Fr. John-Mary: Father, you spoke to us about several presences of Jesus in our world. We Catholics see that there is a very special presence of Jesus at Mass, in the Eucharist; but it is something which remains nonetheless very obscure for us, and even more for our Protestant brothers. Could you help us to understand it?

Fr. M.D. Philippe: When I spoke of the diverse presences of God, of Jesus, in the world, among us today, I spoke before all of these witnesses who are indicator posts showing us the way. When we are in an unknown land, we like having indicator posts which constantly remind us the way. When, after a hairpin bend, the indicator posts are no longer there, we ask ourselves if we are not mistaken. God puts on our route witnesses that anyone can notice, those who believe, those who believe less, and even those who look without believing. It is for that reason that I first spoke above all of these witnesses. The mystery of the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is a presence which remains, for the believer, very poor, in an astonishing way; it is perhaps even there where we touch the greatest poverty of the mystery of love, of the heart of Christ, since he gives himself in the greatest simplicity and, at the same time, in the strongest way possible. We will try to understand it. It is true that this mystery of the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist remains like a great secret. It was for the first Christians the secret "par excellence" of Christian life: those who did not believe could attend the starting point of the Supper, but as soon as the most intimate part of Mass started, the pagans, those who were not yet baptized, had to step aside. Only the believers, only the baptized could approach the Holy Table and receive the Eucharist. It is the mysterious law, it is the "law of the secret" of Christian life. I believe that it ought to remain always for us a great secret, a secret of love, a secret which is given to us. This secret is something that we carry most intimately in our life and which is perpetually, for us, like a source giving us the presence of Jesus. I would like, with the help of the Gospel of St. John, to show how Jesus himself has prepared us for this mystery. Here I am thinking of this very great chapter 6 of the Gospel of John. Jesus has an admirable pedagogy. If we could have the same pedagogy, it would be marvelous. Let us think of this crowd which followed him - it must be at the end of the first year of the apostolic life of Jesus -, which followed him with admiration, with astonishment; there were five thousand men, without mentioning the women who are always more numerous in the pilgrimages, and the children who are even more numerous; that makes an enormous crowd which followed Jesus; and for the whole day, Jesus did not dare to know whether they were hungry or not, if they have had food or not. It is very curious, and, if we look carefully at the Gospel of St. John, we really see that the apostles were a little bit unfair: Philip and Andrew touched on the little bag of the child who had five loaves and two fish. They didn't dare to say anything, they just recalled stories. It is enough to tell children stories for them to forget to eat. It does not work with grown-up people, but it does with children, since they live by myths and stories; the apostles surely recalled all they knew about Jesus. It is only during the evening that Jesus questioned Philip and Andrew, because he knew that they were disturbed; they were perhaps mumbling a little bit, since Jesus led them, without any human prudence, without any political prudence, to the desert, where there wasn't anything, having no money to feed this crowd. Jesus knew all that very well, but he wanted to realize a marvelous temporal gesture of mercy for this crowd. He blessed the loaves: he dared to take the loaves from this little child who immediately had to play an astonishing role. It must have been astonishing to see this little kid in front of Jesus, and Jesus looking at him, taking the loaves, breaking and distributing them, as much as the people wanted. They were fresh little loaves, warm little loaves. They were able to eat as much as they wanted, the same with the fish; they gathered afterwards all that remained, so that nothing should be lost. The crowd was astonished by that miracle and wanted to proclaim Jesus king. Jesus did not want it and walked away to pray; he even walked away from the apostles. According to the Gospel of St. John, it is the first separation between Jesus and the apostles; until then Jesus was always with them; there he separates himself from them, because the apostles have been contaminated by the contact with the crowd, they have been seduced by the same concern for a temporal messianism: Jesus ought to be the king of the people of Israel, who would bring them well-being and freedom - theology of liberation -, a freedom on the temporal level so that they would be freed from the yoke of the Romans. The apostles had been contaminated by this same spirit. Jesus left alone, and the apostles came back, understanding that they had forgotten to be in deep contact with Jesus. They left during the night back to Capernaum, and the storm was fierce; they rowed with difficulty, and, in the middle of the night, Jesus came to them again, walking on the lake. I love very much - what St. John himself did - to look together at the sign of the multiplication of loaves, and at the sign of