Holy Thursday: The Eucharist Makes Us Like Christ

“And whilst they were at supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke: and gave to his disciples, and said: Take ye, and eat. This is my body. And taking the chalice, he gave thanks, and gave to them, saying: Drink ye all of this. For this is my blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins.” —Matt. 26:26-28

Today is Holy Thursday 2023, the day in the Bible on which Jesus has the Passover meal—His Last Supper—with His disciples, and on which He consecrates for the first time the Holy Eucharist (the Body and Blood of Jesus, under the appearance of bread and wine). On this most significant Christian feast day, I would like to look at a few verses from John 6 on the importance of the Eucharist and then tell an interesting story about Leonardo da Vinci’s experience with the models he used to paint his world-famous “Last Supper.”

Jesus Christ said in John 6:54, “Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.” Unless we partake of the Eucharist, we cannot have life eternal. That is what Jesus said. St. Paul emphasized (1 Cor. 11:27, 29) how vitally important the Eucharist was when he noted that receiving the Eucharist unworthily condemns one to Hell. “Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord…For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord.” This is not the language of symbolism. This is the language of reality, of Jesus physically present in the Eucharist. We must “discern” Jesus’s body really present in the seeming bread.

And yet how many Christians today, just like the Jewish followers of Christ in John 6, walk away from this Eucharistic doctrine and deny it, murmuring as was said by Jesus’s followers then, “This saying is hard, and who can hear it?” (Jn. 6:61). Some point to John 6:64 (Douay Rheims edition), where Jesus says, “It is the spirit that quickeneth: the flesh profiteth nothing.” First of all, if this really disproved the reality of the Eucharist, it seems ridiculous that Jesus should waste an entire sermon telling people His flesh is necessary for salvation before immediately contradicting Himself and saying—just kidding, flesh profits nothing. Secondly, Jesus is described as losing many followers because He says His Body and Blood are food and drink. How strange, how fantastical, if He meant it only figuratively, that He should have let a large number of His followers leave believing His words were literal, when a simple clarification could have told them it was figurative! But Jesus doesn’t do that. He lets them leave him, because His words were literal. In fact, in John 6:53, the astonished Jews ask, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Again, instead of correcting a literal interpretation, Jesus doubles down.

Thirdly, whereas before Jesus said His flesh was necessary for salvation, in John 6:64 he says the flesh profits nothing. In other words, while His flesh gives life, flesh as mere material, or as a word used to symbolize the world, does not profit us. The verse actually supports the immense importance of the Eucharist—only Jesus’s living flesh can bring us the greatest spiritual goods, whereas the world can offer no salvation.

Finally, the Greek word (that is, the original word used by St. John) in John 6:54 does mean “eat,” but that doesn’t capture the full meaning. The word used here, φαγητε (phagaete—a form of ephagon), is from the aorist (past tense) stem of the verb εσθιω (esthio), which, besides “eat,” means to “devour.”

Read more about the original language of John 6 and the story behind Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper’ On Substack.