Jesus, seeing this, addressed His apostles: “Will you also [1] go away?” Peter answered[2] in the name of all: “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. We have believed and have known that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God.”
COMMENTARY.
The promises made by our Lord in this discourse. He promised to give us a food, the effects of which would not be passing, but would endure for ever. This Food is Himself: He is the living and life-giving Food which came down from heaven. He promised to give His Flesh for the life of the world, and to offer this His Flesh to be our Food. When the Jews were scandalized at the idea of His giving His Flesh to be eaten, He did not say to them: “You have misunderstood Me.” On the contrary, He reaffirmed the very thing which had scandalized them, and asserted repeatedly that His Flesh was meat indeed and His Blood drink indeed, and that those only will have life who eat His Flesh and drink His Blood; though, at the same time, He signified that the Flesh which He would give to be our Food was His glorified Body. When many of His disciples were still offended at the idea of His giving His Flesh to eat, and refused to believe His words, our Lord preferred to let them go, rather than retract or explain away one syllable of the words He had spoken. It is therefore undeniably true that our Lord promised to give His Body, His Flesh and Blood, to be the Food of His servants. Our Lord gave this promise at the time of the third Pasch, kept during His public life, and He fulfilled it a year later when, at the Last Supper, He instituted the most holy Sacrament of the Altar.
Our Lord is entirely present in the most holy Sacrament, under the form of bread, for He says: 1. “I (Myself) am the living bread”; 2. “he that eateth Me”, and therefore he who eats His Flesh eats Him; 3. “I abide in him” (namely in him who eats My Flesh); 4. “the flesh
- ↑ Will you also. Jesus made no further attempt to keep back those who wished to leave Him. On the contrary, He searchingly asked the apostles: “Will you also go away?” He left it to their free-will to forsake Him if they chose, and forced them to make a clear and open declaration of their intentions.
- ↑ Peter answered. Peter, the head and mouthpiece of the Church, made this beautiful answer in the name of the rest: “Lord, to whom shall we go?” (who but Thou canst lead us unto life?) Thou hast the words of eternal life, words of eternal truth which lead men to eternal life. And even if we cannot understand the mysterious words which Thou hast spoken, still we do not doubt them, but believe them, because we have believed and, through faith, have known that Thou art Christ the Son of God. Thus the apostles stood the test splendidly. They remained true to our Lord, openly confessed Him to be the Son of God, and placed themselves in opposition to their unbelieving fellow-countrymen.
