The Body and Blood of Jesus II Do This in Remembrance of Me!
St. Luke quotes the same words of our Savior (Luke 22: 19) in his account of the Last Supper. The Greek word used for remembrance, in both passages is anamnesis, which includes not only the English meaning of the word (to recall or remember) but also implies that the thing to be “remembered” is “an otherworldly reality that is made present to the one ‘remembering.’” Thus when Jesus says “Do this in remembrance of me,” he is asking for more than mere recall, but rather re-enactment with the assurance that he will be with them just as he was with the Apostles at the Last Supper in the transformed sacrificial bread and wine. Paul instructs us: "This means that whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily sins against the body and the of the Lord. A man should examine himself first; only then should he eat of the bread and drink of the cup" (1 Corinthians 11:28).
Clearly Paul is not talking about just a memorial of the Last Supper, because to underline the holiness of the Eucharist he adds (in the same solemn tone Jesus used to explain the Eucharist to the unbelieving disciples in the synagogue in John 6) : "He who eats and drinks without recognizing the body eats and drinks a judgment on himself" (1 Corinthians 11:29). Paul is clear that the Eucharist requires Christian believers to believe, to have a clear conscience and act accordingly and attributes illness and even deaths among them to their lack of charity in this regard. When Paul tells them, “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons” (1 Corinthians 10: 21), he is saying the union with one Lord in the Eucharist prohibits participation in the rituals of other gods (the cup of demons).
The Breaking of the Bread
This “breaking of the bread” is the central feature of the Church’s life and is a real communion with Christ. Just as Israelites participated in the Old Covenant sacrifices by eating the animal or food offered (burnt offerings, peace offerings, sin offerings and the Todah, a food/drink offering--usually bread and wine) so too Christians are called upon to consume the Body and Blood of Christ and unite themselves to Him and to the sacrifice of the Cross. So it is not surprising that Paul emphasizes that this action makes the Church one body (1 Corinthians 12: 12-13). But how do we diverse people become one body? Paul explains, “Since there is one bread, we though many are actually one body because we all share in the one bread.” Is eating bread and remembering that powerful? No! Could this be symbolic of say God’s word? If that were the case why are there approximately 26,000 different Christian denominations, when they all share essentially the same Bible? It is, as St. Paul reveals, the consuming of the one body of Jesus Christ (the Eucharist) that transforms us into one body! Can a mere symbol create unity? No! As St. John tells in his Gospel, Jesus is the true Lamb of God and just as the Israelites would not have celebrated the Passover of the angel of death had they not consumed the sacrificial lamb during the Exodus (Genesis 12), so Christians are called by Jesus himself to consume the Bread of Life, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 6). The unity that Jesus prayed for in John 17: 26 is made possible, as Jesus said, “. . .and I will make it known, that the love which thou hast loved me, may be in them, and I in them.” Jesus said it plainly, “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him" (John 6: 56). In 1 John he uses the term “abide” over and over, we must abide in Him by our belief and obedience but something more is meant by this term. Jesus himself tells us how we can abide in Him by receiving His Body and Blood and Catholics [and the Orthodox] are called upon to do so worthily at the Sacrifice of the Mass. The Eucharistic banquet, the Mass, is not only our Passover to eternal life but it is the ultimate Hebrew Todah or thanksgiving sacrifice. Israel used the Todah as a most holy and great thanksgiving after deliverance from great peril. There was a rabbinic saying that stated that in the coming age of the Messiah all sacrifice would cease except for the Todah. As in the Todah, we Christians are called on to give thanks and to consume the offering of the great Todah instituted by Jesus at the Last Supper, the new Passover, to receive our Holy Savior.
The Arcane Discipline: Silence on the Eucharist
The Church was faithful to the Lord’s commands from the beginning as is noted in the Acts of the Apostles:
"They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. . . Day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they partook of food with glad and generous hearts." ( Acts 2:42, 46).
