The text below is the transcription of the video commentary by Fr Fernando Armellini

A good Sunday to all. ‘The evangelist John dedicates five chapters of his book to the narration of the Last Supper. Some are surprised that the narrative of the institution of the Eucharist does not appear in these five chapters John did not feel the need because the three synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke had already mentioned it, and Paul had also mentioned it in the letter to the Corinthians. Another reason is the objective that John has: he wants to enlighten his Christian communities, at the end of the first century, on the meaning of the gesture they make every week, on the Lord's day, the gesture of breaking of the bread. Perhaps already, in their communities, it was beginning to become a rite to which life did not correspond. So, how do you introduce this clarification? In two moments of his Gospel. One of them we all remember very well, when during the Last Supper, instead of the institution of the Eucharist, the evangelist tells us the gesture of Jesus, the washing of the feet, ... and the meaning is very clear. This is what the evangelist means: Be aware that the rite of breaking bread and eating that bread must translate into a concrete life of love, a life that is at the service of the brothers and sisters. If this does not happen, your rite may become hypocritical. Then there is another occasion when John presents the meaning of the Eucharist. It is in chapter six, when, after having made the sign of sharing the loaves, the evangelist presents a long discourse of Jesus, which comes to the end stating clearly what it means to assimilate that bread. This long discourse that Jesus makes begins with a clarification because some misunderstood the sign; they understood that they had to turn to God to solve their problem with wonders and miracles, the problem of our hunger ... very concrete hunger, because the sign really wants to indicate this: how to satisfy people's needs, very specific needs, needs of life. It's not about turning to God for Him to do what we are supposed to do. And the gesture, the sign made by Jesus, meant precisely this: all the hunger in the world, all the needs of people, will be satisfied because God has prepared a beautiful home for his sons and daughters, ... they will be satisfied when they accept the logic of love, of sharing, giving up all their available goods and giving them to the brothers and sisters, and then, not only will satisfy everyone's hunger but their goods will also be in abundance.   Having cleared up this misunderstanding, Jesus introduces another bread, ... it is no longer the material bread that feeds the life of this world, but, in his speech, he begins to speak of a bread that has come down from heaven to give another life. In the biological life, life can also be reduced to survival, to vegetate, but the person needs another life, and this life is given by a bread that has come down from heaven. Quite cryptic language for those who hear it, but then it will become clear and they will understand when Jesus continues his speech. He introduced himself as bread, bread as the wisdom of God, sent from heaven to enlighten and guide people to a true human life because if they do not follow this wisdom they go down the paths of death. In this discourse Jesus presented himself as this bread, this wisdom that nourishes true life; the fullness of human life because it is not full human life those who vegetate, even if they have all the goods of this world, life must have a meaning, a goal, a purpose! This is the first part of the discourse. At this point our text begins. Let's listen: Jesus said to the Jews: "I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world." I wondered many times what the disciples must have understood during the Last Supper about the gesture made by Jesus. What had Jesus done? At one point during the meal he had taken some bread and he had said: "This is me, take it and eat." They must not have understood much that night; it was later when, obeying the Lord's command they continued to celebrate, every week, that gesture of breaking bread. And they reflected, guided by the Spirit; they understood and internalized the content of that gesture and the implication it had, the fact of assimilating that bread. Decades of reflection have passed in Christian communities, and the evangelist John presents to us, in a discourse by Jesus, what these communities lived, especially those of Asia Minor, where the son of Zebedee was. And John was specifically a point of reference in Ephesus. In this discourse John presented this maturation of the understanding of the gesture of breaking the bread. Today we want to reflect on the last part of this discourse, where the subject is precisely that of the Eucharist and it will help us understand what we do today, every week on the Lord's day. The presentation is made with images, with terms, which can be a bit difficult because they reflect the Semitic theological language and we will try to understand it. Jesus says: "I am the living bread that has come down from heaven." He has come down to this world from heaven, as bread; "Whoever eats this bread has eternal life and the bread that I will give is my flesh." These are images that must be well understood. The first thing we notice in this text is the verb "to eat". We find it 11 times in Jesus' discourse. A bread that must be eaten, must be assimilated. Then another verb will appear four times, even stronger one: not to eat but to chew, to crush, to assimilate even the crumbs. This very strong verb appears four times. Then another verb: to drink. These are verbs that perhaps force us to reconsider certain Eucharistic devotions, which in the past have had their meaning, their value; but if they don't reflect, if they do not express the authentic meaning of the Eucharist, all these devotions need rethinking. And if, then, in fact, certain devotions obscure the meaning of the Eucharist, even if people are fond of them, they should be abandoned. Eating, drinking ... means welcoming in our own life what that flesh—that is Christ, represents and make it become part of our life, of our person. But what is meant by ‘flesh’? When we talk about ‘flesh’, we immediately think in the physical aspect, in the atoms, in the muscles ... No. For a Semitic, flesh is the person seen in their fragility, in their precariousness, in their weakness; and above all the person is ‘flesh’ because he or she is mortal. That is, vulnerable, it is an ephemeral creature, specially destined to die. This food that comes from heaven became flesh, and John says: he became one of us, with all our weaknesses, the frailties that belong to our human nature. The immortal became one of us, a mortal ... and if Jesus had not died on the cross, he would have died of old age, because he became flesh. So, eating, we said earlier, means welcoming, assimilating, but what is this bread that came down from heaven? He is the wisdom of God, the wisdom that was incarnated in Jesus. We find here the realization of an authentic man and, if I want my life to be fully realized, as God has given it to me, I must assimilate