When God says in the beginning, “Let there be light,” there is light. When Jesus says to a leper, “Be healed,” the leper is healed. When He says to a paralytic, “Rise up and walk,” the man does so. When He commands an unclean spirit to depart, even the demons obey Him.
Yet for many of us, Jesus says, “…my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink…” and we struggle to believe Him. Why is that? Perhaps it is because we can verify what He says by what we see: we see the light, we see the healing, we see the man walking, we see the person freed of demonic torment. But in the Eucharist we do not see Jesus, nor Flesh, nor Blood: we see bread and wine. Yet even if we were to travel back in time to Jesus preaching today’s Gospel, do you know what we would not see?
The Son of God. We would see Jesus of Nazareth, the same as everyone else. This is because, as the Prophet Isaiah foretold, “He had no majestic bearing to catch our eye, no beauty to draw us to him,” (Isaiah 53:2): He looked absolutely ordinary. Think of the hundreds and thousands of people who saw Jesus in His day, and how few believed Him to be the Son of God. Did not Jesus say to His dearest friend, who had just professed his belief that Jesus is the Son of God, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father,” (Matthew 16:17). In other words, Jesus is affirming in Simon what He would later say to St. Thomas: “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed,” (John 20:29). Peter did not come to believe in Jesus because of anything he had seen: he came to believe because he trusted in what Jesus had been saying about Himself.
Peter had faith, and Thomas did not, and Paul would later write that, “…faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ,” (Romans 10:17). Will it not be Peter who says to Jesus, after so many leave at the end of the Bread of Life Discourse, “You have the words of everlasting life,” (John 6:68)?
At every Mass we hear the words of Jesus: “This is my Body…This is…my Blood…” and today He tells us that His Flesh and Blood are true food and drink; will we believe Him, even though we cannot see? As the ancient hymn of St. Thomas Aquinas tells us:
“Visus, tactus, gustus in te fallitur, “Seeing, touching, tasting are in thee deceived:
Sed auditu solo tuto creditur. How says trusty hearing? That shall be believed;
Credo quidquid dixit Dei Filius; What God’s Son has told me, take for truth I do;
Nil hoc verbo Veritátis verius.” Truth Himself speaks truly or there’s nothing true.”