Jesus said to the crowd:

44 "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up in the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Therefore everyone who hears from the Father, and has learned, comes to me. 46 Not that anyone has seen the Father, except he who is from God. He has seen the Father. 47 Most certainly, I tell you, he who believes in me has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, that anyone may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down out of heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. Yes, the bread which I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

John 6:44-51 - World English Bible

In these few verses, Jesus spoke of divine revelation, an encounter with God. In his classic book, "The Idea of the Holy," Rudolph Otto described the emotive nature of such a meeting in paradoxical terms; it can attract with the awesome presence of the Almighty and, at the same time, it can inflict dread. The Lord chose the attractive nature of revelation, as it drew people closer to their Maker. When Jesus quoted Isaiah 54:13 (a clear reference to YHWH inspiring the believer to follow the Torah), he shifted the identity of the true rabbi to himself; he was the "I AM" who would attract people with his teaching; he was the point of revelation, for he was the only one who had seen the Father.

Not only did revelation show the "who" of the encounter, but it also showed the "what" of the meeting. Jesus summed up the content of revelation in 6:47: "... he who believes in me has eternal life."

The relationship we have with Jesus was made manifest in this self giving on the cross. This act revealed what sort of God we worship, one who "gives his flesh for the life of the world." This is the God we not only celebrate, but truly encounter in the Eucharist.

"I AM the living bread which came down out of heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever." John 6:51

How does the Eucharist draw you closer to God?