Tag Archives: bread of life

Introduction to Burning Bush, Burning Hearts: Exodus as Paradigm of the Gospel – August 11, 2022

Introduction

If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me.

—John 5:46

From Type to Reality

The heart of Exodus is the revelation of the Person of Jesus Christ. Each detail and each event of the story adds a brushstroke to the portrait of the coming Messiah that is taking shape. Hints of Christ are in the Passover, the Tabernacle, the manna, the sacrifices, the water, the fire, and the feasts. Exodus is nothing less than God’s revealed plan of redemption for our salvation. 

Exodus is a series of object lessons illustrating the Catholic Church and a catechetical instruction on the Sacraments. It is the archetype for the New Covenant, the blueprint and roadmap, bursting with prefigurements that are fulfilled in Christ and his Church. Exodus is, at its core, a divine love story. It reveals God’s deep abiding love for humanity and the lengths he desired to go to save us. Thus, the story of Exodus begins with God revealing who he is to his people, and continues to the revelation of his intent for us to dwell together with him for all eternity—the marriage of God and humanity. 

From Judaism to Catholicism

It all begins with the Jewish people, for as Jesus declares, “salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22). God sets the Jewish nation apart for his special purpose in salvation history. It is a unique nation with a unique purpose and a unique destiny, and the Christian world is eternally grateful to the Jews, our elder spiritual brothers, for their role in adhering to the Torah and preparing the world for the Messiah. Although Israel failed en masse to recognize the Messiah, God has nevertheless blessed the nations of the world through ancient Judaism.  

Judaism and Christianity are, in reality, not two separate religions, but two phases of one religion. They are the old church and the new church, on one linear timeline. Judaism has been fulfilled in and transformed into Catholicism. 

In 1938, on the eve of World War II, with the massing of the bloody Nazi war machine and their satanic anti-Semitic designs, Pope Pius XI gave a public address at the Vatican to Belgian pilgrims declaring: “. . . it is impossible for a Christian to take part in anti-Semitism. It is inadmissible. Through Christ and in Christ, we are the spiritual progeny of Abraham. Spiritually, we are all Semites.”[1] A truer statement has never been made. Jesus was a Jew. Our faith is a Jewish faith in a Jewish man. Our religion is Judaism fulfilled. 

The Catholic faith germinated in the seed of Judaism, and the seed of Judaism flowered to full growth in the Catholic Church. St. Augustine expresses this relationship between Judaism and Catholicism in a slightly different way: “the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New.”[2] The ancient Jewish liturgical practices gave birth to the beauty of the Catholic Church, the Sacraments, and the Mass. 

God repeatedly calls each of the liturgical rites in Exodus “a statute forever.” As ancient liturgical and sacrificial Judaism has ceased to exist, a legitimate question is: Was God wrong? No, indeed, these liturgical rites have not been lost, but only transformed. The Mosaic liturgy of ancient Judaism has been carried forward and validly transformed into the liturgy and Sacraments of the greater Catholic Church.[3] Mount Sinai continues on in Mount Zion. The Tabernacle of the wilderness continues on in the tabernacle of each Catholic Church. 

The Progressive Revelation of Christ

In the course of salvation history, God progressively reveals himself to Israel, particularly in the revelations to the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This process is accelerated in the Exodus and continues throughout the Old Testament so that for millennia before the Incarnation, God has been preparing Israel and all of humanity for the arrival of his Son. This is indeed the very focus of the whole Old Testament: preparation for the Incarnation. Under the divine influence of the Holy Spirit, Moses writes the inspired story of Exodus and the rest of the Torah. The super-intellect of the Divine Being that guided Moses’ writings embedded within them signs, symbols, foreshadowings, typologies, and prefigurements of the coming of Christ. The Catechism states this plainly: “All the Old Covenant prefigurations find their fulfillment in Christ Jesus” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1223). 

Scholars estimate that the Exodus happened somewhere between 1,200 to 1,500 years before the birth of Christ, probably closer to the latter date. This long lead-time of, give or take, a millennium and a half before Christ only adds to the miraculous nature of the prophetic text and speaks all the more clearly to the Torah’s divine origin. How, without divine guidance, could Moses have so accurately predicted Christ in sign and symbol so many years ahead of his life? 

Types and Typologies

A hermeneutic[4] of Exodus draws out the “types” and “typologies” embedded in Scripture. Typologies are not prophetic words, but rather, prophetic actions, situations, people, events, and objects: a kind of unspoken prophecy, a symbology that manifests a future reality. These are woven into Scripture in a way that only the omnipotent mind of God could have intended. The typologies of Exodus are rich and bountiful, and along with other prefigurements in the Old Testament, they point to the coming of Jesus Christ. The “type” is the prefigurement, and the “antitype” is the fulfillment. The types in the Old Testament give way to the antitype reality in the New Testament. 

Types and typologies were understood well by the Biblical writers of the New Testament and the early Church Fathers, and they are explained throughout the Gospels, the Epistles, and the early Fathers’ writings of Church Tradition. In fact, the exegesis of Scripture based upon typological interpretation has a long and deep history. Typology has been studied for two thousand years in the quest to better understand the mind of God. In other words, this is nothing new! Studying Exodus in light of Catholic Tradition is not a novel idea, but an ancient one. The brilliant St. Paul illuminates the depths of scriptural typologies in his letters, assuring us that “These are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ” (Col. 2:17). 

Types and typologies of the Old Testament scriptures are “only a shadow” pointing towards Christ to come. The Catechism echoes St. Paul: “[The Paschal catechesis] is called ‘typological’ because it reveals the newness of Christ on the basis of the ‘figures’ (types), which announce him in the deeds, words, and symbols of the first covenant. By this re-reading in the Spirit of Truth, starting from Christ, the figures are unveiled” (CCC, no. 1094). The typological events of Exodus are recorded as an example for us to learn from, as St. Paul clearly discerns: “Now all these things happened to them in figure: and they are written for our correction” (1 Cor. 10:11 DRA). The word for “figure” is actually the Greek word tupos (τύπος) meaning “type.”[5] The typologies of Exodus are a snapshot of all salvation history that prophesies—through symbology—the coming of Christ and the New Covenant. It is the preview of the Redemption.

Exodus as Paradigm for the Gospel

The Exodus is to the Old Testament what the Gospels are to the New Testament. The Torah, the five books of Moses and the Law, is built around the Exodus. It is a paradigmatic text; in fact, it is the paradigm that the whole Old Testament is built upon. But Exodus is paradigmatic for the New Testament as well: the whole Gospel is patterned after the Exodus to such an extent that the Gospel could very aptly be called the “Second Exodus” or the “New Exodus.” If Genesis 3:15 is the protoevangelium,[6] Exodus is the full-fledged Old Testament Gospel. Moses is the paradigm for the Messiah, the new Moses, who will lead the greater Israel into a new Exodus. The new Exodus will be even more glorious than the original, as the remnant of Israel will be gathered together “from the four corners of the earth” (Isa. 11:12). The type is not abolished or abandoned but fulfilled. Keep in mind, there is a certain escalation that happens from the type to the fulfillment. The Exodus type always gives way to the greater, more glorious, antitype fulfillment in Christ. 

Many Jews at the time of Christ lived in fervent anticipation of the imminent arrival of the Messiah. Moses himself writes about the coming Messiah who will lead Israel; as God says, “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren” (Deut. 18:18). The arrival of St. John the Baptist as the forerunner of Christ, for example, immediately evokes the Exodus, as he is “in the wilderness” (Matt. 3:3) and baptizing at the Jordan River. The original Exodus will be a paradigm for the new Exodus under the Messiah. The Old Covenant will be fulfilled and repeated again, but on a much grander scale, in the New Covenant. 

