Daily Gospel Reflection
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May 10, 2019
The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying,
“How can this man give us his Flesh to eat?”
Jesus said to them,
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood,
you do not have life within you.
Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood
has eternal life,
and I will raise him on the last day.
For my Flesh is true food,
and my Blood is true drink.
Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood
remains in me and I in him.
Just as the living Father sent me
and I have life because of the Father,
so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven.
Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died,
whoever eats this bread will live forever.”
These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
The single word that especially strikes me in today’s Gospel is “Flesh.” Notice how the word is capitalized? It is strange to think of eating the Flesh of someone, but if you think about it in terms of the Eucharist, with the host being the Flesh of Jesus, then it somehow seems like something you would want to digest. Similarly, the wine is the Blood of Jesus. Even Jesus seems to acknowledge, “Yes, eating of the Flesh and drinking of the Blood of the Son of Man is unusual.” But he assures us this eating his Flesh is worth the strangeness, because it brings us eternal life!
Isn’t it an appealing thought: to have eternal life, and all we have to do is eat Jesus’s Flesh and drink His Blood? If we feed on Jesus, we will have life! Christ’s Flesh is like the bread we eat every day, nourishing us for the work of our daily lives. Christ’s Blood is like a refreshing wine that quenches our thirst and fills us with peace.
My husband and I each lost a parent this past year. In both of their deaths, we felt at peace because we had prayed with and for them for many months. Knowing that they would be resting in Christ’s peace and that we would be living our daily lives in that same peace of Christ nourished our souls.
My prayer for today is that Jesus’s Flesh and Blood will both nourish us and permeate our minds, bodies, and souls and be the food of our existence. Let them be the reason why we have faith!
Prayer
Lord, your Son Jesus gives us his body and his Blood in the Eucharist. His Love is real, total and unconditional. Remove our feelings of unworthiness, anger, hurt, revenge so we may allow you to feed our lives and quench our thirsts. Set us on fire to feed the hungers and thirsts of our world. We ask this through Jesus, the Bread of Life and Cup of Love. Amen.
Saint of the Day
St. Solange is patron saint of victims of sexual assault because she died insisting on her faithfulness to Jesus while refusing the advances of a young man.
She was born in ninth-century France to poor parents who were field-workers in a vineyard. At an early age, she dedicated herself to God and took a vow of chastity. Her job on the estate was to tend the sheep. She would spend her time in the pastures in prayer, and had a caring and gentle touch with animals. Several miracles of healing were attributed to her.
A young nobleman—the son of her family’s landlord—heard of her beauty and holiness, and he rode his horse to the pastures where she would tend sheep alone. When she resisted his advances, he grabbed her and placed her on his horse and began to ride off. She wrestled her way free and fell from the horse. Despite being seriously injured, she tried to make an escape, but the young man caught her and killed her with his hunting sword, which she holds in this image from a stained glass window in the Basilica.
St. Solange is also patron of the province of Berry, France, which explains her presence in this Basilica window. Father Sorin and the Holy Cross brothers who founded the University came from France, and brought with them their French devotion—she was popularly venerated in her home region. In the smaller window shown here, she is shown in prayer in the sheep pastures.
St. Solange, patron saint of victims of sexual assault—pray for us!