What did Jesus truly mean when he said, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.” (See John 53-55)

Was he speaking literally? If God is love (See 1 John 4:8), then the Eucharist must be more than a mere symbol. Love desires union with the beloved, whole and entire; it settles for nothing less. Therefore, it follows that if we are called to be in a loving relationship with God, then it is fitting for the Eucharist to have a physical, fleshy reality because to be human is a physical, fleshy reality.  St. Cyril of Alexandria (5th century) called the Eucharist “Divine fire.” Could this be part of the transformative “fire” that Jesus wishes to consume the earth that we heard in Sunday’s gospel?