The references to the “breaking of the bread” in the Acts refers to the celebration of the Eucharist that took place on the first day of the week. Why did the inspired writers of Scripture use this symbol to describe the Lord’s Body and Blood? Remember that early Christians were for three centuries an underground Church, often persecuted by both the Jews and the Romans. Christians were sometimes accused of cannibalism and participating in “Thyestean feasts,” after a certain Thyestes who was served his brother’s dead children for dinner. Thus concern over pagan misunderstanding of this mystery of the faith compounded by the reticence they had in revealing their home celebrations led to the adoption by many Christians of the disciplina arcani or arcane discipline, which was a self-imposed secrecy, even from catechumens (those studying to join the Church). As James T. O’Connor writes in his book The Hidden Manna, “It is for this reason that many of our early references to the Eucharist are found in catechetical instructions given to the newly baptized only at the Easter Vigil, when they were about to receive the Eucharist for the first time.” St. Augustine makes references to this discipline in his catechetical sermons, showing that this practice was around even in the fifth century. Remember also that the Apostles recognized the risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus in the “breaking of the bread” (Luke. 24:13-35). As one scholar notes, “The tombs of the Martyrs, the paintings on the walls of the catacombs and the custom of reserving the Blessed Sacrament in the homes of the first Christians in the years of [Roman] persecution show the unity of faith in the first centuries of Christianity in the doctrine that in the Eucharist, Christ is really contained, offered and received.” Writing to the pagan emperor Antoninus in about 155 A.D., St. Justin Martyr, who later died for his faith as his name suggests, wrote of the Christian celebration of the Eucharist in the terms present day Catholics can easily recognize from the Mass:
"When the prayers and thanksgiving are completed, all the people present call out their consent, saying 'Amen!' 'Amen' in the Hebrew language signifies 'so be it.' After the president [priest or presider] has given thanks, and all the people have shouted their assent, those whom we call deacons give to each one present to partake of the Eucharistic bread and wine and water; and to those who are absent they carry away a portion."
"We call this food Eucharist; and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who has been washed in the washing [baptism] which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [2 Pet 3:21], and is thereby living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread or common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer [epiclesis or prayer of supplication to the Holy Spirit] set down by Him [see 1Corinthians 11: 23-26; Luke 22: 19] and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished is both the flesh and blood of the incarnated Jesus (First Apology of Justin, chapter 128).
St. Paul pointedly reminded the Hebrew Christians that, “We have an altar from which those who serve the tent [Jewish priests] have no right to eat” (Heb 13:10). This was so because they had not professed belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and entered the Church by receiving the Holy Spirit in Baptism and accepting the body of Apostolic teaching which the Church calls the deposit of faith. St. Justin addresses the sacrificial aspects of the Eucharist in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, writing:
"Concerning the sacrifices once offered by you Jews, God, as I have already said, has spoken through Malachi the prophet, who was one of the Twelve [minor prophets--he wrote after the return from Babylonian captivity about 445 B.C.]: ‘I have no pleasure in you,’ says the Lord, 'and I do not accept your sacrifices from your hands, because from the rising of the sun to its setting my Name has been glorified among the Gentiles. And in every place incense and a pure sacrifice are offered to my Name, because my Name is great among the Gentiles, says the Lord, while you have profaned it’ (Malachi 1: 10-12). Already, then, did he prophesy about those sacrifices that are offered to him in every place by us Gentiles, speaking, that is, about the Bread of the Eucharist and the cup of the Eucharist. And he added that his Name is glorified by us and profaned by you."
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
In the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which replaced the temple sacrifice of the Jews, the Church daily takes to heart the words of Jesus to the Apostles, “Do this as a remembrance of me.” The Mass is celebrated approximately 300,000 times each day so that at any given moment, somewhere in the world, our Lord’s great Passover is being celebrated, remembered and consumed with reverence. The message to the Church in Laodicea in the Book of Revelation might well be addressed to us all, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” As the Church notes in the Catechism, “Christian liturgy not only recalls the events that saved us but actualizes them, makes them present. The Paschal mystery of Christ is celebrated, not repeated. It is the celebrations that are repeated, and in each celebration there is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit that makes the unique mystery present.” Since God is not bounded by time, his acts have an eternal significance. He gave us His Son in the Eucharist! Unlike the unbloody food/drink offering of the Old Covenant, the Todah, which could only be consumed by the Levitical priests, the unbloody sacrifice of the Eucharist can be consumed by the “priesthood of all believers.” This is the principal act of worship of the Church, which offers itself as a total offering with Christ at each Mass. As St. Paul reminds us Christians are to offer themselves as a “living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Rom 12: 1). Receiving Jesus in the Eucharist is the ultimate communion, a personal relationship of great intimacy, holy and profound, and as Catholics say at every Mass before communion, we must say “Lord, I am not worthy, but only say the word and I shall be healed.” Let us give thanks to God as we approach this great mystery of our redemption!
The Testimony of St. Augustine
Let’s end as we started with a quotation from St. Augustine, who reminds us that the Christians and Jews both had what he called “sacraments” (for example, the manna versus the Eucharist), but the Christian received the reality while the Jew only a figure. “The manna was a shadow, this is the truth.” In a sermon to newly baptized Christians he said:
"You should understand what you have received, what you will receive, indeed what you should receive daily. That bread that you see on the altar and that has been sanctified by the word of God is the Body of Christ. That chalice–rather, that which the chalice contains–has been sanctified by the word of God and is the Blood of Christ. Through these things the Lord Christ wished to entrust to us His Body and his Blood, which he shed for us unto the remission of sins. If you receive them well, you are that which you receive. The Apostle says, ‘One bread and we, the many, are one body” (1Corinthians 10:17). [Sermons CCXXVII: On Easter Sunday; PL, 38, 1099]
He also wrote, “He walked on earth in that same Flesh to us to be eaten for our salvation. Moreover, no one eats that Flesh unless he has first adored it . . . and we sin by not adoring it.” (Ennar. In Ps. 99, 9].
Pope Benedict XVI comments on the significance of the Eucharist:
Our celebrations of the Eucharist are a being drawn into that moment of prayer, a uniting ourselves again and again to Jesus’ prayer. From her earliest days, the Church has understood the words of consecration as part of her praying together with Jesus; as a central part of the praise filled with thanksgiving through which the fruit of the earth and of men’s hands are given to us anew by God in the form of Jesus’ Body and Blood, as God’s gift of Himself in His Son’s self-emptying love (cf. Jesus of Nazareth, II, pg. 128). In participating in the Eucharist, in nourishing ourselves on the Flesh and Blood of the Son of God, we unite our prayer to that of the paschal Lamb on His last night, so that our lives might not be lost, despite our weakness and infidelity, but might be transformed.
Dear friends, let us ask the Lord that, after having worthily prepared ourselves, also through the Sacrament of Penance, our participation in His Eucharist, which is indispensible for Christian life, might always be the summit of our prayer. Let us ask that, by being united deeply to His own offering to the Father, we too may transform our crosses into a free and responsible sacrifice of love to God and to our brothers and sisters.
Clearly Paul is not talking about just a memorial of the Last Supper, because to underline the holiness of the Eucharist he adds (in the same solemn tone Jesus used to explain the Eucharist to the unbelieving disciples in the synagogue in John 6) : "He who eats and drinks without recognizing the body eats and drinks a judgment on himself" (1 Corinthians 11:29). Paul is clear that the Eucharist requires Christian believers to believe, to have a clear conscience and act accordingly and attributes illness and even deaths among them to their lack of charity in this regard. When Paul tells them, “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons” (1 Corinthians 10: 21), he is saying the union with one Lord in the Eucharist prohibits participation in the rituals of other gods (the cup of demons).
