From the foregoing we saw that the Son of God revealed to the Jews His two-fold nature. In His Divine Nature as the Son of God He was entitled to judge any human person as it lay completely open in the sight of God. They accurately grasped His claim that He was the Son of God, because they wanted to kill Him for claiming His equality with God. This last accusation came finally out before Pilate as the sole reason why they wanted Him killed. In His human nature as the Son of Man he was entitled to judge the ‘tree’ that is in any human being by the fruits it produces: the words and the actions. He also demanded that this second measuring rod was applied to Himself.

          Teaching as the Son of Man, and even in His arguments, He was careful not to go outside what He knew His hearers were capable of understanding until the point had been reached that, on the foundation He had so carefully laid, a higher doctrine was to be built. In ch. 5 of St. John’s Gospel, the higher doctrine referred to here was the revelation that, in the light of the proper Faith in the Scriptures, the Jews would have to accept that Moses wrote about Him. He also pointed out to His adversaries why they would not accept that. They did possess the right faith in Moses. The wrong faith in Moses, or even the complete absence of such a necessary faith, became manifest in the fruits produced by the tree within themselves: their words and their actions in relation to the Son of Man. After which they were sent home to ponder about these fruits to see where the Truth was to be found. All this must be kept in mind when we study the second great confrontation which St. John describes for us in chapter 6 of his Gospel. The following is used by him by way of introduction.

After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. And a multitude followed him, because they saw the signs which he did on those who were diseased. Jesus went up on the mountain, and there sat down with his disciples. Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a multitude was coming to him, Jesus said to Philip, “How are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” This he said to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what are they among so many?” Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place; so the men sat down, in number about five thousand. Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten. When the people saw the sign which he had done, they said, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world!” Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and drawing near to the boat. They were frightened, but he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Then they were glad to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.

          It was this magnificent setting which St. John used to enshrine within it the narrative of the second and most famous of all the disputes Our Lord had with the Jews: the Promise of His own Body and Blood in the Blessed Sacrament.

The next day the people who remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away by themselves. However, boats from Tiberias came near the place where they ate the bread after the Lord had given thanks. So when the people saw that Jesus was not there nor his disciples, they got into those boats and crossed over to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “I tell you most solemnly, you seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not labour for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you; for on him God the Father has set his seal”.

          “... not because you saw signs ...” It is almost unbelievable that the observation made here by the Son of God is so accurate. A bit further on in this narrative the Jews will unwittingly underline the veracity of this divine observation. They had been fed by a stupendous miracle the day before, but the uniqueness of it had escaped them entirely.

          The next words of Our Blessed Lord, “... eternal life ...” and “... for on Him God the Father has set His seal” are a clear indication what Our Lord expected the Jews should have learned and made their own from the previous discussion He had conducted with them. For in that discussion the profound distinction between natural life here on earth, and eternal life after death had been unfolded before them in all its clarity. And the second Truth mentioned here, that God had set His seal on the Son of Man should have been accepted by them from their faith in the authority of Moses and the prophets. That they did not accept it means that, after the first confrontation, they should have gone to the trouble to seriously investigate the quality of their belief in Moses and the prophets.

          So, after the altogether unexpected miracle of the Son of Man feeding their natural life here on earth, they should have been completely open for the acceptance of His other power: to feed their eternal life already here on earth with food that endures.

Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?”

          This is a straight-out request, a sure basis for further information, which elicits from the Son of God a straight-out reply:

Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

          This is the same answer that He had given them before. Would it sink in this time?

So they said to him, “Then what sign will you give, that we may see, and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat’.”

          No, it had not sunk in!

          The day before they had seen a “work performed by Him” which was on a par with what had happened to “our fathers ...”: they had eaten bread in abundance in a lonely place, bread that came from ... where? And in complete disregard of this most spectacular miracle His listeners have the audacity to ask for a sign, a sign that, on their own suggestion, they would consider to be equal to the feeding with manna in the desert in the time of Moses ... Is it truly a fact of history that it did not occur to anyone at the time that the sign they asked for had already been given by the mercy of God?

