IN TODAY'S GOSPEL for the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, Jesus invites his followers to eat his flesh and drink his blood. It is now commonly understood that the expression "flesh and blood" refers to the totality of a person. At the same time, this language of eating flesh and drinking blood remains somewhat offensive. The Greek word used here for "eat" is very graphic. Literally it means "to gnaw" or "to munch". Moreover, in other places in Sacred Scripture, "eater of flesh" is an expression applied to an adversary who is seeking to destroy a person (Ps 27:2). Drinking blood would have been equally abhorrent to Jesus' disciples, since blood was regarded by all Jews as the life force over which only God has power. Blood is, therefore, never to be consumed by humans. We see this prohibition clearly in the books of Genesis, Deuteronomy and Acts. Eating flesh and drinking blood also carries the meaning of a brutal slaughter (see Jeremiah and Ezekiel).

With all this in mind, it shouldn't surprise us that some of Jesus' followers found this invitation of his too much to take and decided that they could no longer follow him.

The Bread of Life discourse, from which today's gospel is taken, is followed immediately in chapter 7 by Jesus' acknowledgment that he couldn't travel freely in Judea because some his opponents were looking for an opportunity to kill him ("they were out for his blood"). Likewise, in the synoptic gospels Jesus' gift of his flesh and blood is directly connected to his impending death. This context of Jesus' impending death in each gospel account offers us a penetrating insight into the meaning of Jesus' offer of his flesh and blood for us to eat and drink.

When his own flesh and blood are about to be devoured in a brutal slaughter—and that is exactly what crucifixion is—Jesus preëmpts this violent, brutal act by freely offering his flesh and blood, the whole of his reality and being. Preëmpts. Jesus freely offers himself, and so no one can take it from him because he is offering himself ahead of time. You can say he is sort of getting the jump on them. We hear here echoes of the Good Shepherd in John 10, where Jesus says: "No one takes [my life] from me; I lay it down freely."

The word "preëmpt" has several shades of meaning. It can be as innocuous as a lead in bridge; it can refer to a tactic taken against a business rival; it can denote the right of purchasing before others; or it can refer to a war commenced in an attempt to repel or deflect a perceived eventual offensive—a preëmptive strike, in other words. And so, in offering us his body and blood Jesus is engaged in a preëmptive strike. A preëmptive strike of love. It is as if he is saying, "Whatever you intend to do to me and however you go about doing it, I love you now and will never stop loving you." This preëmptive strike of love transforms his violent death on a cross into an expression of infinite love: "Father, forgive them…" On the cross Jesus' preëmptive strike of love hits the target. We are told that on the cross not one of his bones was broken. But what did break was the dam of Jesus' divine-human heart, filled to overflowing with God's love for the world.

Hopefully by now it is obvious that the interpretive key to understanding Jesus' particular preëmptive strike that I've been talking about is love. I think it is particularly challenging in our contemporary culture to talk about love, especially on a feast like today's, a feast that celebrates the body—indeed, the Body of Christ. This is difficult because our culture is saturated, you could even say supersaturated, with the body's glamour and attractiveness. The glamorous body is everywhere on display—in advertising, in all forms of public media, in the massive business of human sex trafficking, in expensive cosmetic reconstructions, and so forth.