Msgr. Peter J. Vaghi
Title of Series: "Holy Mass: An Up Close and Personal Look"

Part 4: "The Bible and the Eucharist"

January 5th, 2006
First Thursday

I have entitled this series of meditations this year, a series begun in 2005 and now continuing into 2006 -- "Holy Mass: An Up Close and Personal Look." We continue our meditations as we begin this new year on the biblical basis of the Eucharist. How appropriate in this Christmas season as we continue to reflect on the miracle of Bethlehem. As I have mentioned before, Bethlehem means "House of Bread." What an incredible foreshadowing of the Eucharist itself! What was born on that cold night at Bethlehem is the food of immortal life, the bread of life. Note the linkage in Little Flower Church with the manger scene, the Bethlehem scene, directly underneath the altar of the Eucharist. Could there be a more clear message about what happened at the House of Bread for our lives each and every day?

Today's specific focus is the scriptural basis of the Eucharist (of the Mass) -- both in the Old and New Testaments. At least I hope to begin to break open that rich theme this morning. More will come in future talks. This morning we will set the stage for our biblical reflection. "At the heart of the Eucharistic celebration are the bread and wine that, by the words of Christ and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, become Christ's Body and Blood." CCC 1333

Bread and wine! Think about them. Throughout all of salvation history, they appear over and over again -- ultimately becoming in a surprising and incredible way the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist.

First the Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures --

The Eucharist was prefigured in the Old Testament -- the bread and wine offered by that mysterious king-priest Melchizedeck; the manna in the desert by which God's chosen people were fed; the Passover meal prefigures the Eucharist directly -- the unleavened bread and the blessing cup.

You might wish to view the two marble slabs implanted on each side of the Eucharistic Chapel at St. Patrick in Washington, D.C. They are from the old high altar of this historic gothic church and they confirm the deepest roots of the Eucharist.

The first is a scene of Melchisedeck and we see him offering bread and wine. He is the first reference in the Old Testament (Gen l4:17-20) of a priest offering bread and wine and hence a type or foreshadowing of Jesus Christ. The other panel in that chapel is also from the Old Testament -- a scene which portrays manna in the desert. This Old Testament symbol of the Eucharistic bread was God's loving response to the Hebrew people as they marched through the desert grumbling against Moses and Aaron that they were sent to die. "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'I will now rain down bread from heaven for you.'" (Ex 16:4) As if to draw a sharp contrast between the manna and the bread which Jesus gives us, how can we not forget the words of Jesus when He said: "Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." (Jn 6:32-33)

These are but examples of how the principal elements of the Eucharistic celebration lie deep in the recesses of the Israelite history. Then there are the three harvest feasts of wheat, wine, and lambs.

Above all, there is the Passover feast -- their most solemn annual feast which combined unleavened bread, ceremonial wine and the sacrificial lamb. Celebrated in the first month of the year, it recalled God's deliverance of His people from slavery in Egypt. It recalled this event by following the ritual injunctions that were set down by Moses for the first Passover which took place on the eve of the Exodus and prepared the Jews for the action God was about to perform -- their deliverance. Subsequent Jewish Passovers looked back to the deliverance from Egypt, but they also looked back to the first Passover, which anticipated that deliverance. We know only so well that the Last Supper was celebrated in the context of a Passover meal.

And then the prophetic text from Isaiah 25:6 which we heard a few Sundays ago: "On this mountain the Lord of hosts will provide for all peoples juicy, rich food and pure choice wines." How can we not ponder the new and heavenly Jerusalem which itself is foreshadowed by the Eucharist!

Now to the New Testament --

1.) The "multiplication of the loaves" -- the feeding of the five thousand -- is the only miracle of Jesus recounted in all four gospels. This feeding of the multitude prefigures the superabundance of this unique bread of His Eucharist, an anticipation of the Eucharist and the final banquet in the kingdom. It not only looks forward but backwards to the feeding of Israel with manna in the desert at the time of the Exodus. 

"The sign of water turned into wine at Cana already announces the hour of Jesus' glorification. (His first miracle) It makes manifest the fulfillment of the wedding feast in the Father's kingdom, where the faithful will drink the new wine that has become the Blood of Christ." CCC 1335

In my opening meditation, I spoke of four examples, two priests and two archbishops from China, Russia, Vietnam and El Salvador who risked their lives to celebrate Mass in times of persecution and imprisonment -- all out of love for Jesus in the Eucharist. What wondrous love!

Today, I want to speak of the love of Jesus. There is no way we can understand the Eucharist, the Last Supper, Calvary apart from the Eucharistic heart of Jesus, His loving heart. The Eucharist is the sacrament of love given by Love itself. The catechism teaches us so clearly:

"The Lord, having loved those who were his own, loved them to the end. Knowing that the hour had come to leave this world and return to the Father, in the course of a meal he washed their feet and gave them the commandment of love. In order to leave them a pledge of this love, in order never to depart from his own and to make them sharers in his Passover, he instituted the Eucharist as the memorial of his death and Resurrection, and commanded his apostles to celebrate it until his return; thereby he constituted them priests of the New Testament." CCC 1337

2.) Now to the actual institution of the Eucharist itself! The three synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, in addition to St. Paul have handed onto us the account of the institution. The fourth Gospel, that of St. John, does not include the words of eucharistic institution, but has instead the foot washing ceremony -- a symbolic way of giving a concrete expression to the Love which is the Eucharist.

