Is My Blood!
The Son of God said to His disciples: “He who hearkens to my Word and takes it in, admits Me. He really eats of my Body and drinks of my Blood.”
This is the sense of the words that the Son of God spoke at the Last Supper. These words together with the meal He meant to be symbolical of His Life on earth. The words were to be recalled and the meal partaken of, in His Memory.
How then was it possible that such violent conflicts could arise on this subject between the learned and the Churches?
When man has grasped the fact that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, was the incarnate Word of God, the words become perfectly simple, and their meaning self-evident. How could He express Himself more clearly than by saying "He who takes in my Word eats of my Body and drinks of my Blood". How could He put it differently? He was himself the Living Word in flesh and blood. In all that has been transmitted to us, the salient point has been omitted again and again, i.e. the reference to the Word which was sojourning on earth. Because they did not understand this passage, men left it out, thinking it of secondary importance. The result of doing this was that Christ's Mission was completely misunderstood and misconstrued. As in the case of so many of His sayings, not even the Son of God's disciples were able to understand these words of their Master aright in spite of their faith. Christ Himself often expressed His sorrow at this. To them the Last Supper meant no more than what their child-like nature suggested to their imagination, and they naturally handed Christ's words on to posterity as they understood them and not as the Son of God intended them to be understood.
Jesus was the incarnate Word of God. He, therefore, who took in the Word in the right sense, took in Jesus Himself; and if a man lets this Word that is offered to him become a living, integral part of himself, of his thoughts and his actions, he makes the spirit of Christ alive in him, for the Son of God was the incarnate, living Word. A man should make an effort to grasp fully and follow this train of thought, not only read of it and discuss it, but rather retire into his inmost self and picture it so vividly that it becomes a real thing to him. Naturally he must first know the meaning and understand the purport of the Word of God, then he must recognise the fact that this is what he is receiving in the Last Supper. This is the right way of celebrating this Sacrament, and he will experience the blessing that it gives. It is not quite so simple to achieve as many believers think. To partake of the Last Supper apathetically will bring no profit. What is living, as is the Word of God, must be taken in by a man who is fully alive and awake to what he is doing. The Church is not able to animate the Last Supper; it cannot breathe life into it for another, if the communicant has not prepared himself to receive it aright.
We often see a beautiful picture illustrating the words: "I am knocking." This is so far right in that the Son of God is standing at the door of the hut and knocking, desiring to enter. But here again man has added something of his own, for the door is ajar and one sees a table laid in the hut, which gives rise to the thought that none will be turned away who beg for food and drink. It is a beautiful thought and corresponds to Christ's words, only these have been interpreted in too narrow a sense. “I am knocking” means much more. Distributing charity is but the smallest part of what the words mean. It is the Incarnate Word of God that is knocking at the door of the human soul, not begging to be admitted but demanding admittance. The whole, the complete Word, as it has been given to mankind, must be received and accepted by him in its entirety. His soul must open its doors to admit the Word. If the soul obeys this call, it follows that the conduct of the physical body belonging to this soul will accord with what the Word demands. Man invariably seeks to explain what he does not understand in a manner that satisfies his intellect, which means that he analyses the question or the matter in hand, and compresses it into narrow limits, thereby running the danger of only grasping fragments of the great problems he is investigating. This is what has happened in this instance.
The Incarnation of the Word will always be a mystery to the earth- man, because he cannot penetrate into the sphere of Divine Substance, where the first link of this chain was forged. It having been denied man to see the process of the Word becoming flesh at its inception, he is unable to understand the incarnation, nor is it surprising that he could not understand what the Son of God wished to symbolise by distributing the bread and wine at the Last Supper. This explanation, however, should make it possible for man to construct a picture in his imagination. He, however, who still inveighs against and rejects the truth and persistently holds to the perfectly unnatural interpretation hitherto customary, shows that his power of conception is not equal to spiritual problems and his attitude proves him to be both unscrupulous and obstinate.
