I’ve recently read a book called “Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist”. The author is an American scholar called Brant Petre: you’ve maybe heard of him? This book stands on Petre’s study not only of our Scriptures, but also of the tradition of Jewish Rabbinical exegesis and commentary. Petre found his study of the Jewish roots of the Holy Eucharist led him through an exciting journey of discovery: confirming, explaining, shedding light on so much that he already knew and believed.
We are often told that Jews in New Testament times were looking for a political Messiah who would drive out the Roman occupiers. Well, some certainly were. But also very many were looking for much more than that. Encouraged by various Scriptural texts, and also by the Jewish inter-testamental writings, they looked for nothing less than a new Exodus. This Exodus would have to be more definitive than the first one. It would be led by a new and greater Moses, who would be at once Prophet and Priest and King. A series of miracles would precede it, including a new gift of Manna: the miraculous bread from heaven. At the heart of this new Exodus would be a new Passover feast, heralding a new liberation from slavery, and celebrating a new and definitive Covenant with God. This Covenant would be sealed by a new Lamb offered in a new Temple: for the glory of God, and the salvation of his people. And the final outcome of that would be the establishment of God’s Kingdom for ever.
Our Lord was most certainly aware of this strain of thought, and so were all his disciples. And all that Jesus said and did at the Last Supper can be understood as its deliberate fulfilment.
At the Last Supper, Jesus took bread. Petre looks in particular at 3 different Breads described in the Old Testament. There was the unleavened bread of the annual Passover meal; there was the manna that fell from heaven, and there was the Bread of the Presence, or literally the Bread of the Face of God. To take these 3 breads briefly in reverse order:
On Mount Sinai God commanded Moses to set up a movable Tabernacle in the wilderness; forerunner of the Jerusalem Temple. Within this Tabernacle, carefully curtained off, was the most holy place, the Holy of Holies, in which were kept the Ark of the Covenant, the 7-branched candlestick, and a Golden Table. On this Table, each Sabbath, the Priests set out 12 loaves of bread, which later they ritually ate, together with a pouring out of wine, and an offering of incense (cf. Ex 25 & Lv 24). In New Testament times, on the 3 great Jewish feasts of Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles, the Jerusalem Priests would bring this holy table out for public view. Holding up the holy Bread, known as the Bread of the Covenant, they would cry out to the assembled throng: “Behold, God’s love for you!”
Then there was the manna that fell in the wilderness. A new feeding with manna becomes a central theme in the long Bread of Life discourse, according to St. John, of which we have just heard a portion. Jesus there, astonishingly, declares himself to be the true bread from heaven, the bread of life, that will give eternal life. In today’s Gospel, even more astonishingly, Jesus identifies this bread with his flesh. Unless we eat his flesh, says Jesus, and drink his blood, we can have no life (Jn 6:53).
“How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” ask the Jews. To which any Catholic Christian will readily respond. At the Last Supper Jesus gave his Body to be broken and his blood to be poured out, under the signs of bread and wine.
The 3rd bread Petre discusses is the unleavened bread of the Pascal meal. At the Last Supper this meal was not finished, because it should have centred on a sacrificed lamb. But Jesus himself is our Passover, our sacrificed Lamb. When we eat the bread of the Eucharist, all the fruits of his saving Paschal mystery are given to us to possess and share. That is, above all, we are set free from slavery to sin and to death. What about the wine? That too seems not to have been finished. A Jewish Passover meal should feature 4 cups. They are classified: the cup of sanctification, the cup of explanation, the cup of blessing and the cup of praise. St. Paul in the brief passage from 1 Corinthians we heard just now already identifies the Eucharist as the 3rd cup: the cup of blessing. According to SS. Matthew and Mark, after declaring this to be his blood, Jesus then says: “I shall never drink wine again, until the day I drink the new wine with you in the Kingdom of my Father” (Mt 26:27).
For Petre, the 4th cup of the Last Supper was the death of Jesus. This consummated the meal, and the sacrifice. Presuming that Petre is right, that would demonstrate in a wonderful way the unbreakable link between the Last Supper and the Cross. “Father”, prayed Jesus in the garden, “let this cup pass from me…” Then, just before he died, he cried: “I thirst” (Jn 19:28). According to St. John, Jesus then took the wine that was offered him, said “It is accomplished”, and immediately died. So his Last Supper vow was fulfilled: for his death was the inauguration of the Kingdom of God.
To re-cap: what is the Holy Eucharist about? Like the Old Testament Bread of Presence, only better, it’s the sign of the Covenant, and the guarantee of God’s presence among his people. Here we behold God’s love for us! Like the manna in the wilderness, the Holy Eucharist is supernatural food - Jesus himself - given in order to carry us through the desert of this life, until we come to eternal life in God’s Kingdom. Like the Passover Feast, celebrating the Eucharist makes us God’s holy, consecrated people. The Eucharist itself is a holy sacrifice, in which Christ’s redeeming death is offered to God the Father in the Holy Spirit.
What Jesus did at the Last Supper is not merely an echo or recapitulation of those Old Testament types. No: quite the reverse: they are all mere foreshadowings, pre-echoes, types of what he would do then. As St. Thomas Aquinas sang in his wonderful Sequence for Corpus Christ:
Vetustatem novitas
umbram fugat veritas
noctem lux eliminat
“Newness drives out what is old; Truth puts the shadows to flight; Light does away with darkness.”
And all is sheer, unmerited, gratuitous gift: the total self-gift of Jesus Christ our Lord.
So then what??
Should we give thanks for this most wonderful Sacrament? Should we ever celebrate it in a specially solemn way? Should we spend time in adoration, repaying love for love? Can anything we ever do be enough to express the power, the beauty, the depth, the holiness, the grace, the glory, the wonder of this most holy Sacrament?
Petre ends his book in the village of Emmaus. “Stay with us Lord” begged the disciples (cf. Lk 24:28) - and Jesus did. Only he did so, henceforth, under the signs of the Holy Eucharist: until he comes again, and we see him as he is, face to face.
