AND
PHYSICALLY PRESENT IN THE EUCHARIST.
FOR
THIS REASON, WE REMOVE OUR SHOES DURING
THE
DIVINE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS (LITURGY)
AND
WE PROSTRATE BEFORE THE LORD
PRESENT IN THE EUCHARIST.
The doctrine of the
Eucharist has been held from the very earliest days of the Church. For the
first 800 years of Christianity, there was no doubt regarding the Real Presence
of Christ in the Eucharist. Here is a sample of writings from the fathers of
the early Church illustrating this.
Paul
writing in 1 Cor 10:15-16
"I speak to sensible
people; judge for yourselves what I say. Is not the cup of thanksgiving for
which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the
bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?"
Paul
writing in 1 Cor 11:23-30
"For I received from
the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was
betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said,
"This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." In
the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new
covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of
me." For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the
Lord's death until he comes. Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the
cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the
body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of
the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without
recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself."
Ignatius
of Antioch, 110 AD
"They abstain from
the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist
is the flesh of our savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and
which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again... Let that be considered a
valid Eucharist, which is celebrated by the bishop, or by one whom he appoints.
Wherever the bishop appears, let the people be there; just as wherever Jesus
Christ is, there is the catholic church." (Epistle to the Smyreans)
"Take heed, then, to
have but one Eucharist. For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and
one cup to [show forth] the unity of His blood; one altar; as there is one
bishop, along with the presbytery and deacons, my fellow-servants: that so,
whatsoever you do, you may do it according to [the will of] God." (Epistle to the Philadelphians)
Justin
Martyr, 150 AD
"We call this food
Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who
believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which
is for the remission of sins and for regeneration and is thereby living as
Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread nor 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 set
down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished, is
both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus." (First Apology of Justin)
Irenaeus
of Lyons, 190 AD
"Christ has declared
the cup... to be his own Blood, from which he causes our blood to flow; and the
bread, a part of creation, he has established as his own Body, from which he
gives increase to our bodies. If the Lord were from other than the Father, how
could he rightly take bread, which is of the same creation as our own, and
confess it to be his body and affirm that the mixture in the cup is his
blood?" (Against Heresies Book V)
|
"Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed,
and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, 'Take, eat; this is my body.' And he took a cup, and when he had
given thanks he gave it to them, saying, 'Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which
is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.'" (Mt. 26:26-28) |
The Old Testament
Tabernacle Sacrifice
Bread of the Presence
The
Bread of the Presence, in the ancient Tabernacle and later in the Temple, 1 Kgs
7:48 prefigured Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.
In
the Tabernacle God commanded Moses, Ex 25:8
"Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst." In
the sanctuary, in the ark of the covenant, God told Moses, Ex
25:22 "There I will meet with you, and from above the
mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are upon the ark of the
testimony, I will speak with you..." God added, Ex
25:30 "You shall set the bread of the Presence on the
table before me always." Jesus told us, Mt 28:20
"I am with you always."
Abimelech
the priest gave David this sacred bread. 1 Sam 21:6
"So the priest gave him the holy bread; for there was no bread there but
the bread of the Presence." Jesus taught us that it was for all His
disciples. Mt 12:1 "At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on
the sabbath; his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck ears of grain
and to eat. ... [Jesus] said to them, 'Have you not read what David did, when
he was hungry, and those who who were with him: how he entered the house of God
and ate the bread of the Presence ... I tell you, something greater than the
temple is here."
Jesus
showed us what was greater than the Temple. Lk 22:19
"He took bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to
them, saying, 'This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance
of me.'"
Blood of the Lamb
During
Moses' time the priests sacrificed in the Tabernacle, a portable house of God in
the wilderness. After Solomon built the First Temple, it became the place of
sacrifice. The highest form of Hebrew worship was sacrifice, not prayer alone,
just as the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the highest form of Orthodox worship.
