(John 17:19),

the Son prays in the last prayer to the Father. This means: "Behold my body, broken for them; this is my blood that is poured out for them."

One of the soldiers pierced His ribs with a spear, and immediately blood and water flowed out. (John 19:34).

This is Christ, who came by water and blood... not only by water, but by water and blood.

… Three testify on earth: spirit, water, and blood. (John 4:6-8) —

insatiably repeats, reminds John of blood. If he remembers it, how could Jesus have forgotten it with him?

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

… I am the vine, and you are the branches; whoever abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit. (John 15:1, 5.)

.. I will not drink of this fruit of the vine until the day that I drink new wine with you in the kingdom of my Father. (Matt. 26:29.)

There is too much smell of the blood and wine of the Eucharist from these two words in the First and Fourth Gospels to be able to doubt that here, as there, we are talking about it, about the Eucharist, although without words.

With a piece of bread served, "Satan entered into Judas," in John, and in Paul:

Whoever eats and drinks unworthily (the bread and the cup of the Lord) eats and drinks condemnation for himself. (I Corinthians 11:29.)

Here, too, in John, the trace of the Eucharist is too obvious.

It is also significant that the almost Eucharistic experience of early Christianity, from Justin Martyr to Irenaeus of Lyons, the disciple of the disciples of "John," stems not only from the visible, audible Eucharist of the Synoptics, but also, and even more so, from the invisible, silent Eucharist of the Fourth Gospel. [809]

What Jesus did in the Upper Room of Zion we learn from the synoptics, and what He wanted from John. There is the flesh of the Eucharist, and here is the spirit. There Jesus says, "This is my body, this is my blood"; but here I could say: "This is My heart."

Three testimonies about the Eucharist: in the first, Jesus sacrifices; in the second, he reigns; in the third, he loves.

The main thing for John is love – heaven on earth: that is why, in the sunny-white brilliance of the morning star – the Eucharist, John's ray is as blue as the sky.

XVIII

We could even point to the very place where the Eucharist, invisible to us, is celebrated in John.

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

This is one of the two words about the mystery of love – the Eucharist, and immediately after it – another: