272. Drinking Christ’s own Blood from His own wounds
272. DRINKING CHRIST’S OWN BLOOD FROM HIS OWN WOUNDS
If what we drink in the Eucharist is not wine, as it appears to be, but Christ’s own Blood, where does it come from? From nothing? Or from Christ’s own Body on the Cross? Is this sacrament something like a 2,000-year-long straw that enables us to drink the actual Blood of Christ that is the cause of our salvation? Or is it, as Protestants say, much less shockingly, merely a holy symbol?
Whether grace (sanctifying grace, saving grace) is bestowed through this sacrament?
Our Lord says (Jn 6:51): The bread which I will give is My flesh for the life of the world. . . .
Christ . . . by coming sacramentally into man, causes the life of grace, according to John 6:58: He that eateth Me, the same also shall live by Me. . . .
And therefore this sacrament works in man the effect which Christ’s Passion wrought in the world. Hence Chrysostom says on the words, immediately there came out blood and water (Jn 19:34): Since the sacred mysteries derive their origin from thence, when you draw nigh to the awe-inspiring chalice, so approach as if you were going to drink from Christ’s own side. Hence our Lord Himself says (Mt 26:28): This is My blood . . . which shall be shed for many unto the remission of sins. . . . And hence our Lord says (Jn 6:55): My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed (III,79,1).
Do St. John Chrysostom’s words shock you? Do they shock you into sanity, into realism, into reality, into truth? Or into exaggeration and even blasphemy? When did you see the Eucharist more truly: before or after you first read those words? Will you ever be able to see it in the old way again?
Grace is not merely a gift given gratuitously by God, though it is that too: it is the very life of God, “eternal life”, supernatural life, zoe, in the soul. The Eucharist gives us grace; i.e., it gives us God.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux writes that when he contemplates the crucifix, he sees the five wounds of Christ as lips, speaking to us in their bleeding. What are they saying? They are saying, with eloquence far beyond any written words, “I love you.” His wounds are kisses.
There are also other ways to interpret the image of Christ’s blood flowing from His body, other meanings in this image (which is both a reality and an image, both a thing and a sign). For images and symbols, whether they are merely verbal or whether they are historically real events, as is the case here, do not have only one correct meaning, but many—unless they are allegories, which artificially and deliberately restrict the many possible meanings of a symbol to only one, like a finger pointing at one specific object. Symbols, in contrast, are like lights that illumine many objects.
One such “other way” to interpret the image is by contrast to Dracula. Dracula is a reverse of Christ, an anti-Christ. Dracula sucks your blood, your life, and makes you one of the living dead, one of the damned. Ghouls (as in Night of the Living Dead do the same thing to your body: they eat it and make you a ghoul, make you one of the living dead, the damned. But Christ gives you His Body and Blood, His life, to make you one of the saved. Salvation is a blood transfusion. So in the Eucharist we literally eat His Body and drink His Blood. Our lips are to be applied to His five wounds as the mouths of starving lions are applied to the blood of the animals they eat, and as the mouths of suckling babies are applied to their mother’s breasts. He gives us supernatural life not just symbolically but literally, by giving us His literal Body and Blood. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life (zoe, supernatural life) in you”—Jn 6:53). Nothing He could possibly have said would have shocked the Jews more than that.
And then He adds that “my flesh is food indeed and my blood is drink indeed”—or “This is real meat and real drink. This is what meat really means: My Body. This is what drink really means: My Blood. They are not symbols. What you eat and drink three times a day is the symbol, and this is the reality. You see things upside down.”
Yes, it is shocking. When the real God, and His real love appears, we are always shocked.