The whole Old Testament points to the Incarnation of God in both explicit prophecies and unspoken typologies. But it is specifically the unspoken symbology of Exodus, pointing always toward Christ, that is the subject of this book. 

The First Level: Christological Typology

In order to understand the fulfillment of Exodus in Christ, it is necessary to understand the typological character of the text. There are three essential elements embedded in typologies: Christological, sacramental, and eschatological. The first set of typologies, the Christological, point toward the life of Christ in his First Coming, his Incarnation. These prefigure the life, Passion, death, and Resurrection of Christ in the first century A.D. in Israel, and one of the main themes running through Exodus is the typology of Christ’s First Coming in his historical life of this time and place. 

The Second Level: Sacramental Typology

The next level is the typology of the seven Sacraments of the Catholic Church: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Penance, Anointing of the Sick, Matrimony, and Holy Orders. The Israelites’ journey through the desert wilderness is a sacramental journey: each miraculous event in Exodus foreshadows a supernatural Sacrament of the Catholic Church, and thus, the miraculous in the Old Covenant becomes the supernatural in the New Covenant. God telegraphs the coming of the Holy Spirit and the Sacraments by punctuating specific events in Exodus with a miracle or a miraculous appearance. The crossing of the Red Sea, the water from the rock, the manna from Heaven: in all of these, the miraculous type is fulfilled by the supernatural grace of Christ in the Church’s seven Sacraments. 

In fact, the seven Sacraments are so implicit in everything that happens in Exodus that Exodus forms a microcosm of the Catholic Church and a blueprint for her Sacraments. Many of the early Church Fathers have noted that reading the typologies of Exodus is a form of catechetical instruction, and the New Testament also treats Exodus as a type of catechesis for the Sacraments. Jesus himself interprets Exodus typologically and sacramentally. In John’s Gospel, for example, he records Jesus’ Bread of Life discourse on how the manna in Exodus is fulfilled by himself as the new Eucharistic bread from Heaven. To study Exodus, therefore, is to understand the importance of the sacramental nature of the Church.

The Third Level: Eschatological Typology

The last critical element of Exodus typologies is the eschatological, or the events concerning the end of the world. Like the other typologies, these point toward Christ; but whereas the Christological typologies point toward the life of Christ in his First Coming, and the sacramental typologies point toward Christ in the Catholic Church and the Sacraments, the eschatological typologies point toward Christ in his Second Coming. The Second Coming typologies have obviously not been fulfilled yet, but they can still be discerned through New Testament writings and prophecies concerning the Parousia and the final things. 

As reflections of God’s omnipotent mind, many of the events of Exodus reveal not just one typology, but multiple levels of typological interpretation. So, one event or action or object in Exodus may reflect a single typology, two typologies, or even all three typologies: the First Coming of Christ, the Second Coming of Christ, and the Sacraments. 

Christ in Exodus

St. Jerome famously said, “ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ,”[7] and in the case of Exodus, this is most profoundly true. Christ is embedded in all of the events of Exodus, and not only Christ himself, but also the Catholic Church and her seven Sacraments. This union between Christ and the Church should not surprise us. We know that the Church is the Body of Christ, and Christ is one with the Church. As Saul was attacking the early Church, the resurrected Jesus appeared to him in a blinding flash of light, asking, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4). Jesus is connected so intimately with the Church that he calls us “me.” The Catholic Church is the on-going presence of Jesus Christ in the world, and Christ is present in a very real way in the priesthood, the faithful, and in the Sacraments of the Church. The merits of Jesus’ life, Passion, death, and Resurrection have been entrusted to the Church, and his sanctifying grace is accessible to all through the Sacraments.

Reliance on God: in Exodus and in the Sacraments

One of the main underlying themes of Exodus is that the Israelites needed to have a radical dependence upon God in order to survive for the forty years of their wilderness journey. They needed these sacramental typologies, as we read them now, to physically survive and reach the Promised Land; in parallel fashion, we need the Sacraments to spirituallysurvive this life and inherit eternal life. The truth is we, too, are on an Exodus journey in the desert wilderness of this world. 

The Exodus is thus a metaphor for our own journey. In the Christian era, the sacramental typologies of Exodus have given way to the actual Sacraments themselves of the Church—yet, the lesson remains the same. Just as the Israelites needed the sacramental signs to reach the Promised Land, we need the Sacraments to reach Heaven, and a reading of the sacramental typologies in Exodus reveals the absolute necessity of the Sacraments for our salvation. It is a clarion call to live a holy, set-apart life, close to the Church and close to the Sacraments so that we may remain close to Christ in our spiritual exodus, with the hope of one day reaching the eternal Promised Land of Heaven.

[1] Margherita Marchione, Yours is a Precious Witness: Memoirs of Jews and Catholics in Wartime Italy (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1997), 53. 

[2] St. Augustine, Quaestiones in Heptateuchum, 2, 73; Cf. Dei Verbum IV, 16.

[3] This includes both the Roman and Eastern Catholic liturgical rites, and the Orthodox Church. However, due to the schism with Rome, Orthodox rites are generally considered illicit for Catholics under normal circumstances according to Canon Law (Canon 844).

[4] an interpretation of Biblical texts.

[5] Strong’s Concordance.

[6] literally “first Gospel,” or the first promise of Redemption.

[7] St. Jerome, Prologue to the Commentary on Isaiah; Cf. Dei Verbum, VI, 25.

0Shares

The Resurrected Light of Christ from the Shroud to the Eucharist – April 23, 2021

“And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his garments became white as light.” (Mt. 17:2)

“and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.” (Rev. 1:16)

In this Easter season, the mystery of the Resurrection remains ever before us.  Christ rose bodily from the dead.  In other words, a human being overcame death!  This is the Good News we should be shouting from the rooftops.  This is why Christianity is unique.  Of course, Christ was not just human.  He was, and is, fully God.  Christ was the forerunner in a bodily resurrection, the first fruit, so that we may one day, on the last day, also rise bodily for all eternity.  St. Paul tells us, “And as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive.” (1 Cor. 15:22)  As all humanity inherited sin and death from Adam, now all humanity can rise to eternal life – either for good or for woe.    

That moment of Christ’s Resurrection, perhaps, was caught like in a photographic snapshot in time.  The Shroud of Turin may very well be that imprint of the Resurrection, although the Church has not ruled definitively on its authenticity.  La Stampa, the Vatican Insider site, reported in 2011 on an ENEA (the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development) report that researched the Shroud to try to understand the processes of its creation.  It has already been scientifically established that the Shroud was not created with paint, as some medieval forgery.  Rather, scientific studies have shown the image of the Shroud was imprinted with a light source of intense radiation.  In fact, the ENEA report states that “34 thousand billion watts” of VUV (Vacuum Ultraviolet light) was needed to make the image on the Shroud.  That’s 34,000,000,000,000 watts of ultraviolet light energy!  Since “the most powerful available [laser excimers] on the market come to several billion watts,” this is something not doable even by modern science, much less a Michelangelo of the Middle Ages.    

The 21st century world of physics blushes.  Our technological era is a time when we hardly believe the supernatural could intrude upon the empirical data-driven world of modern science.  Yet, here we are.  Occasionally, we do witness the miraculous – where the ethereal divine mysteries poke a hole through the veil of materialism, and its scrupulous pieties.  