this miraculous presence of Jesus. John stresses that as soon as Jesus guided by the Holy Spirit was there, they immediately reached the port: it is an efficacious presence when Jesus is there, and the work simplifies itself; we no longer have any need of working either: we reach the shore. The next day, the crowd rejoined Jesus, and they questioned him. They were tenacious, they wanted to dominate him: "How did you come there?" Jesus pronounced then this very astonishing word: "work"; Jesus does not like laziness, "work, not for perishable bread, but for the bread that the Son of man is going to give you, the Son of God". It is marvelous, it is the first announcement not of a bread which nourishes our vegetative life, our biological life, but of another bread. Jesus unites it with work; it is perhaps there where we find a divine theology of work for the Christians, which is linked to the mystery of the Eucharist. If we have time, we will come back to this, because it seems very important to me, and it is practical. How should Christians work? They don't work firstly for temporal bread, but for something really more important, so that the people of God can have the true bread. Then Jesus starts, near the Synagogue of Capernaum, this very great discourse which is marvelous, which is a prophetic discourse on the mystery of the Eucharist. We do not understand it well enough because we do not contemplate enough this great discourse, so that the mystery of the Eucharist often remains something a little far away, a practice. It should not solely be a practice, it is really more than that, it is a gift of love. Jesus discussed with this crowd, and he announced, he revealed something extraordinary: "Truly, truly, I tell you (6:32), it is not Moses who gave you the bread which comes from Heaven, but it is my Father who gives it to you, the bread which comes from Heaven, the true bread, because God's bread descends from Heaven and gives life to the world." The miracle of the multiplication of loaves had immediately brought to mind, to the people of Israel, the miracle of the manna in the desert, and for them, this miracle of the manna in the desert was the moment when God was so close to his people, a little like a wedding engagement: God had an extraordinary tenderness for his people, and they were looking for this time to come back. This miracle performed by Jesus immediately reminded them of God who was so close, of his omnipotence which realized this miracle for them. Let us have a power on this omnipotence of God, so that, every day, God will give us this miraculous bread: no longer any need to work! That is a temporal messianism, the homesickness of no longer having this hard labor which is a consequence of sin and which purifies us. To accept hard work purifies us, when we accept it for the glory of God, and when we accept it so that the bread from Heaven, the true bread, will be given to us. Jesus makes this comparison to show us that it is not a mere turning backward: that is the great conduct of God - we never move back. The Holy Spirit is never behind, he is always in front of us; this is maybe what we have the most trouble accepting, because we experience homesickness. We see very well this homesickness in the Church today: certain people indefinitely regret a past liturgy, like the great liturgy; they feel a homesickness, they forget the essential, they stop at external things, they forget that we always ought to go further into the gift of God, and not stop at appearances. Jesus recalls that it is not Moses who gives us the bread from Heaven, it is the Father. That is very beautiful: the Father is the one who gives bread to his children, and that always remains true, even in a human family: the father works to give bread to his brood, to his little household. Jesus shows here that it is the Father who gives the true bread. They then say to him: "Lord, give us always that bread." Jesus excited a desire in their heart: that is the pedagogy of Christ: to excite desires in us. What is most terrible is a man who no longer has any desire, because he can no longer grow, he is satisfied with himself, and that is intolerable for Jesus who came to bring us something very great: his love. Jesus said to them: "I am the bread of life; he who comes to me will no longer hunger; he who believes in me, will no longer thirst." This affirmation of Jesus is strong! Never, in the first covenant, did Yahweh say: "I am the bread of life". Jesus can say in all truth: "I am the bread of life". I don't think that we are attentive enough to this affirmation; when we speak of the bread of life, we think right away of the Eucharist, we do not go beyond the divine sign, the divine symbol, we do not reach the mystery in its whole fullness. It is very true: there is a mystery of the presence of Jesus, under the appearance of bread, after the Consecration, but this presence of Jesus, this Eucharistic presence, is directed toward the most absolute presence possible, that of Jesus himself who says he is the bread of life. He is our bread. And it is perhaps that which makes us understand the entirely special dimension of the mercy of Christ with respect to us; until then, we insisted on the words of mercy, of teaching, on the gestures of mercy. The multiplication of loaves is a gesture of mercy, it is very beautiful to give bread to those who need it, to give bread to children, to give milk to children, it is marvelous. But there is something more, it is to give