The Breaking of the Bread
This “breaking of the bread” is the central feature of the Church’s life and is a real communion with Christ. Just as Israelites participated in the Old Covenant sacrifices by eating the animal or food offered (burnt offerings, peace offerings, sin offerings and the Todah, a food/drink offering--usually bread and wine) so too Christians are called upon to consume the Body and Blood of Christ and unite themselves to Him and to the sacrifice of the Cross. So it is not surprising that Paul emphasizes that this action makes the Church one body (1 Corinthians 12: 12-13). But how do we diverse people become one body? Paul explains, “Since there is one bread, we though many are actually one body because we all share in the one bread.” Is eating bread and remembering that powerful? No! Could this be symbolic of say God’s word? If that were the case why are there approximately 26,000 different Christian denominations, when they all share essentially the same Bible? It is, as St. Paul reveals, the consuming of the one body of Jesus Christ (the Eucharist) that transforms us into one body! Can a mere symbol create unity? No! As St. John tells in his Gospel, Jesus is the true Lamb of God and just as the Israelites would not have celebrated the Passover of the angel of death had they not consumed the sacrificial lamb during the Exodus (Genesis 12), so Christians are called by Jesus himself to consume the Bread of Life, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 6). The unity that Jesus prayed for in John 17: 26 is made possible, as Jesus said, “. . .and I will make it known, that the love which thou hast loved me, may be in them, and I in them.” Jesus said it plainly, “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him" (John 6: 56). In 1 John he uses the term “abide” over and over, we must abide in Him by our belief and obedience but something more is meant by this term. Jesus himself tells us how we can abide in Him by receiving His Body and Blood and Catholics [and the Orthodox] are called upon to do so worthily at the Sacrifice of the Mass. The Eucharistic banquet, the Mass, is not only our Passover to eternal life but it is the ultimate Hebrew Todah or thanksgiving sacrifice. Israel used the Todah as a most holy and great thanksgiving after deliverance from great peril. There was a rabbinic saying that stated that in the coming age of the Messiah all sacrifice would cease except for the Todah. As in the Todah, we Christians are called on to give thanks and to consume the offering of the great Todah instituted by Jesus at the Last Supper, the new Passover, to receive our Holy Savior.
The Arcane Discipline: Silence on the Eucharist
The Church was faithful to the Lord’s commands from the beginning as is noted in the Acts of the Apostles:
"They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. . . Day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they partook of food with glad and generous hearts." ( Acts 2:42, 46).
The references to the “breaking of the bread” in the Acts refers to the celebration of the Eucharist that took place on the first day of the week. Why did the inspired writers of Scripture use this symbol to describe the Lord’s Body and Blood? Remember that early Christians were for three centuries an underground Church, often persecuted by both the Jews and the Romans. Christians were sometimes accused of cannibalism and participating in “Thyestean feasts,” after a certain Thyestes who was served his brother’s dead children for dinner. Thus concern over pagan misunderstanding of this mystery of the faith compounded by the reticence they had in revealing their home celebrations led to the adoption by many Christians of the disciplina arcani or arcane discipline, which was a self-imposed secrecy, even from catechumens (those studying to join the Church). As James T. O’Connor writes in his book The Hidden Manna, “It is for this reason that many of our early references to the Eucharist are found in catechetical instructions given to the newly baptized only at the Easter Vigil, when they were about to receive the Eucharist for the first time.” St. Augustine makes references to this discipline in his catechetical sermons, showing that this practice was around even in the fifth century. Remember also that the Apostles recognized the risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus in the “breaking of the bread” (Luke. 24:13-35). As one scholar notes, “The tombs of the Martyrs, the paintings on the walls of the catacombs and the custom of reserving the Blessed Sacrament in the homes of the first Christians in the years of [Roman] persecution show the unity of faith in the first centuries of Christianity in the doctrine that in the Eucharist, Christ is really contained, offered and received.” Writing to the pagan emperor Antoninus in about 155 A.D., St. Justin Martyr, who later died for his faith as his name suggests, wrote of the Christian celebration of the Eucharist in the terms present day Catholics can easily recognize from the Mass:
"When the prayers and thanksgiving are completed, all the people present call out their consent, saying 'Amen!' 'Amen' in the Hebrew language signifies 'so be it.' After the president [priest or presider] has given thanks, and all the people have shouted their assent, those whom we call deacons give to each one present to partake of the Eucharistic bread and wine and water; and to those who are absent they carry away a portion."
"We call this food Eucharist; and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who has been washed in the washing [baptism] which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [2 Pet 3:21], and is thereby living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread or common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer [epiclesis or prayer of supplication to the Holy Spirit] set down by Him [see 1Corinthians 11: 23-26; Luke 22: 19] and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished is both the flesh and blood of the incarnated Jesus (First Apology of Justin, chapter 128).
