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This year I was able to spend my summer vacation in Scotland, a beautiful country with very friendly people and an exciting, and quite difficult, history. The Reformation was particularly violent in Scotland. Numerous destroyed churches and monasteries are evidence of this. Their skeletons tower into the sky as silent witnesses to the past.
As so often happens, religious concerns were mixed with political aspirations in Scotland. The people who were persecuted were the Catholics, who were no longer allowed to practice their faith. The Scottish reformer John Knox campaigned for the suppression of Catholicism and the establishment of a Protestant order. Ultimately, no stone was left unturned, in the truest sense of the word. In the famous St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh, today the main church of the Church of Scotland, old documents are on display in glass cases. One of them states: “The Scottish Reformation removed the belief that bread and wine really become the body and blood of Christ (transubstantiation), and declared it blasphemous to claim such a thing.” The Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence as blasphemy? I found this particularly painful in the middle of the beautiful medieval St. Giles Cathedral.
How can he give his flesh to eat?
The Gospel for this coming Sunday immediately reminded me of these Reformation disputes. The Gospel of John does not simply recount the events in the life of Jesus, but is already a theological reflection. This is precisely why it has a special spiritual authority. Jesus says of himself here: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever. The bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.” His listeners already begin to argue and say: “How can he give us his flesh to eat?!” That does indeed sound absurd if you take it literally. It can hardly be meant that way. Jesus repeats his statement again and emphasizes: “For my flesh is truly food, and my blood is truly drink.” This formulation indicates that the understanding of the Eucharist must have been a topic of discussion even at the time the Gospel of John was written. It is more than just a question of interpretation. It goes to the core of our Christian faith. In every Eucharist that we celebrate together as believers, we do exactly that: we eat his body and drink his blood in the forms of bread and wine – explicitly on Jesus’ behalf and “in his memory”. The Mass is more than just a reminder of him. When we do what he has commanded us, he himself is present in our midst.
In every Eucharist that we celebrate together, we eat Jesus’ body and drink his blood in the form of bread and wine – in his memory.
While on holiday on the Isle of Skye we were able to make a short stop at the old bridge of Sligachan. The bus driver told us a legend about the place: if you wash your face with the water from the stream there, the fairies will grant you eternal beauty. And if you drink the water, you will be granted eternal life. Of course I drank some of the water there because I was curious and wanted to know what it tasted like. It was wonderfully clear mountain water, similar to a mountain stream in the Alps, and very refreshing. For eternal life, however, I prefer to stick to Jesus’ promise: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” That seems much more reliable to me than old Scottish fairy tales. And it is certainly not blasphemy.