thatv wisdom that became flesh, that was incarnated in a person, not in rules and regulations ... No, ... it is that person who shows me the successful man, the man who follows the wisdom of God. Jesus presented himself as this bread that came down from heaven; like this wisdom that everyone must assimilate, if they really want to be fully people. This presentation that Jesus makes of himself is scandalous for a Jew because the wisdom for a Jew is the Torah. For a Jew, if one wants to be a complete person, he or she already has everything in the Torah. Jesus says: The Torah was not enough. It was necessary to go further. Now, in front of you, you have the wisdom of God, who became flesh; assimilate this wisdom, as bread for your life ... it has to become part of yourself. Let us remember Ezekiel who, invited by God, has eaten that scroll, meaning that Ezekiel before speaking to the people needs to assimilate well God’s wisdom, which is contained in the Torah; even if the Torah was not yet the totality of the wisdom of God. Now, that wisdom of God is fully embodied in the flesh of Jesus of Nazareth. Jews who hear this discourse of Jesus can only react. Let’s us listen The Jews quarrelled among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. At this point the Jews understood, and we have also understood, that the bread who came down from heaven was the person of Jesus, his message, his Gospel; and this was a scandalous demand for the Jews, who reacted. Jesus goes further and says: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you." At this moment, Jesus does not only refer to a doctrine, to a message, but to a concrete and not a metaphorical food. And the Jews are waiting for an explanation. Believing in Jesus means having understood the proposal he makes to us ... the man he represents and ... believing in him means that I entrust my life to him and say: ‘I want to live like you! Here ‘believe’ translates into a gesture of adherence, a concrete gesture, a sign that clearly indicates that I want the person of Jesus to enter me. Here is the meaning of eating, of assimilating, to assume, to put within us the person of Jesus. And Jesus insists to us ... "I assure you that it is necessary to eat the flesh of the Son of man." In this verse, bread and wine are not named, which will be the signs of this assimilation of the person of Jesus, but it is clearly implied what this bread and wine mean: Bread is the complete story of the person of Jesus who was a life given for others. This is what the bread with which Jesus identifies himself means: ‘this is what I am: bread.’ And then the wine: ... blood, ... blood for a Jew is life. Even today, as it is clearly expressed in the Torah, blood cannot be taken; blood must be shed, returned to the ground, because it is life, and life belongs to God. And here, Jesus says, "You have to drink my blood." And drinking his blood means welcoming his life, his spirit, that divine force that leads you to give yourself completely for love. When you eat that bread, when you drink from that cup, the choice is made to accept the whole story of Jesus' life in your own life. Jesus continues with another, even stronger verb ‘to chew’: who chews my flesh and drinks my blood. What does " to chew" mean? It means that when we chew, we really grind, it means that we must have understood the person of Jesus well. So, it is necessary before making that gesture, to receive bread in our lives, we must have understood who that bread is, because otherwise, we make a gesture that is still a ritual; and we do not understand the scope and commitment that it requires of us. At this point it is necessary to overcome a certain devotional and intimate language that moves away from the authentic meaning of the Eucharist. Here we talk about welcoming that bread who is Christ, welcoming that wine which is blood, which is the life of Christ and to welcome them in ourselves. So, it's about eating, about drinking. This is the Eucharist ... not something else. There is a certain devotional language that needs a rethinking. It is that language that speaks of being close to the divine prisoner... comforting Jesus who is alone in the tabernacle ... (Excuse me for mentioning these things) ... or even carrying him in triumph... keeping him company ... No! The Eucharist is not intended to ‘retain’ Jesus, to keep him close to adore him ... No! ... What Jesus asks is: Are you here to receive my life, in your life? He asks to make this gesture of eating, drinking, assimilating. The Eucharist is this and only this. Let us try to review everything that can lead us away from this provocative meaning of the Eucharist. Jesus continues: "He who chews my flesh (again this verb ‘to chew’), he who drinks my blood dwells in me and I in him. "This verb ‘to dwell’= "ménein" is very important in the Gospel according to John; it is the conjugal image of the Eucharist, this "dwelling" in Christ. The Song of Songs recalls it. The evangelist John uses the same formula of the beloved with the husband: ‘My beloved is for me and I for him,’ ... is the same formula that is adopted here. The Eucharistic banquet is the conjugal encounter with Christ. This is the most beautiful image we have. Who eats that bread responds to the marriage proposal that Christ makes with you: ‘Do you want to unite your life with mine? If you want to unite your life with mine, eat this bread, drink my life, represented by my blood and then we become a single person, we are united as the husband with the wife, we share the same life. And now let's hear what happens to those who eat this bread and drink from this cup. “Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever." Jesus gave an order: "Take and eat; take and drink." What happens to those who obey this order given by Jesus? Those who extend their hand, who receives that bread ... and drinks that cup ... receive life, says Jesus, those who "chew" will live because of me. To understand this message we can refer to the allegory of the vine and the branches: the same sap circulates in the vine and in the branches. The sap is the spirit, the divine life that Jesus possesses by his nature, and this divine life is now given to us when we receive, when we eat that bread that is Jesus, and drink from that cup. And when this life circulates in us, produces fruits. The vine produces grapes, and the grapes give wine, a symbol of joy. The sign that we have embraced this life is, when we produce, when we give joy to the brothers and sisters. Joy is the sign of the presence of the Spirit in us. Jesus concludes his discourse by saying: "This is the bread come down from heaven and it is not like the one your parents ate, and they died." We have a material bread, the one that feeds the biological life, and this life ends, it comes from the earth and returns to the earth. If it had not been given to us by the Father in heaven, through Christ, his own life, the divine life, our destiny would be that of plants, that of animals; biological life ends. Let us realize that when we eat that bread, when we drink that cup, we receive the gift of divine life that Jesus brought into the world. I wish you all a good Sunday and a good week.