In 2006, in Assiut, Egypt, a backwater of the Nile, divine mysteries again burst into the seemingly natural and the mundane.  It was during this time frame that a number of miraculous occurrences happened throughout Egypt.  The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared throughout Egypt in Zeitoun (as I wrote about here), in Watan, in Assiut, perhaps retracing, in the twenty-first century, the steps of the Holy Family’s first century sojourn into Egypt.  Assiut is traditionally the southern most point that the Holy Family reached in their flight from Herod’s onslaught against the innocence.  

On Wednesday March 29, 2006, there was a purported miraculous event that we can consider for our discernment.  An Orthodox Christian congregation was praying at St. Michael’s Coptic Church in Assiut.  During the liturgy, a miraculous light came upon the tray of the Eucharist so that “all they could see was light.”  The worshipers inside the Church receiving the Eucharist saw and felt the light as well.  One of the worshipers present at receiving Communion said, “all she could see is light in the tray and light in the hands of Abouna [i.e., the priest] whilst he gave her the body of Christ to partake of.  As she partook of this light, she event felt as if she was chewing light!”  The Eucharist had turned to a bright unfathomable light, and while partaking of the Eucharist the communicants felt as if they were eating light!  These miraculous occurrences were supported by other miraculous events of onlookers seeing the Blessed Virgin Mary, flashes of white light, and appearances of divine doves.    

The focus on light hearkens back to Scripture.  The Gospel speaks of Jesus revealing his divinity repeatedly in a state of intense light.  We see that at the Transfiguration, in the Resurrection, on the Road to Damascus, and in Revelation.  Christ appears in an overwhelming burst of light of his glorified state.  It is the glorified Christ, in perhaps that 34 trillion watts of radiation, that resurrects from the dead and imprints the Shroud.  And, it is in that same light, that we receive in the Holy Eucharist.  We, too, are eating the resurrected Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ in the Eucharist.  As Jesus explained the real presence to the dumbfounded Apostles, the Eucharistic manna is not the dead flesh of a corpse, but his very “spirit and life.” (Jn. 6:63)  We receive the grace and power of the light of the resurrected God-man.  It is for this reason that Christ tells us, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”  (Jn. 6:53)  The flesh and the blood of the resurrected Son of God raises us to eternal life. 

This necessitates that we approach each Eucharist in willful contrition and reverence.  Faith and the Sacraments are our hope of eternal life.   As I detailed in my book Burning Bush, Burning Hearts: Exodus as Paradigm of the Gospel, Christ is the fulfillment of the whole Old Testament and all of the Feasts of Exodus.  The last and great Feast of the Jews is the Festival of Tabernacles.  This is the great celebration of the Pouring of the Water and the Festival of Light.  Jesus proclaims that he is the fulfillment of the living-water that is poured out for the forgiveness of sins through the water of Baptism and the pouring forth of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus also proclaims himself the Light of the World, in fulfillment of the Ceremony of Light.  Jesus is the Light of the World, and upon occasion, we are given a direct glimpse of his divine Light.  

We still find these truths, even some 2,000 years later, as “the Light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (Jn. 1:5)  The Shroud and the Light of the Eucharist in Assiut confirm this.  At each Mass, we are being transformed (2 Cor. 3:18) by Christ’s divine Light into his likeness, one Eucharist at a time.       

0Shares

Leviticus 6-7:

Leave a reply

Eating the Sacrifice: 
Most sacrifices were meant to be eaten. In fact, the sacrificial offering was not complete until it was eaten, generally by the priest.  The Levitical priests were the ones partaking in the sacred meals in the sacred space of the Sanctuary.  Most of the time, the common person, the laity, could not eat of the sacrificial offering.  [This is contrasted with the egalitarianism of the New Testament, where all believers are a part of the common priesthood of the faithful, and all can participate in the Eucharist sacrifice.  All can eat of the Body and Blood of Christ.]  The cereal offering is made with “fine flour and oil, together with all the frankincense . . but it must be eaten in the form of unleavened cakes and in a sacred space.” (Ex. 6:8-9)  Unleavened cakes foreshadows the Eucharistic hosts.  “The flesh of the thanksgiving sacrifice shall be eaten on the day it is offered; none of it may be kept till the next day.”  (Ex. 7:15)  This is reminiscent of the manna that may not be kept till the next day, and the Eucharist that is offered as “our daily bread.”  In these offerings again we see the motifs of “bread” and “flesh” coming together as one sacrifice.  Bread and flesh are sacrificial offerings for ritual purity and forgiveness, which must also be eaten.  The Eucharist is the bread of life, the manna from heaven, which is also the Body and Blood of Christ, the flesh of Jesus, that must also be eaten.  God insists that only those in a state of ritual purity may eat of the offerings. “All who are clean may partake of this flesh.  If, however, someone while in a state of uncleanness eats any of the flesh of a peace offering belonging to the Lord, that person shall be cut off from his people.” (Lev. 7:19-20)  This foreshadows the fact that Christians should not partake of the flesh of Christ unless they are without sin, that is, if necessary, unless they are made clean in the sacrament of Reconciliation.  In the Acts of the Apostles, all the believers and disciples come together in one house to “break bread together.”

Common Priesthood of the Believers:
There is not the same distinction as in the Old Covenant as to who can eat of the sacrifice (ie, the priests) and who cannot eat of the sacrifice (ie, the common Israelite).  In Christianity, priest and layman alike partake in the Lord’s Supper and Mass of the Eucharist.  [In the New Covenant, we are all priests of the priesthood of believers, all fit for sacred space, all fit for the sacred meal of Communion, all fit to be priests of Yahweh.  We are all the universal family of God.]

Daily Burnt Offering:  
This daily burn offering is done every morning and evening.  The priests are to never let the fire go out.  It is, in effect, the “house warming gift” to God’s house, the Tabernacle.  “The fire on the altar is to be kept burning; it must not go out.” (Ex. 6:5) The priest is to be dressed in “linen robe and wearing linen drawers on his body,” again to distinguish them from the pagan priests, who sometimes officiated their pagan ceremonies nude and performed sexual acts and orgies as part of the heathen rituals. Yahweh’s priests are covered, and the rituals are de-sexualized.

Drink No Blood, and Jesus’ Blood:
The Lord tells the Israelites that no one shall drink any blood. “Wherever you dwell, you shall not partake of any blood, be it of bird or of animal. Every person who partakes of any blood shall be cut off from his people.” (Lev. 7:26) With this mindset of the Israelite and the Jew, it is no wonder that many are shocked and dismayed when Jesus tells them that they must they must drink His blood. Consequently, many of Jesus’ disciples abandon Him at that point. [From the Bread of Life Discourse: “So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.” (Jn. 6:53-56) Jesus’ Body and Blood contain the life of His resurrected flesh and blood. By consuming His resurrected flesh and blood, His life force, if you will, that supernatural, eternal life fills our bodies and souls. Christ’s life becomes our life. You are what you eat. By eating Christ’s resurrected flesh and drinking His resurrected Blood, His power of eternal life raises our lives to be one with His. As is described later in Leviticus, “life” resides in the blood: “Since the life of a living body is in its blood . . because it is the blood, as the seat of life, that makes atonement.” (Lev. 17:11) By drinking Christ’s Blood, we somehow mysteriously and supernaturally drink His eternal grace into our bodies and souls, transforming us.

Peace Offering:  
This is the Thanksgiving offering, or the “todah” offering, using unleavened cakes formed from cereals and grains.  It was used to express gratitude towards God.  Generally, when one had escaped great danger, and was extremely grateful to God, he would offer the thanksgiving offering.  This has Eucharistic connotations.  Many have even speculated the Last Supper was a Todah Offering.  Eucharist is derived from the word for “thanksgiving.”  The Offerer would wave the offering, a “wave offering” to the Lord as a gesture to show God your offering and present Him with something.  God gets the first portion, or first fruits, then, the priests.