          No wonder Our Lord had to start again from scratch ... He did take them up on their own suggestion:

Jesus then said to them, “I tell you most solemnly, It was not Moses who gave you bread from heaven; it is my Father who gives you the bread from heaven, the true bread. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world”.

          Once again, the everlasting ‘trinity’ of the Jewish revelation:

1. The true interpretation of Moses.
2. Natural life as a basis and a mere prefiguration within that Jewish revelation of,
3. Eternal Life.

          After the acceptance of the true interpretation of Moses, of transient life on earth as a preparation for the eternal life with God, the connection between feeding natural life, (manna in the desert, multiplication of five loaves in a lonely place) as a prefiguration in the Jewish tradition of feeding supernatural life is not hard to make. If natural life comes from God the Creator, the feeding of that life must also be accepted as being part of God’s Providence. And since eternal life with God is to be accepted within the tradition of the chosen people of God, then the feeding of that Life is even more part of God’s Providence. And here was One claiming to be from God, claiming to be the true interpretation of Moses as proof of which He had performed a stupendous miracle of feeding natural life. It was on that basis, on a criterion they had stipulated themselves, that He now claimed the right to be very carefully listened to.

They said to him, “Lord, give us this bread always”. Jesus said to them:

“I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me; and him who comes to me I will not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up on the last day.”

          It is to be noted again that Our Lord has not veered off by even one tittle, one little stroke from Moses and the Prophets, but is building on the solid foundation known to every Jew in the land, the bedrock on which the tradition of the Jewish phenomenon had been carefully built and handed over. A tradition whose spirituality had been magnificently brought out in all its glory by the Maccabees in their war against the Seleucid kings, notably Antiochus Epiphanes and Nicanor less than a mere 150 years earlier.

          In other words He is repeating over and over again what His listeners could have known from a careful reading of the Scriptures, that every detail foretold in the past had come to life in their very presence here and now. It is the accumulation of all those details that points inexorably to Him as to their only fulfilment. And to this had to be added the latest testimony equally foretold by Scripture: the testimony of John the Baptist. It was becoming more and more obvious that the wilful closing of the eyes of the Jewish leaders against the overabundance of Light all around them, that eventually turned the Jewish nation against Him in its final rejection of Him before Pilate, bringing with it the subsequent destruction of their capital city and its temple.

The Jews then complained amongst each other about him, because he had said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven”. They said, “Surely, this is Jesus, the son of Joseph. We know his father and mother. How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”

Jesus answered them: “Stop complaining among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Every one who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that any one has seen the Father except him who is from God; he has seen the Father. I tell you most solemnly, everyone who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

          So there it was. If everything Moses and the Prophets had said and written down was about Him, what else was there to do but to accept Him and His message? As St. Peter will shortly put it so succinctly: “Lord, who shall we go to?.” What is the alternative? If He is within Scripture for every Jew to check out, the alternative must lie outside Scripture. As He Himself would say to His two disciples on the road to Emmaus: “Was it not written ...” Was it really so impossible to know?

“Man ate of the bread of the angels; he sent them food in abundance. He caused the east wind to blow in the heavens, and by his power he led out the south wind; he rained flesh upon them like dust, winged birds like the sand of the seas; he let them fall in the midst of their camp, all around their tents. And they ate and were well filled, for he gave them what they craved. But before they had sated their craving, while the food was still in their mouths, the anger of God rose against them and he slew the strongest of them, and laid low the picked men of Israel. In spite of all this they still sinned; despite his wonders they did not believe. So he made their days vanish like a breath, and their years in terror. When he slew them, they sought for him; they repented and sought God earnestly. They remembered that God was their rock, the Most High God their redeemer. But they flattered him with their mouths; they lied to him with their tongues. Their heart was not steadfast toward him; they were not true to his covenant. Yet he, being compassionate, forgave their iniquity, and did not destroy them; he restrained his anger often, and did not stir up all his wrath. He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes and comes not again. How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in the desert! They tested him again and again, and provoked the Holy One of Israel. They did not keep in mind his power, or the day when he redeemed them from the foe; when he wrought his signs in Egypt, and his miracles in the fields of Zoan.” [Ps 78:25-43].