Today we will focus only on Mark and Paul. The Marcan and Matthaean accounts are very similar.  Both texts present the Last Supper along the lines of a Passover meal. By omitting the sacrificial lamb, however, Jesus identifies Himself with the blessed bread and wine by adding the "novel" words of consecration. He becomes the new Passover victim.

Listen to Mark's account from the scripture, an account -- as I mentioned -- which is very similar to Matthew:

"While they were eating, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, and said, 'Take it; this is my body.' Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it.  He said to them, 'This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many. Amen, I say to you, I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.' Then, after singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives." Mk 14: 22-26

What was truly unique to this Passover celebration, this final meal Jesus shared with His disciples before His death, was that Jesus gave his disciples his own body as their food in the form of bread, and his blood as their refreshment in the form of wine. 

Eucharist comes from the Greek word -- eucharistesas "to give thanks." From the beginning, at the Last Supper, given in the account we just heard, Jesus gave thanks.

Jesus took the cup and gave thanks. To whom and for what did He give thanks? Quite simply, He gave thanks to His heavenly Father. The Mass, after all, is at its root Christ's act of worship to the Father, to which we are joined -- His act of continued thanksgiving for His vocation. That vocation, for which He eternally gives thanks, is the deepest desire of His heart -- to save us, a vocation of love, a vocation lived out in His dying and rising, a vocation in which we share by virtue of our individual baptisms. At the Last Supper, Jesus exercised the creative power to change bread and wine into His body and blood and He exercised this power with an essential attitude of thanksgiving recognizing full well that He owed the Father the body and blood  which were going to be distributed as food and drink. 

This fundamental attitude of thanksgiving which Jesus adopted during the Last Supper contributed to the effect of the rite. The sacrament, which resulted, flowed from what was deep in the soul of Jesus, His relationship as Son to the Father. It was because Christ's heart was perfectly eucharistic that he gave birth to the Eucharist for the Church. How unique and novel a thanksgiving -- a thanksgiving for the loving relationship which was from and for all times between Jesus and His Father.

3.) Moving along -- St. Paul --

St. Paul's text, found at 1Cor ll:23-26, written from Ephesus in the year 56 to the early Christians at Corinth is a somewhat different account of the institution narrative from the Marcan-Matthaean one. Listen and see if you can tell the difference:

"For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and after he had given thanks, broke it and said, 'This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.' For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes."

Did you hear the difference?

4.) Four novel nuances from the Marcan/Matthean text:

a.) "For I received from the Lord" -- most scripture scholars discount the fact that Paul had a mystical or Damascus road experience. More likely, it means that he received and handed on what he received from the teaching in the church. In effect, he was a faithful link in the handing on of tradition already alive and operative in the church when he wrote this letter. He was not teaching the early church at Corinth something he had created, but an account guaranteed by tradition, the lived experience of the church. Therin is its authenticity. 

b.) Twice he commands "Do this in remembrance of me." First, focus on the word remembrance -- the Greek "anamnesis." It has a specific meaning. "Memory" means the past event -- namely what Christ did -- becomes present in the here and now through the act of calling it to mind. We commemorate Jesus eucharistically by inviting Him to be present here and now. It is not simply a memory of a past event but the rendering of Him present here and now.

c.) "As often as" -- these words linked to this bringing into the present of a past reality underscore that this ritual is to be re-enacted continually over time, extending through history.

d.) "Do" -- what does the "Do" mean in Christ's command? For sure it is the breaking the bread and the giving of the cup. But it is so much more than that It means to break ourselves out of love for each other. It means to sacrifice for each other knowing full well and with confidence that the Eucharist makes that happen within us.

5.) It is the Risen Lord in the Eucharist! Lk 24: 13-35

In that most beautiful text, from the Gospel  of St.Luke, two disciples were on their way to Emmaus on Easter Sunday night, after He Had risen from the dead, when Jesus drew near and walked with them. They had no idea Who He  was. They urged Him to stay with them. He agreed. It was then, precisely when He was at table with them that "he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them," that they recognized Him. ".He was made known to them in the breaking of the bread." Yes, the breaking of the bread. This is the Eucharist. It is the risen Lord who comes to us in the Eucharist. In Mane Nobiscum Domine, our late Holy Father John Paul II wrote: " The two disciples of Emmaus, upon recognizing the Lord, 'set out immediately' in order to report what they had seen and heard. Once we have truly met the Risen One by partaking of his body and blood, we cannot keep to ourselves the joy we have experienced. The encounter with Christ, constantly intensified and deepened in the Eucharist, issues in the Church and in every Christian an urgent summons to testimony and evangelization." MND 24 It is truly the Risen Lord who comes to us in the Eucharist.

6.) Preparation to receive the Risen Lord! In l Cor ll: 27-29, St. Paul teaches that "Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself." Relying on this text from St. Paul, the catechism of the Catholic Church concludes: "Anyone conscious of a grave sin must receive the sacrament of Reconciliation before coming to communion." CCC 1385

Strong biblical underpinnings thus undergird the Holy Eucharist, the Risen One and warn us of the need worthily to receive Him.