Uniquely among the Evangelists, St. John does not report the hallowed words of consecration that are so familiar to Catholics both from the Scriptures and from the Mass.
The expressions “This my Body,…This is the cup of my Blood,” are not found within the Fourth Gospel even though the beloved disciple devotes five whole chapters to the Last Supper.
St. John’s Eucharistic theology is, nonetheless, exceedingly respectful and outstandingly clear about all that Catholics have come to cherish in their beliefs about the Blessed Sacrament.
St. John famously devotes chapter six of his Gospel entirely to an exposition on the Eucharist.
“My flesh is real food and my blood real drink,” Jesus instructs his faithful followers. “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him,” he insists. In fact, Jesus is so resolute on the Eucharistic bread and wine truly being his body and his blood that some of his disciples are repulsed by this “hard saying” and refuse to follow him, walking away in disbelief.
St. John certainly does not neglect the Eucharist during his lengthy Last Supper discourse. This coming Sunday’s Gospel allegory on the vine and the branches is an unmistakable eucharistic theme. When Jesus observes, “I am the vine; you are the branches,” most hearers will envision Jesus as the stalk of the vine and his believers as the branches protruding from that stalk. But Jesus does not say, “I am the stalk.”
He carefully says, “I am the vine.” Jesus is the entire growth. Jesus is roots, stalk, branches, buds, blossoms and fruit. Jesus Christ envelopes the believer’s whole world. Believers do not take their life, their strength, their growth from him as a branch from the stalk. Believers live their whole Christian lives within him. Jesus surrounds the faithful with his presence and his power.
He cloaks them with his strength and swathes them with his vigor. The believer truly lives within Jesus as a branch within the vine, not just alongside Jesus as a branch stemming from a stalk. The analogy of the vine and branches speaks strongly of intimacy, immanence and indwelling, all rich eucharistic themes.
St. John’s vine and branch imagery at the Last Supper should certainly be considered along with the water/wine miracle at Cana’s wedding banquet, which is unique to St. John’s Gospel. Like the Precious Blood of Christ offered at every Mass, the event at Cana was a miracle of compassion and abundance graphically displayed by the six stone water jars suddenly filled the choicest vintage. “You have saved the best wine until now.”
Jesus sympathizes with the hapless spouses just as he pities the sinners who approach his altar. He saves both spouses and sinners from disgrace. Jesus lavishes the newlyweds with select wine and he fills communicants with his favored blessings. Neither the Last Supper nor the wedding at Cana was simply a communal meal, however festive. Both Cana and the Mass are plentiful banquets at which Jesus himself uniquely nourishes and sustains the participants. Jesus is the focus of both celebrations.
The image of the vine had been part of scriptural tradition long before Jesus’ allegorical words at the Last Supper. When the Israelites arrived at the borders of the Promised Land after their trek from Egypt, they sent scouts into the land of Canaan to survey what was to become their new homeland. The scouts eventually returned carrying on their shoulders copious clusters of grapes indicative of the bountiful blessings that God would confer upon his chosen people in the land entrusted to their custody. These grapes were a foreshadowing of the providential care and ultimate fulfillment that God the Father would guarantee his beloved sons and daughters over the centuries.
At Mass as well, the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, offered under the consecrated form of wine, is a pledge of continued care and final joy. As St. Thomas Aquinas famously wrote in praise of the Blessed Sacrament, “O sacred banquet! in which Christ is received, the memory of his Passion is renewed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory to us is given.”
The Gospel according to St. John expands more broadly and instructs more profoundly the Last Supper event narrated by the others Evangelists. What they tell, he explains.
