Loading…
VRSZ
This sets the art on your cards and whose commentary you read on each verse. You can change it later in settings.
Translation
Loading…
What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
John Chrysostom
Awful in truth are the Mysteries of the Church, awful in truth is the Altar. A fountain went up out of Paradise sending forth material rivers, from this table springeth up a fountain which sendeth forth rivers spiritual. By the side of this fountain are planted not fruitless willows, but trees reaching even to heaven, bearing fruit ever timely and undecaying. If any be scorched with heat, let him come to the side of this fountain and cool his burning. …
Cyril of Alexandria
How he will give them his flesh to eat he does not yet tell them, for he knew they were in darkness and would never in that state be able to understand what is ineffable.… But the power of learning suitably follows on those who believe.… It was therefore right that faith should first be rooted in them before understanding.… And it is for this reason (I suppose) that the Lord refrained from telling them how he would give them his flesh to eat, calling them to believe before they seek. …
Theophylact of Ohrid
Therefore He also, wishing to show that this is not impossible, but even very necessary, and that one cannot otherwise have life, says: "unless you eat the Flesh," and so forth. So too Nicodemus spoke from unbelief: "How can a man enter into his mother's womb?" (John 3:4) Therefore when we hear that without partaking of the Flesh of the Son we cannot have life, we must have undoubting faith when receiving the Divine Mysteries, and not ask "how?" For "the natural man," that is, one who follows human, natural, or psychical reasoning, …
Western Saints
Augustine of Hippo
But when does flesh receive the bread which He calls His flesh? The faithful know and receive the Body of Christ, if they labour to be the body of Christ. And they become the body of Christ, if they study to live by the Spirit of Christ: for that which lives by the Spirit of Christ, is the body of Christ. This bread the Apostle sets forth, where he says, We being many are one body. (1 Cor. 12:12) O sacrament of mercy, O sign of unity, O bond of love! …
Thomas Aquinas
Our Lord stops this argument. First, he states the power that comes from taking this food; secondly, he amplifies on it (v 55). As to the first he does three things. First, he states why it is necessary to eat this flesh; secondly, its usefulness; and thirdly, he adds something about its truth (v 56). Jesus said: Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you. As if to say: You think it is impossible and unbecoming to eat my flesh. …
Bonaventure
The disputation of the Jews has been set forth; here the confirmation of the doctrine is set forth. He therefore confirms what he had said, that his flesh is bread, in this order: first the necessity of eating the flesh of Christ is set forth; second, the utility of eating; third, the truth of the refreshment; fourth, the dignity. …
Translation