The Intercommunion Controversy and Exodus – August 13, 2018

The German bishops are keeping at it. They are pushing the controversial agenda of intercommunion in certain instances for “mixed marriages” of Catholics with Protestant spouses. Accordingly, the German bishops published guidelines entitled: “Walking with Christ – tracing unity. Inter-denominational marriages and sharing the Eucharist.” It was released even after Pope Francis had sent a letter, via Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) Archbishop Luis Ladaria, S.J. to Munich Cardinal Reinhard Marx, president of the German Bishop’s Conference, in order to stop its publication. The guidelines argue that Protestant spouses should be allowed to receive the Eucharist, because it may cause “grave spiritual distress” to the spouse and the marriage if they are not permitted to do so. The German bishops plan to continue pushing the measure at the bishop’s conference plenary assembly in September.

However, as Cardinal Gerhard Muller, former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has argued, interdenominational marriage “does not represent a situation of ‘grave and pressing need.'” He further reflected: “Whoever wants to receive the sacramental Body and Blood of Christ must already be integrated into the body of Christ, which is the Church, through the confession of faith and sacramental baptism. Thus, there is no mystical, individualistic, and emotional communion with Christ that can thought of apart from baptism and the Church membership.” This follows the guidelines of the Catechism: “Ecclesial communities derived from the Reformation and separated from the Catholic Church, ‘have not preserved the proper reality of the Eucharistic mystery in its fullness, especially because of the absence of the sacrament of Holy Orders.’ It is for this reason that, for the Catholic Church, Eucharistic intercommunion with these communities is not possible.” (CCC 1400) Or, in other words, only a person who is in full communion with the Catholic faith is permitted to receive the Sacrament of Holy Communion.

Then, there is the question of Canon Law 844, paragraph 4, which “provides for the giving of Holy Communion to a non-Catholic who has no access to his own minister and who manifests the Catholic faith, if he is in danger of death, or in the judgment of the Diocesan Bishop or Conference of Bishops, another grave necessity warrants it.” The German bishops are using this as a kind of sacramental loophole. Yet, as Cardinal Raymond Burke points out, this exception is meant specifically for emergency, near-death situations. He recommends revising this paragraph, because of “its lack of clarity which has led to many contradictory practices in the matter of ‘intercommunion.'”

There are other, older, antecedents found in scripture to this idea of intercommunion. The Book of Exodus sheds light on the present controversy regarding the Paschal mystery. After all, the Paschal mystery originated in Exodus, as a sketch of things to come. After the original Passover, the Israelites were permitted to leave Egypt. Yet, it was not just the Jews who departed but: “A mixed multitude also went up with them.” (Ex. 12:38) Like the present controversy involving “mixed marriages,” the Israelites came out of Egypt as a “mixed multitude,” meaning they were not all practicing Jews. They were outside the Israelites’ covenantal bonds with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It was at the dramatic scene at Mount Sinai that the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were established as annual, obligatory feasts as part of the Covenant. Later, apparently, some of the non-Jews of the mixed multitude, in the midst of the Israelite congregation, wanted to partake also of the Passover lamb and Unleavened Bread – prefigurements to the Eucharist and the Mass. How would Yahweh respond?

Yahweh declares: “no foreigner shall eat of it.” (Ex. 12:43) No foreigner, meaning no one outside of the covenantal seal, shall partake of it. If someone does want to partake in the Passover, Yahweh tells them to be “circumcised, then he may come near and keep it.” That is, He tells them to become Jews and observe the commands of the Law, to worship God “as a native of the land.” Basically, God tells the mixed multitude to convert and join the covenant. Only then, can they participate. God is adamant that there will be “one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you.” Yahweh does not give allowance for anyone outside the covenantal relationship.

Yahweh further declares: “In one house shall it be eaten; you shall not carry forth any of the flesh outside the house.” Just as none of the Passover meal should be eaten outside of the Jewish house, so too, the Eucharist should not be carried outside of the one holy Catholic Church. Even if one is baptized, the seal of the New Covenant (like circumcision in the Old), as Protestants are, the Eucharistic prerogative remains: it shall be eaten in one house, and none of its flesh shall be taken outside the house, that is, the faith of the Church. Communion should be given only to Catholics within the one Catholic Church.

This is the Fathers’ interpretation too. St. Cyprian said of this verse: “The flesh of Christ and the holy thing of the Lord cannot be cast out. The faithful have no home but the one church.” And: “The faith of the divine Scripture manifests that the church is not outside and that it cannot be rent in two or divided against itself, but that it holds the unity of an inseparable and invisible house. It is written concerning the rite of the Passover: “It shall be eaten in one house; you shall not take any of its flesh outside the house.” St. Jerome likewise wrote, “All such efforts are only of use when they are made within the church’s pale. We must celebrate the Passover in the one house.” In other words, St. Jerome confirms the parallelism of the Passover as the Mass, and the one house as the Catholic Church.

The prefiguring shadow of the Eucharist inundated the Israelites throughout their wilderness wanderings. God was not subtle with His symbology. When the Israelites were hungry in the Sinai wilderness, God rained down bread from heaven for them to eat for forty years. When the Israelites saw it, they said, “What is it?” And Moses said to them, “It is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat.” Later, the Israelites murmured against God and Moses saying “we loathe this worthless food.” In response, “the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.” If God punished such murmurings against perishable manna, how then can non-Catholics be allowed to partake in the new manna of the Holy Eucharist while deeming it “worthless food?”

In His Bread of Life discourse, the new Moses, Jesus, addressed directly a similar grumbling. He said: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever.” Some of the disciples murmured against the Eucharist saying, “This is a hard saying, who can listen to it?” Yet, Jesus did not soften His speech, rather He declared more forcefully: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” Jesus forced the issue: “Do you take offense at this?” His disciples had to decide whether it was “worthless food” or not. There is no middle ground to the Real Presence. Many could not accept it, for after this “many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him.” It is immediately following this episode too, perhaps not coincidentally, that Judas is revealed as Jesus’ betrayer. Indeed, the Real Presence is pivotal to the faith.

As Catholics receiving the Eucharist, we can answer the Israelites’ question from the desert, “what is it?” with rather another question, “who” is it? We can affirm, “It is our Jesus.” The psalmist wrote, “Man ate of the bread of the angels.” If this was just a shadowy wisp of the reality to come, how much holier is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ in our new manna? How can the German bishops allow admittance to the Bread of Life by those who also deny it? As St. Paul addressed the gravity of this situation: “For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself.” Instead of catering to emotions and false-ecumenicalism, the German bishops should affirm the sacredness of the sacrament and invite them to a conversion of faith.

3Shares

Exodus 16-19:

Leave a reply

The Manna and the Quail:
From Elim, the Israelites set out into the desert of Sin.  Just as the Egyptians had suffered ten plagues sent from Yahweh, so now too, the Israelites will be tested by God with ten trials, the first of which was the bitter water at Marah.  The next test the Israelites suffer is hunger. They grumble to Moses that they are starving and have nothing to eat.  The Lord then said to Moses, “I will now rain down bread from heaven for you.  Each day the people are to go out and gather their daily portion; thus will I test them, to see whether they follow my instructions or not.” (Ex. 16:4)  In the morning God promises to give them bread to eat and in the evening flesh to eat.  God says, “In the evening twilight you shall eat flesh, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread, so that you may know that I, the Lord, am your God.” (Ex. 16:12) Here is a frequent pairing in Scripture of bread and meat. Moses later instructs Aaron to put some of the manna in the Ark of the Covenant with the Ten Commandments tablets. Jesus, who is the Eucharist, is carried in the new Ark of the Covenant, Mary.

