Fruits From The Tree of Life In The Garden For Our First Parents And The Consecrated Bread and Wine from Jesus Christ
The tree of life in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3: 23 ) and the Consecrated Bread and Wine are in a way the same. The tree of life was meant to give eternal life to our first parents and the Body and Blood of Christ gives us eternal life.
When Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate from the forbidden tree, they came to know the difference between Good and Bad. So why did God put them out of the Garden?. The reason was to prevent permanent living for them. Because, since now they were exposed to the bad they would be at some point in time be afflicted with an illness and at the same time they ate the fruit of the Tree of Life, they would live forever in agony. By the error of our first parents the humans lost the gift of eternal life and God wanted to give us back the gift of eternal life, so He sent His son to sacrifice for us, and He offered us His Body and Blood to live forever (John 6: 35)
If Jesus offered His Body and blood, why don’t we receive consecrated body and blood for every Mass? It’s simply because the body of Christ has the Blood of Christ too.
A question that can arise here is, while we are given the Holy Communion, normally we are offered the Consecrated Bread only. The main reason could be the reality that our flesh contains blood also. therefore, Jesus’s flesh also contains His blood. On rare occasions, we are given consecrated wine also.
At Capernaum, Lord Jesus Christ asked His followers to eat His flesh and drink His blood. The people could not accept this Instruction. Probably, they thought Jesus is speaking about His actual body cut into pieces. Neither did Jesus clarify to them what He meant. Jesus expects us that we possess and practice total and undiluted faith in Him.
The above are purely author’s point of view.
– Marceline Rebello