oneself; it is much more than to give one's money, it is much more than gestures of mercy,- we give our time -, it is much more than to teach,- where we give all our work, all that we have done: we give ourselves. When Jesus says: "I am the bread of life", he wants to show that his mercy leads to something greater: the gift of himself; it is he who gives himself, and he takes this extraordinarily realistic language of food, of bread. Bread is the main food in countries where we cultivate wheat, grain. We cannot refuse bread to a beggar who asks for it; if he asks for money, we are always a little afraid that it will go for alcohol or for wine, but we cannot refuse him bread; bread is a first and basic food. Jesus prepared this crowd, in his divine pedagogy: they were hungry the previous day and therefore they tasted with much more appreciation these fresh little loaves which Jesus gave them, as much as they wanted. When Jesus says: "I am the living bread", he shows that this miraculous bread that he gave them is still nothing; there is something infinitely greater: it is he who gives himself as bread. It is the gift "par excellence" of the heart of Jesus, it is the gift "par excellence" of all of Jesus: "I" is the person of Christ, it is he, his divine person and his holy humanity. It is he who gives himself as bread of life for us, it is the bread of God, and it is our bread. Bread is what we use the most. One should develop here a theology of the servant. When we use a habit, we do not eat it; and when we start to eat our habit, that proves that it is not going very well! Only little kids do that. We use a tool, yes, it is very true. We use a friend, but we do not eat him; and we do not eat a tool; another may use it after us, and a friend also, this is not exclusive. We eat the bread, our bread, the bread of morning breakfast, when we have a good appetite; it is our bread. When someone comes to take away our plate, we exclaim: "That's my bread". We assimilate it to replenish our strength, and to be able to continue our way. Jesus calls himself bread. He calls himself the way, but he says he is also the bread. The way is to indicate the route, it is a very great mercy, but there is something more: he is the bread, given to us as a servant which we use substantially, till the very end: we take everything in him, and everything ought to help us. How can Jesus be our bread? How does he want to go to the very end of this realism, when he says: "I am the bread of life?" He announces it to us in a prophetic way, a little further, at verse 53: "Truly, truly, I say to you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of man, and do not drink his blood, you will not have any life in you; the one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. And I will raise him up on the last day." He said it beforehand, with forcefulness: "I am the bread, the living bread from Heaven; if someone eats this bread, he will live forever." We know how Jesus, in the Last Supper, has transformed the Former Easter into the New Easter. The New Easter is the Easter in his body and in his blood. This New Easter is what Jesus realizes for his apostles, when he takes this bread and says: "this is my body", and when he takes the cup, and he says: "this is the cup of the new Covenant in my blood". He uses the bread, he uses the wine, to give himself to us fully and totally. He uses the bread, saying these extraordinary and powerful words: "this" - he shows - "this is my body". The words of Jesus are truth. If they are truth, the appearance is the appearance of bread; but the profound reality is no longer bread, it is the body of Christ. The Church has long thought about the forcefulness of these affirmations, I was going to say, the divine realism of this affirmation. The appearances remain, it is marvelous; Jesus uses this appearance of bread, this appearance of wine; that is not frightful: a child is accustomed to bread, an adult is accustomed to wine. It is a part of the meal, a part of a feast, of a festive meal. Jesus gives himself under these appearances, gives himself in all truth: it is his body, it is his blood, which is given to us. And you see, I am coming back here to what I was saying previously: there is the multiplication of loaves and there is the presence during the night. Isn't this a divine pedagogy, which makes us understand that, when Jesus consecrates the bread which he holds in his hand, it is no longer bread, but it is his body; it is no longer wine, but it is his blood.
Jesus wants to show us this new presence. We are present to someone to the extent that we are given to him. The more we are given to someone, the more we are present to him. It is really very astonishing. It is then that we understand the realism proper to love, and, that is very often understood in the negative way: when a friend is very close and when, suddenly, he has to leave, the absence makes us understand the place that this friend had in our life, because he loved us, because he gave himself to us. The quality of a presence arises from the quality of the gift: by the gift, we act on someone and we are received. It is to the extent that we receive this gift of the body of Christ, of the wounded heart of the Lamb, it is to the extent that he is given to us and that we receive him, that he is present; if, in fact, we do not receive him, he cannot be present, because presence is a mutual relation between the one who gives himself and the one who receives him.