Manna Foreshadows the Eucharist:
In John 6, Jesus references the manna in the desert as a sign of Himself in the Eucharist as the true bread from heaven.  This typology and foreshadowing of the Eucharist are obvious, and perhaps, the most striking of all the events of Exodus. The description of the manna even resembles that of a Communion host – white wafers.  Just as the Israelites live off the manna from heaven for their 40 years in the wilderness until they reach the promised land of Israel, so too, the Church lives off the body and blood of Christ in our earthly pilgrimage until we reached the promised land of heaven. “The Israelites ate this manna for forty years, until they came to settled land; they ate manna until they reached the borders of Canaan.” (Ex. 16:35)  God nursed the Israelite nation like a mother to a small child giving them food and water for forty years in the desert.  For forty years, He sought to break them of their slave mentality, and nurture them into a more mature faith and dependence upon Him.

Jesus’ Bread of Life Discourse and the Eucharist:
“Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you 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.” (John 6:32)  “I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.  This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die.  I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh. The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”  So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you;  he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.  He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.  As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever.” (John 6:48-58)

Quail:
“In the evening quail came up and covered the camp. In the morning a dew lay all about the camp, and when the dew evaporated, there on the surface of the desert were fine flakes like hoarfrost on the ground.  On seeing it, the Israelites asked one another, “What is this?” for they did not know what it was.  But Moses told them, “This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat. ” (Ex. 16:13-15)  Manna is a conjunction of the words what is this?  Again, the miracle of the manna and the quail link the bread and the flesh together as one miraculous event, in which Yahweh feeds and sustains His people.

Manna Regulations and the Sabbath:
Moses instructs the Israelites that they should gather “an omer for each person.”  Moses further tells them, “Let no one keep any of it over until tomorrow morning.” (Ex. 16:19)  This was part of God’s test of them.  Yahweh was providing for their “daily bread,” just as Jesus included this line in the Our Father prayer “Give us this day our daily bread.”  We are to trust that God will provide for our needs each day.  “Morning after morning they gathered it, till each had enough to eat; but when the sun grew hot, the manna melted away.” (Ex. 16:21) On the sixth day, Yahweh provides extra manna for the following day, the Sabbath, when they are instructed to not collect any food.  This demonstration shows that it is indeed a miraculous event.  The manna rains down from heaven for six days a week, but on the day before the Sabbath, extra manna comes down and does not “become rotten or wormy.”  On the Sabbath, the manna miraculously does not come down.  This is the beginning of God’s commandment to keep holy the Sabbath day by resting.  “On the seventh day everyone is to stay home and no one is to go out.” (Ex. 16:29)  The manna from heaven is linked to the Sabbath and the seventh day of creation when God rested. In the Eucharist that we receive on the new Sabbath, we become new creations in Christ.

The Water from the Rock at Horeb, and Jesus and the Holy Spirit:
Here again, the Israelites are tested, and murmur and grumble against Yahweh and Moses. “Give us water to drink.” (Ex. 17:2)  The Lord answers Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel; and take in your hand the rod with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, that the people may drink.” (Ex. 17:5-6)  The water flowed out of the rock at Horeb.  This prefigures Jesus offering us the life-giving waters of the Holy Spirit. Again, in the gospel of John it reads: “On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and shouted, “If you are thirsty, come to me and drink! Have faith in me, and you will have life-giving water flowing from deep inside you, just as the Scriptures say.”  Jesus was talking about the Holy Spirit, who would be given to everyone that had faith in him. The Spirit had not yet been given to anyone, since Jesus had not yet been given his full glory.” (John 7:37-39)  Jesus is the new Moses, providing not just water to quench our thirst, but the life-giving waters of eternal life.

Battle with Amalek and Moses’ Raised Hands:
Amalek came and waged war against Israel. (Ex. 17:8)  This is the fourth trial and crisis to befall the Israelites.  The Amalekites were another race of giants that existed here. Moses then commands Joshua to pick his best warriors to go engage the Amalekites in battle, and as long as Moses keeps his hands raised up, “Israel had the better of the fight, but when he let his hands rest, Amalek had the better of the fight.” (Ex. 17:11)  As they rested Moses’ tired arms upon Aaron and Hur, his hands remained steady till sunset. “And Joshua mowed down Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.” (Ex. 17:13)  The Lord instructs Moses to write down this victory over Amalek “as something to be remembered.” “I will completely blot out the memory of Amalek from under the heavens.” (Ex. 17:14)

The Israelites arrive at Mt. Sinai:
The most likely location of Mt. Sinai is probably Jabal al-Lawz (28° 39′ 15″ N, 35° 18′ 21″ E) in Northwest Saudi Arabia.  There are many fascinating similarities to Jabal al-Lawz and the scenes described in Exodus, not the least of which is the top of the mountain is blackened as if it has been exposed to extreme fire and heat.  Many other details found in the next few chapters of Exodus match archeological and geographic features of the Jabal al-Lawz mountain and vicinity.  There is a large split rock formation that seems to have had water flowing out of it as the wear on the rocks indicates.  There are pillars around the mountain, presumably demarking a distance the Israelites should stay away from the mountain when Yahweh is there.  There is an altar of stones at the base of the mountain with painted reliefs of a calf or cow worship. The local nomads refer to it as the mountain of Moses. The list of similarities and matching descriptions goes on and on.

Israel, God’s Special Possession, a Holy Nation:
Yahweh tells Moses, “Now therefore, if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my own possession among all peoples; for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.” (Ex. 19:5-6)  This is one of the most important lines in the Jewish Pentateuch.  God tells Moses and the Israelites, if, if they keep His covenant, then they will be God’s special people, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.  God is preparing them for a new Covenant.  A fulfillment of the old Abrahamic Covenant but now a deepening of it. God is drawing the Israelites out from the nations and separating them as a special, holy people to Himself alone.  Yahweh is drawing them into a new special relationship.  St. Peter draws on this same Exodus imagery and wording and applies it to Christian’s new creation in Christ.  He says, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9)

The Great Theophany:
Yahweh tells Moses “I am coming to you in a dense cloud.” Tell the people to go sanctify themselves, “wash their garments and be ready for the third day; for on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai before the eyes of all the people.” (Ex. 19: 10-11)  Yahweh will descend on the mountain on the “third day.” The mention the third day echoes the three days of Jesus in the tomb, and on the third day Christ rises from the dead. The people are to prepare and make themselves holy for three days in preparation, even to wash their very clothes. Yahweh tells them to “set limits for the people all around the mountain” and “take care not to go up the mountain, or even to touch its base. If anyone touches the mountain he must be put to death.” (Ex. 19:12) They are to be stones or killed with arrows.  Only when the ram’s horn resounds, can they go to the mountain.  Moses warns the people, “Be ready for the third day.” (Ex. 19:15)

The Terrifying Presence of Yahweh on Mt. Sinai:
“On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God; and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. And Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and the smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain quaked greatly. And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder.  And the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain; and the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up. And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down and warn the people, lest they break through to the Lord to gaze and many of them perish.” (Ex. 19:16-21)  The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  The Israelites were rightly terrified and afraid at the powerful presence of the Lord.  God came in a great display of power highlighting this seminal moment in the history of God’s people and the history of the world.

