I have heard the readings like today and read them on many occasions and now it shouts out to me: Jesus keeps offering ways to make us a part of his life, to keep us in relationship with him. This desire of the Lord is frequently expressed and repeatedly given as an invitation.
 
Today, in chapter 6 of the Gospel according to John, the Lord Jesus expresses himself in a bold and distinct manner: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.” These words of Jesus are neither isolated nor coincidental, for all throughout this gospel he relentlessly states and stresses the invitation to union with him. 
 
His message today resonates with his concern given later in chapter 15 on the eve of his passion: “Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me.”
 
Have we spent most of our time focusing on how we could possibly eat the flesh and drink the blood of someone so dear or try to come up with only a spiritual meaning to those words? That, we must be honest, can easily be a first thought or reaction. Have we lost sight of Christ’s purpose, his desire?
 
However, Jesus never wavers in his mission: our salvation in and through him. We are saved by being in union, relationship with him. The giving of himself to us as food and drink is the manner he provides so that we are fed, have him close and have the means of sustaining our relationship with him.
 
Our relationship with God is spiritual and is not location-dependent as Jesus makes clear to the Samaritan woman at the well in John, chapter 4. That is a starting point, but, at the same time, the Lord does not think a spiritual relationship is sufficient. Our union with God through Christ is physical as well. We call it “incarnational,” all due to Christ being God incarnate.
 
Before asking why Jesus would offer us his body as food and blood as drink, we must ask, “Why did he become human?”
 
Back on the 5 ^th Sunday of Easter, I included a wise insight from Bishop Robert Barron which also helps sum up the divine purpose at work in today’s reading: “For the human nature of the Lord is indeed the means by which a disciple is led to union with God.”
 
His human nature is essential to our salvation; the gift of himself, his body and blood, makes his human nature our treasure, our means to eternal life, his means of being a part of us and we remaining a part of him.
 
A spiritual relationship is made real by way of flesh and blood and a physical relationship is made a lasting one when it is undergirded by the gift of selfless love.
 
The purpose here is not repetition, but to remind us of the constant desire of Christ at work: his invitation to relationship, but one that is visible, one that is to be tasted and savored, one that is lasting, indeed eternal – an invitation that sustains us in body and soul.  
 
Our understanding the divine will at work here is built upon a foundation of trusting in God and his desire that we have the ways and the means to overcome sin and death and reach our destiny: salvation by union with God in Christ. Salvation: a gift that the Lord gives by way of his word and his body and blood, a gift that we are blessed to be given and more blessed to eat and drink.