Verses Augmenting "Remain in My Love"

The following verses from the Gospel of St. John, augment Jesus' words to us: Remain in my love.   [New American Bible: The Catholic Study Bible, Second Edition]

John 6:56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.

Catholics are quite familiar with Jesus' words that caused no small amount of questions among His disciples, the Scribes, and the Pharisees.  What does he mean, "eat my flesh and drink my blood"?  The disciples closest to Jesus believed even if they did not quite comprehend.  When others departed Jesus in their disbelief, others of His followers remained with Him. 

We Catholics know the reality of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. The consecrated Host is His Body.  The consecrated wine is His Blood.  By receiving the Eucharist--Jesus' loving sacrifice of Himself to us--with belief, Jesus clearly states here that we will remain in Him and He in us.

John 8:31-32  Jesus then said to those Jews who believed in him, 'If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'

Jesus here explains to those who believe in Him, that if we remain in His word, we will be truly His disciples, will know the truth, and will be liberated by the truth.  His is a spiritual truth and freedom that surpasses any bodily freedom, and that is why any of the martyrs are able to express the truth of Christ and exemplify tremendous freedom in love when they were being tortured and killed.  

Jesus is the Word of life.  If we remain in Him as Word but also remain in His word, meaning also what He has spoken to us--believing and comprehending, we will be truly His.  We will experience the kind of freedom that Jesus experienced in His earthly trials, as well as the freedom of spiritual truth now and forever.  How can this be? 

John 10:30b   'The Father and I are one.'

John 10:36-37  'I am the Son of God' ...so that you may realize that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.'

If we remain in Jesus, believe in Him, eat His flesh and drink His blood, Jesus leads us to the reality that He is the Son of God, that the Father is in Him and He is in the Father.  This is another truth, bringing us to glimpse the transcendent love that transforms our souls.  Jesus gently explains the loving relationship of God the Father with Jesus the Son of God.  Their oneness is what we are invited into: Remain in My love.