Our Supersubstantial Bread – December 5, 2016

“Grant us this day our daily manna.” Dante, Purgatorio, Canto XI

The Lord has left us a mystery to contemplate. It is right there in the middle of the “Our Father” when Jesus teaches us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” (Mt. 6:11) This is generally recognized to mean pray for our basic daily necessities. (CCC 2837) This is true. Yet, hidden in the mundane and seemingly redundant word “daily” is the veiled, mysterious Greek word epiousios (επιούσιος). Epiousios is a unique word, sacramental-like in nature, a visible sign of a hidden reality. Epiousios occurs nowhere else in the Greek Bible except in the same Our Father passage in Luke 11:3 and the Apostle’s Didache. In fact, epiousios is not found anywhere else at all in Greek literature. The only recorded reference to epiousios, ever, is Jesus’ prayer.

As the early Church Father and master of the Greek language Origen (d. 254 AD) concludes, epiousios was “invented by the Evangelists.” The millennia have bore out his assertion that epiousios was a new word, a neologism of uncertain etymology. The usual Greek word for “daily,” hemera, is, after all, used elsewhere in the New Testament, but not in this instance. Why did St. Matthew and St. Luke feel compelled to create a new Greek word to accurately reflect the words of Jesus? They most likely had to use a new word to faithfully translate a novel idea or a unique Aramaic word that Jesus used in His prayer. What was Jesus’ new idea? Although there are multiple levels of meanings to epiousios, Jesus is making a clear allusion to the Eucharist. “Our daily bread” is one translation of a word that goes far above our basic needs for sustenance, and invokes our supernatural needs.

St. Jerome translated the Bible in the 4th century from the original Latin, Hebrew and Greek texts to form the Latin Vulgate Bible. When it came to the mysterious word epiousios, St. Jerome hedged his bets. In Luke 11:3, St. Jerome translated epiousios as “daily.” Yet, in Matthew 6:11, he translated epiousios as “supersubstantial.” The root words are: epi, meaning “above” or “super;” and ousia, meaning “being,” “essence,” or “substance.” When they are read together, we come to the possible translations of “super-substantial,” “above-essence,” or, in effect, “supernatural” bread. This translation as supersubstantial is still found today in the Douay-Rheims Bible. Taken literally, our supersubstantial bread is the Eucharist. (CCC 2837) In his commentary on St. Matthew’s gospel, St. Jerome states this directly: “We can also understand supersubstantial bread in another sense as bread that is above all substances and surpasses all creatures.”

St. Jerome also suggests that the Hebrew word for epiousios was the word maar meaning “for tomorrow,” invoking an eschatological interpretation of epiousios. In this sense, we are praying “this day” for our bread “for tomorrow,” or our future bread. We are petitioning God for tomorrow’s future bread today. Pope Benedict reflects on this “petition for an anticipation for the world to come, asking the Lord to give already ‘today’ the future bread, the bread of the new world – Himself.” This again has Eucharistic overtones, as the Catechism states, “the Eucharist that is already the foretaste of the kingdom to come.” (CCC 2837)

This eschatological interpretation is also borne out in the parable for the “coming day’s bread,” that Jesus teaches immediately following the Our Father. In Luke 11:5-8, Jesus tells the story of a man, who at “midnight” asks a friend to lend him three loaves of bread, as another friend of his has arrived from a journey and he has nothing to give him. As scholars have noted, there is the crucial matter of timing in this parable. In the morning the man can provide an abundance of food and bread for his guest, but at midnight he has nothing. This is an allusion to the fact that in the coming day of the Lord in heaven we will have a superabundance to meet our every need, both material and spiritual. But, as of yet, in this temporal life, a constant need remains.

Ours, like the man in the parable, is a matter of timing. We desire to have a measure of that superabundance now, and not just to meet our needs, but also to share with others. Thus, in praying today for tomorrow’s bread, we are praying to realize now, in time, a bit of the fulfillment of eternity. This is in line with the theme of “realized eschatology” that runs through the Our Father, in which we pray for “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Even now on earth, we share daily in the realized eschatology of the heavenly Mass.

In asking God for our daily, supernatural bread, we are also reminded of the manna from heaven that the Israelites supernaturally survived on in the desert for forty years. In the exodus, where there was no food or water in the desert, God miraculously rained down bread from heaven each day, both a supernatural and daily occurrence. In the morning dew, they gathered manna for their daily sustenance, and in the evening they ate the flesh of quail. As the psalmist says, “Man ate of the bread of the angels,” and “He rained flesh upon them like dust.” (Ps. 78:25; 27) The Israelites ate of the heavenly bread and flesh from the time they crossed the waters of the Red Sea (a foreshadowing of Baptism) until they reached the Promised Land (a foreshadowing of heaven). Then, as soon as they completed their journey, the heavenly manna ceased. (Joshua 5:12) Our daily manna is with us too from the time we enter into the Church until the time we cross over into eternity.

Jesus makes a direct connection of Himself to the manna from heaven, calling Himself the “Bread of Life.” The Jews, citing Moses and the manna from heaven, demanded a similar sign from Jesus. In response, Jesus tells them, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever.” (Jn. 6:51) Jesus is the new Moses, leading a new exodus, with a new heavenly manna. Like the Israelites’ manna, Jesus offers His bread and flesh for us to survive on for our journey. He tells them “he who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life.” (Jn. 6:54) Evidently Jesus wanted to make sure His scandalous words were not glossed over, because He repeated six times that those who eat His flesh and drink His blood have eternal life.

This theme of “eating and living forever” is mentioned in only one other place in the Bible – in the Garden of Eden with the Tree of Life. After the fall of man, God sent Adam and Eve out of paradise, lest he “take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.” (Gen. 3:22) However, now with the Incarnation of the God-man, Jesus, paradise is, at last, opened fully to humanity to “eat and live forever.” The Tree of Life, cut off to us by our sins, is now open to us through the tree of the Cross, and resurrection of Christ. The fruit of this tree is given to us sacramentally in His supernatural manna, the Holy Eucharist. It is our spiritual bread without which we cannot live.

Thus, Jesus is making a direct reference in the Our Father for our daily supernatural bread of the Eucharist. As Jesus instructs us in the beginning of the Bread of Life discourse to not work for “food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life.” (Jn. 6:27) The theme of bread runs through the life of Christ, as visible signs pointing to a hidden reality. He is a priest-king, the order of Melchizadek, who offered bread and wine. He was born in Bethlehem, Hebrew for the “house of bread.” He performed the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves to feed 5,000. He refers to Himself as the “Bread of Life,” the true manna from heaven. In the culmination of the Last Supper, the Passover feast and the feast of Unleavened Bread, He offered bread and wine as His Body and His Blood of the New Covenant. After His Resurrection, He revealed Himself to His disciples in the “breaking of the bread.” Jesus lives on with us sacramentally in the Holy Eucharist, under the guise of bread. In the final revelation He promises to give us “some of the hidden manna.” (Rev. 2:17) This is our food of salvation, our medicine of immortality, which gives eternal life. It is not surprising then that the disciples beseeched Jesus saying, “Lord, give us this bread always.” (Jn. 6:34) And, so it remains with us.

4Shares

One in the Eucharist – April 27, 2016

Sacraments are rituals instituted by Christ, woven together with signs and symbols, (CCC 1145) that “make present efficaciously the grace that they signify.” (CCC 1084) St. Augustine described them as “an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace.” They are not just symbolic, but are “real symbols,” which actually make present that which they signify. Sign and reality are one. Initiation into the sacraments initiates us into the mystery, or mystagogy, of Christ. (CCC 1075) They draw us ever deeper into Himself.