          Is the present generation, this time finding itself in the presence of the Holy One of Israel going to repeat the sins of their fathers now that the True Bread of Angels has come down from Heaven and is being offered to them? Does nothing of the past penetrate their present conscience? Yet Scripture has not been silent in other places on the continuation of these facts and these thoughts.

“They asked for food, and he brought quails, and gave them bread from heaven in abundance. He opened the rock, and water gushed forth; it flowed through the desert like a river.” [Ps. 105:40-41].

“It was I who knew you in the wilderness, in the land of drought; ... but once satisfied their hearts grew proud; and so they came to forget me.” [Hos. 13:5-6].

“For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his flock. O that today you would listen to his voice! Harden not your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers tested me, and put me to the test, though they had seen my works. For forty years I loathed that generation and said, ‘They are a people who err in heart, and they do not regard my ways.’ Therefore I swore in my anger that they should not enter my rest.” [Ps. 95:7-11].

          “O that today you would listen to His voice ...”

          That “today” is now! The Jews themselves had brought up the fact of “the manna in the desert”, and Our Lord took up the cue and elaborated on it. Scripture is full of references to this miraculous food and the circumstances surrounding it.

“And the Lord said: ‘Because this people draw near me only in words and honour me only with lip-service, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a religion of human origin, therefore, behold, I will again do marvellous things with this people, wonderful and marvellous; and the wisdom of their wise men shall come to nought, and the discernment of their intelligent men shall be shrouded’. Woe to those who hide from Yahweh to conceal their plans, who scheme in the dark, and who say, ‘Who sees us? Who knows us’?” [Is. 29:13-15].

          It had all been foretold, faithlessness and Faithfulness, sins and Compassion, self-will and Forbearance. Marvellous deeds wrought by God in the presence of hardness of heart, of human fickleness and even betrayal. What was it going to be here?

The Jews then started arguing among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat”?

          Arguing ...

          Resistance, opposition, unbelief ... No, it was not going to be any different from what had been done in the past.

          amongst themselves ...

          Who could shed light on this but the Holy One of Israel in their midst, the Son of God right in front of them? Why ignore Him and turn to others just as blind as they were themselves?

So Jesus said to them, “I tell you most solemnly, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me, and I live in him. As the living Father sent me, and I draw life from the Father, so he who eats me will draw life from me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not like the bread our ancestors ate. They are dead; he who eats this bread will live for ever.”

          And over the last two thousand years billions of Catholics have believed these words and have worthily eaten the Flesh of the Son of God in Holy Communion and have drawn Life from Him.

He taught this doctrine in the synagogue at Capernaum. Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, “This is intolerable language; how could anyone accept it?” Jesus was aware that his followers were complaining about it and said, “Does this upset you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh has nothing to offer. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you that do not believe.”

For Jesus knew from the outset those who did not believe, and who it was that would betray him. And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father”.

After this many of his disciples left him and stopped going with him. Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe, and now we know, that you are the Holy One of God.” Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.” He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he was the man, one of the twelve, who was to betray him.

          Yes, there it was indeed ... The promise of the stupendous gift of this extraordinary Man was going to be His signature under His own death warrant. As the first line in the next chapter tells us:

“After this Jesus stayed in Galilee; he could not go about in Judea, because the Jews were out to kill him.” [John 7:1].

          As we all know, they would eventually succeed, but not before the Son of Man had given to His Church and to the world “His Flesh to eat and His Blood to drink”.