St. Paul pointedly reminded the Hebrew Christians that, “We have an altar from which those who serve the tent [Jewish priests] have no right to eat” (Heb 13:10). This was so because they had not professed belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and entered the Church by receiving the Holy Spirit in Baptism and accepting the body of Apostolic teaching which the Church calls the deposit of faith. St. Justin addresses the sacrificial aspects of the Eucharist in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, writing:
"Concerning the sacrifices once offered by you Jews, God, as I have already said, has spoken through Malachi the prophet, who was one of the Twelve [minor prophets--he wrote after the return from Babylonian captivity about 445 B.C.]: ‘I have no pleasure in you,’ says the Lord, 'and I do not accept your sacrifices from your hands, because from the rising of the sun to its setting my Name has been glorified among the Gentiles. And in every place incense and a pure sacrifice are offered to my Name, because my Name is great among the Gentiles, says the Lord, while you have profaned it’ (Malachi 1: 10-12). Already, then, did he prophesy about those sacrifices that are offered to him in every place by us Gentiles, speaking, that is, about the Bread of the Eucharist and the cup of the Eucharist. And he added that his Name is glorified by us and profaned by you."
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
In the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which replaced the temple sacrifice of the Jews, the Church daily takes to heart the words of Jesus to the Apostles, “Do this as a remembrance of me.” The Mass is celebrated approximately 300,000 times each day so that at any given moment, somewhere in the world, our Lord’s great Passover is being celebrated, remembered and consumed with reverence. The message to the Church in Laodicea in the Book of Revelation might well be addressed to us all, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” As the Church notes in the Catechism, “Christian liturgy not only recalls the events that saved us but actualizes them, makes them present. The Paschal mystery of Christ is celebrated, not repeated. It is the celebrations that are repeated, and in each celebration there is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit that makes the unique mystery present.” Since God is not bounded by time, his acts have an eternal significance. He gave us His Son in the Eucharist! Unlike the unbloody food/drink offering of the Old Covenant, the Todah, which could only be consumed by the Levitical priests, the unbloody sacrifice of the Eucharist can be consumed by the “priesthood of all believers.” This is the principal act of worship of the Church, which offers itself as a total offering with Christ at each Mass. As St. Paul reminds us Christians are to offer themselves as a “living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Rom 12: 1). Receiving Jesus in the Eucharist is the ultimate communion, a personal relationship of great intimacy, holy and profound, and as Catholics say at every Mass before communion, we must say “Lord, I am not worthy, but only say the word and I shall be healed.” Let us give thanks to God as we approach this great mystery of our redemption!
The Testimony of St. Augustine
Let’s end as we started with a quotation from St. Augustine, who reminds us that the Christians and Jews both had what he called “sacraments” (for example, the manna versus the Eucharist), but the Christian received the reality while the Jew only a figure. “The manna was a shadow, this is the truth.” In a sermon to newly baptized Christians he said:
"You should understand what you have received, what you will receive, indeed what you should receive daily. That bread that you see on the altar and that has been sanctified by the word of God is the Body of Christ. That chalice–rather, that which the chalice contains–has been sanctified by the word of God and is the Blood of Christ. Through these things the Lord Christ wished to entrust to us His Body and his Blood, which he shed for us unto the remission of sins. If you receive them well, you are that which you receive. The Apostle says, ‘One bread and we, the many, are one body” (1Corinthians 10:17). [Sermons CCXXVII: On Easter Sunday; PL, 38, 1099]
He also wrote, “He walked on earth in that same Flesh to us to be eaten for our salvation. Moreover, no one eats that Flesh unless he has first adored it . . . and we sin by not adoring it.” (Ennar. In Ps. 99, 9].
Pope Benedict XVI comments on the significance of the Eucharist:
Our celebrations of the Eucharist are a being drawn into that moment of prayer, a uniting ourselves again and again to Jesus’ prayer. From her earliest days, the Church has understood the words of consecration as part of her praying together with Jesus; as a central part of the praise filled with thanksgiving through which the fruit of the earth and of men’s hands are given to us anew by God in the form of Jesus’ Body and Blood, as God’s gift of Himself in His Son’s self-emptying love (cf. Jesus of Nazareth, II, pg. 128). In participating in the Eucharist, in nourishing ourselves on the Flesh and Blood of the Son of God, we unite our prayer to that of the paschal Lamb on His last night, so that our lives might not be lost, despite our weakness and infidelity, but might be transformed.
Dear friends, let us ask the Lord that, after having worthily prepared ourselves, also through the Sacrament of Penance, our participation in His Eucharist, which is indispensible for Christian life, might always be the summit of our prayer. Let us ask that, by being united deeply to His own offering to the Father, we too may transform our crosses into a free and responsible sacrifice of love to God and to our brothers and sisters.