One such “real symbol” is the Eucharist. It is the real presence of Jesus Christ: body and blood, soul and divinity. The whole liturgical life of the Church is oriented towards the Eucharist. It is communion with the sacred flesh and blood of Christ into our bodies, and the sanctifying grace of His soul and divinity into our souls.

It is Jesus Himself who first speaks about His real presence in the Eucharist: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.” (Jn. 6:53-54) The word John uses for “to eat” is the Greek word “trogein,” which literally means “to gnaw”; you gnaw on real meat, not a symbol or an idea. Many of Jesus’ disciples and non-disciples alike are aghast at this, believing He is speaking of cannibalism. Roman pagan historians would later record false rumors of Christians participating in cannibalistic rituals – a clear misunderstanding of the Mass and the real presence. Jesus knows, of course, that this is difficult for them to believe, and says, “Does this shock you?” (Jn. 6:61) We know it did, because, as John records, many of His disciples abandon Him at this point. (Jn. 6:66)

After they leave, Jesus reassures His skeptical Apostles, telling them, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” (Jn. 6:63) They cannot understand this with their fleshy, materialistic minds, but rather, by trusting in God’s supernatural power. This is not a cannibalistic ritual but a heavenly sacrament. Directly before Jesus’ Bread of Life Discourse, John relates two other miracles, Jesus’ multiplication of the loaves and Jesus walking on water. Both miracles reveal that physical matter, nature itself, is subject to Jesus. Immediately before we see the bread and wine becoming His flesh and blood, John demonstrates with these miracles that material boundaries are no constraint upon Jesus.

After Jesus’ death and resurrection, His appearances to His disciples further establish the importance of the sacraments. When Jesus first approaches the disciples on the road to Emmaus, “their eyes were kept from recognizing Him.” (Lk. 24:16) After He took bread and broke it, Luke says, “then their eyes were opened,.” (Lk. 24:31) Jesus illustrates that He is no longer with them as He once was, but will now remain with them sacramentally in the form of the Eucharist. He has demonstrated the Eucharistic formula for the disciples starting with the Last Supper. Now, the disciples continued this going forward as the beginnings of the Mass and Eucharist, devoting themselves “to the breaking of bread.” (Acts 2:42)

A millennium and a half later, at the Council of Trent in the 16th century, the doctrine of Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist was reaffirmed in precise language. Transubstantiation is ultimately the term they arrived at to define what happens in the mystical sacrament of the Eucharist. Under the veiled appearance of bread and wine, “the whole of Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.” (CCC 1374; Trent 1551) Jesus becomes our spiritual food, and our “medicine of immortality.” (St.Ignatius, 110 AD) Receiving Holy Communion brings us into intimate union with Christ. Just as material food nourishes our bodies, so Holy Communion nourishes our spiritual soul. (CCC 1392)

Moreover, it also transforms us as a whole community of believers, the Church, into the Mystical Body of Christ. In the Mass, after the priest invokes the Holy Spirit, an epiclesis prayer, to transform the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, he again, invokes the Holy Spirit, a second epiclesis, that those who eat the body and blood of Christ may be “one body, one Spirit in Christ.” He says, “Grant that we, who are nourished by His body and blood, may be filled with his Holy Spirit, and become one body, one spirit in Christ.” This is, in effect, a second transubstantiation: the transformation, by the power of the Holy Spirit, of those who eat the Eucharist into the one Mystical Body of Christ. This recalls Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane to the Father that His followers “may be one, as We are one.” (Jn. 17:11) The Eucharist unites us mystically together in Him as living sacramental realities.

As such, the Church comes together to offer “praise, sufferings, prayer, and work” in union with the sacrifice of Christ. (CCC 1368) We, by virtue of our common priesthood, can unite all that we are and do with the offering of the sacrifice of the Mass.  Jesus put an end to the millennia-old, ritualistic and violent bloodletting of the pagan ancient world.  Alas, He is the pure offering. “For from the rising of the sun to its setting My name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to My name, and a pure offering; for My name is great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.” (Mal.1:11). Christ in the Eucharist transforms us into His image, so that His presence enters into the world again, and in us, continues His pure offering to the Father.

 

 

 

 

 

 

4Shares

The Second Transubstantiation, One in the Eucharist – 25 September 2015

“The Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life.” (CCC 1324)

The idea of living the sacramental life is to order all that we do and all that we are, by way of our intentions and invocations, to be one with Jesus Christ. We can live in union with Jesus in our most ordinary of circumstances each day. Yet, both the foundation and the pinnacle of the sacramental life are found in the sacraments themselves. As per the Catechism, “The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us.” (CCC 1131) They are efficacious, or produce the intended effect in our souls, in order to sanctify us. The sacraments are the source and continuation of the divine life of Jesus Christ for the world. Indeed, the whole liturgical life of the Church revolves around the seven sacraments. These are, of course: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Penance, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony. Christ did not leave us orphaned when He left this world. (Jn.14:18) Rather, Jesus said, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Mt.28:20) When Jesus founded His Church, the Catholic Church, He intended to continue on living amongst us through the grace of His sacraments and the power of the Holy Spirit. Christ does act directly through His Church via the sacraments. Jesus’ real presence endures. He is with us always.

These sacramental celebrations are, in fact, rituals instituted by Christ that are woven together with signs and symbols (CCC 1145) that “make present efficaciously the grace that they signify.” (CCC 1084) They are outward signs, a visible activity, which reveals the invisible reality. St. Augustine described them as “an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace.” The washing by water in Baptism is the sign of the true reality of God’s spirit washing away our sin. However, these are not just symbols or symbolic, but rather, “real symbols,” which truly are what they represent. They are efficacious symbols that reveal a hidden reality. The water, as symbol, infused with sacramental grace does truly sanctify us in reality, albeit a hidden reality. It does what it symbolizes. In them, we proceed from the visible to the invisible and from the sign to the thing signified. Sign and reality are one. Initiation into the sacraments is to initiate us into the mystery of Christ (“mystagogy”). (CCC 1075) For the early Christians, the faith wasn’t simply going to Church on Sunday, it was an all-encompassing faith, sacrament-alizing their lives, living in communion with God and with each other. The sacraments lead us to Christ, drawing us ever deeper into His mystagogy. They draw their power from Christ Himself. For Christ Himself is the ultimate sacrament of God-made-present, just as the Church too, as the Mystical Body of Christ, is the efficacious sign, or sacrament, of Christ in the world.

