Q. Alrighty... Back to my earlier question... Why are Catholics so preoccupied with eating the Body of Christ?
A. So then, we were saying by way of example that one became a member of the People of God through circumcision and a member of the New People of God through Baptism.
How about the Passover? And here I borrow a lengthy quote from an American Scripture scholar. "The key to unlocking Jesus’ hard saying is found in the original Passover, on that fateful night in Egypt when Israel was about to be set free. The rules were simple enough. You had to kill the lamb, sprinkle its blood and then eat it.
But suppose one of the Hebrew slaves in Egypt just couldn’t stomach lamb. Let’s say he killed the lamb and sprinkled the blood and then threw away the lamb chops in favour of steak, or baked some lamb-shaped cookies and ate them instead. What would’ve happened? That Hebrew would have awakened the next morning to find his oldest son or brother dead. Obeying two out of three instructions wasn’t enough. They couldn’t just kill the lamb; they had to eat it.
After all, death was only one aspect of the divine command to sacrifice. But God’s ultimate purpose was to restore communion with Israel. And this is what was vividly represented and actualized by eating the Passover lamb. So God instructed every Israelite family as to what they must do. And they had to eat the lamb.
Thus, it is clear that Jesus’ sacrificial death, begun in the Upper Room and finished on Golgotha, wasn’t the full end of his Passover sacrifice either. Since the main purpose is to restore communion, we too have to eat the Lamb. This is why Jesus instituted the Eucharist.
If the Eucharist that Jesus instituted was just a meal, then Calvary was just a Roman execution. But if Jesus instituted the Eucharist to be the Passover of the New Covenant, then it had to involve both sacrifice and communion, as did the Old Covenant Passover. The words of institution show that Jesus instituted the Eucharist as the sacrifice of the New Covenant. As such, the Eucharist transformed Calvary from a Roman execution to a holy sacrifice, the consummation of his self offering that was initiated in the Eucharist. Thus, he didn't lose his life on Good Friday, since he had already given it - in loving sacrifice - on Holy Thursday. Jesus was not the hapless victim of Roman injustice and violence, but rather the willing victim of divine love and mercy. Finally, if Holy Thursday is what transforms Good Friday from an execution to a sacrifice, Easter Sunday is what transforms the sacrifice into a Sacrament: Christ's Body is raised in glory, so it is now communicable to the faithful. Indeed, it is one and the same sacrifice as what he offered by instituting the Eucharist and then dying on Calvary, only now his sacred humanity is defied AND deifying, for us all. This is the high priestly sacrifice that he offers in heaven and on earth."
Happy Sunday!
28th January 2017