Jesus looks forward on Palm Sunday to the universal church that will embrace Jews and Greeks – all the peoples of the world, when he says “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies it bears much fruit” (John 12:24).
“Before there can be bread” says the Pope, “the seed, – the grain of wheat – first has to be placed in the earth, it has to “die”, and then the new ear can grow out of this death”. “This is why the world's religions used bread as the basis for myths of death and resurection of the godhead, in which man expressed his hope for life out of death”
“In this connection”, he goes on, “Cardinal Christoph Schönborn reminds us of the conversion of the great British writer C.S.Lewis; Lewis, having read a twelve-volume work about these myths, came to the conclusion that this Jesus who took bread in his hands and said “This is my body,” was just another corn divinity, a corn king who lays down his life for the life of the world.”
“One day, however, he overheard a firm atheist remarking to a colleague that the evidence for the historicity of the Gospels was surprisingly good. The atheist then paused thoughtfully and said:” About the dying God. Rum thing. It almost looks as if it really happened once”( Schönborn Weinacht 1992, pp23f; C.S. Lewis Surprised by Joy, 1942 esp pp223-24.)
“Yes, it really did happen”, the Pope concludes. “Jesus is no myth. He is a man of flesh and blood and he stands as a fully real part of history. We can go to the very places where he himself went. We can hear his words through his witnesses. He died and he is risen. It is as if the mysterious Passion contained in bread had waited for him, had stretched out its arms toward him; it is as if the myths had waited for him, because in him what they long for came to pass.”