Since Christ Himself is the supreme sacrament, the fountain of grace, we can approach Him directly to dispense His grace upon us. We can unite ourselves with Him in our daily activities to sacramentalize our ordinary lives. This is the sacramental life. Yet, we also know Christ established His sacraments through the Church as the divine avenues by which grace is issued upon us. Specifically, He established in the Church the seven sacraments for initiation, healing, personal commitment, and to impress an indelible character on our souls. The seven sacraments of the Church are the way. They are the path of salvation and holiness.  They draw us ever deeper into the mystagogy of Christ. The blood and water that issued forth from the side of Christ on the Cross, flows to us today as His grace and mercy in the sacraments. They bring forth the real presence of Christ to us and help conform us to His image. With those ideas in mind – His real presence and the transformation of us into His image – the sacrament par excellence is the Eucharist. The sacraments and the whole liturgical life of the Church are contained and oriented towards the Eucharist. For, the Eucharist contains the real presence of Jesus Christ, body and blood, soul and divinity, and ever transforms us into Himself. As the Catechism says, “For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ Himself.” (CCC 1324)

The real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist has been there from the beginning. The scriptures and Jesus Himself testify to this. After Jesus’ death and resurrection, two of His disciples were downcast walking on the road back to the town of Emmaus. Jesus approached them, “but their eyes were kept from recognizing Him.” (Lk. 24:16) He began to teach them about all the scriptures related to what would happen to the Messiah. Jesus was so compelling that the disciples’ “hearts were burning” within themselves, and they asked Him to stay longer with them. Then, the Gospel writer Luke captures so succinctly what happens next: “When He was at the table with them, He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him; and He vanished from their sight.” (Lk.24:31) Jesus uses this post-resurrection appearance to teach them the importance of the Eucharist. They were unable to see Jesus until He consecrated and broke the bread. As the disciples later testified, “how He had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.” (Lk.24:35) Jesus illustrates that He is no longer with them as He once was, but will now remain with them, sacramentally, in the form of the Eucharist. He uses the same Eucharistic formula as at the Last Supper, when He instituted the Eucharist. At the Last Supper, “Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it He broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.” (Mt.26:26) Jesus did not say this is a “symbol” of My body, rather, in no uncertain terms, “This is My body.” Jesus reinforced in Emmaus, what they initially called “the breaking of bread,” and what Jesus had instituted at the Last Supper, the Eucharistic sacrifice of His body and blood. Now, the disciples continued this going forward as the beginnings of the mass and Eucharist. As St.Paul says, “They devoted themselves… to the breaking of bread.” (Acts 2:42)

Of course, Jesus is the one who first spoke about Himself as “the bread of life.” (John 6:35) He goes into a long discourse, the Bread of Life discourse, which greatly offended and scandalized many of His followers and non-followers alike. Jesus continues, “the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (Jn.6:51) It is interesting to note that John uses the Greek word “sarx” here to denote the word “flesh.” Sarx can only mean real flesh. Sarx is the same word John uses at the beginning of his Gospel in regard to the Incarnation when he states “The Word became flesh.” (Jn.1:14) Thus, he links the Eucharist with the Incarnation. In the synoptic Gospels and the Pauline epistles, in regard to the Eucharistic formulation, they use the word soma, which means “body.” But here, in the Bread of Life discourse, John specifically uses the word sarx six times! As Jesus emphasizes, “for My flesh is true food and My blood is true drink.” (Jn. 6:55) Not just an idea or mere symbol. The Eucharist is a Real Symbol. It is what it signifies. Yet, the disciples and the Jews were scandalized by this “hard saying.” Nonetheless, Jesus does not back off, but more forcefully emphasizes the point. He says: “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat My flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day;” (Jn. 6:53-54) The word John uses for “to eat” is the Greek word “trogein,” which literally means “to gnaw.” He’s emphasizing that you gnaw on real meat, not a symbol or an idea. Not surprisingly, many of Jesus’ disciples and non-disciples alike were aghast at this; believing He was speaking about some sort of cannibalism. Jesus, of course, knew this, and so, He asks them, and by way of extension, He asks us, “Does this shock you?” (Jn. 6:61) We know it was too much for many to bear, because as John records, many of His disciples abandon Him at this point. (Jn.6:66) * After they abandon Him, Jesus reassures His skeptical Apostles. He tells them, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” (Jn.6:63) Or, in other words, Jesus is telling them not to understand this with their fleshy, materialistic minds; But rather, they should understand it by trusting in God’s supernatural power. This is not a cannibalistic ritual, but a heavenly sacrament. **

The Council of Trent in the 16th century reaffirmed the belief of the real presence in the Eucharist and spelled out in precise language the nature of the sacrament. The Council reaffirmed that by the consecration of the bread and wine, “there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of wine into the substance of His blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation.” (CCC 1376; Trent 1551) Transubstantiation is ultimately the term they arrived at to define what happens in the mystical sacrament of the Eucharist. Under the veiled appearance of bread and wine, “the whole of Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.” (CCC 1374; Trent 1551) Jesus becomes our spiritual food. He is our “medicine of immortality.” (St.Ignatius, 110 AD) Jesus loves us so much that He desires to be consumed by us; to merge with us, and merge us into Himself. As Jesus said, “Those who eat My flesh and drink My blood abide in Me, and I in them.” (Jn. 6:56) The real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is not an end in itself. The purpose of the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is for us to consume Him and be in communion with Him. Receiving Jesus in Holy Communion is meant to bring us into intimate union with Christ. It deepens our relationship with Him. Just as material food nourishes our bodies, so Holy Communion nourishes our spiritual soul. (CCC 1392) You are what you eat. Holy Communion transforms us into the image of Jesus Christ.

Our personal salvation and transformation are not the only goals of Holy Communion. It also transforms us, as a whole community of faithful believers, the Church, into the Mystical Body of Christ. St.Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.” (1Cor. 10:17) The Eucharist lifts us up into union with Christ, and unites us all as one in His Mystical Body. (Mysterium Fidei, 70) All who partake in the body and blood of Christ, “enter into communion with Him and form but one body in Him.” (CCC 1329) In the mass, after the priest invokes the Holy Spirit to transform the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, he again, invokes the Holy Spirit, a second time, that those who eat the body and blood of Christ may be “one body, one Spirit in Christ.” This is in reality the second transubstantiation; the transformation of those who eat the Eucharist into the one Mystical Body of Christ. This recalls Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane to the Father that His followers “may be one, as We are one.” (Jn 17:11) Just as the Holy Spirit transforms the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, so does He transform us into the Mystical Body of Christ. The Eucharist unites us together mystically in Him.

Moreover, the members of the Church come together to offer “praise, sufferings, prayer, and work” in union with the sacrifice of Christ. (CCC 1368) We, the Body and by virtue of our priesthood, unite all that we are and do, with the offering of the Head, the one and eternal Priest and Mediator, Jesus Christ, in His passion and death. Body and Head united, we offer our sacrifice together to the Father in the Eucharist and the sacred liturgy of the mass for the intercession of all humanity and the salvation of our souls.  The Eucharist and the sacred liturgy of the mass draw us “day by day into ever more perfect union with God and with each other, so that finally God may be all in all.” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 48) In the fifth century B.C. the Hebrew Prophet Malachi (מַלְאָכִי) prophesied a time when not only the Jews, God’s chosen people, would worship the one, true God, but all the Gentile nations around the world would too. People everywhere would not make bloody or burnt sacrifices, but rather, each day they will make a pure and acceptable offering to God’s holy name.  This has found its fulfillment in the Christian Eucharist and mass.  Jesus puts an end to the millennia-old ritualistic blood-letting.  He is the pure offering. “For from the rising of the sun to its setting My name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to My name, and a pure offering; for My name is great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.” (Mal.1:11) 

*As an aside, it’s interesting to note that various early Roman pagans had spread false rumors about Christians that they participated in cannibalistic rituals. This was probably from their false understanding of the Eucharistic meal. As recorded by Roman pagan historians, this smear was used as one of the excuses to persecute the early Christian Church. Yet, it also lends extra-biblical credence to the idea that the first Christians believed in the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.

**It’s also interesting to note that directly before Jesus’ Bread of Life Discourse in John 6, John related two other miracles. The first was Jesus’ multiplications of the loaves. This has obvious Eucharistic connotations. The next was Jesus walking on water on the Sea of Galilee. Both miracles reveal that matter, the elements and nature itself are subject to Jesus. In other words, just before Jesus discusses bread and wine becoming His flesh and blood, John demonstrates by these miracles, that material boundaries are no constraint upon Jesus.

0Shares