A priest is one who offers
sacrifice. The Orthodox priest is the counterpart not of the rabbi, but of the
ancient Jewish priest who offered bloody sacrifices. The deacon, who reads the
Gospel, is the rabbi's counterpart.
The
Old Testament sacrifice of a lamb, as opposed to any other animal, was
important. The lamb did not resist, run away, or even cry out. Isaiah had
foretold that the Lamb of God would do the same, Is 53:7 "He
was oppressed, and he was afflicted yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb
that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is
dumb, so he opened not his mouth."
The
Jewish priests, before sacrificing the lamb, always asked, "Do you love
this lamb?" If the family didn't love the lamb there would be no
sacrifice. Jesus three times asked Peter, Jn 21:15
"Do you love Me?" Jesus allowed Peter to replace his triple denial
with a triple affirmation that he did indeed love the Sacrificed Lamb.
The
family would place the lamb into the hands of the priest. When we give
something to God we place it in His hands. Jesus' last words on the Cross were, Lk
23:46 "Father, into Thy hands I commit My spirit!"
The
priest and the head of the family then prayed together that God would accept
the blood of the innocent lamb for the sins of that family for the entire year,
just as the Lamb of God shed His Blood to redeem the sins of all His human
family. In our Liturgy the priest says, "Pray, brethren, that my sacrifice
and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father."
The
head of household then cut the lamb's throat with a sharp bronze knife while
the priest caught the lamb's blood in a large bronze bowl. The priest then made
seven complete trips around the altar, sprinkling the blood from the lamb on
each of the four "horns." Then he took the lamb's body and placed it
on the altar and started the ritual fire. With a big fire and a small lamb, the
sacrifice was over quickly. The smoke rose from the altar. If the wind blew the
smoke away and dispersed it, the priest told the family that its offer was
rejected, and that it should repent and come back the following year. But if
the smoke drifted upward, higher and higher until it disappeared from view, the
priest told the family that God had accepted the sacrifice.
Before
the great tabernacle sacrifice, Jewish priests washed their hands in a bronze
laver, or basin. Ps 26:6 "I wash my hands in innocence, and go about Thy
altar, O Lord." Today the Catholic priest washes his hands saying
inaudibly, Ps 51:2 "Lord, wash away my iniquity; cleanse me from my
sin."
The
first priest attended at a great golden lampstand with seven oil lamps, called
a menorah. It was dark in the
tabernacle, and the menorah gave light.
The
second priest attended at the table of showbread. God had commanded Lv
24:5 that the Jewish priests, from Aaron forward, place twelve
loaves of bread on a golden table "before the Lord." On each sabbath,
the priests ate the bread which had been set in place on the preceding sabbath.
This bread was to be eaten by the priests in a sacred place since it was Lv
24:9 "most holy" among the offerings to the Lord.
God had said, Ex 23:18 "You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with
leavened bread." During the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass the Orthodox priest
consecrates unleavened bread on the altar which becomes Christ's Body, Blood,
Soul and Divinity, and is consumed by the royal priesthood as the most holy
offering in the New and Everlasting Covenant.
The
third priest served at the altar of incense. It looked like a small altar of
sacrifice, with the same four horns. On it was a bronze laver. The priest would
take a red-hot burning ember from the fire in which the lamb had been
sacrificed, put it in the basin, and pour some incense on it, that his prayers
might have a fragrant scent and go straight up to God. Orthodox Priests and
Bishops spread incense about the altar as an act of reverence and purification.
The smoke rising to heaven represents our own desire to have our prayers ascend
heavenward in God's sight. Ps 141:2 "Let my prayer be counted as incense before Thee,
and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice."
God
told Moses to place the Torah in the Ark of the Covenant, which in turn was
placed within a tabernacle. God commanded, Ex 27:20 "You
shall command the people of Israel that they bring to you pure beaten olive oil
for the light, that a lamp may be set up to burn continually." All was
placed within the tabernacle. By night, there was always a fire over the
tabernacle, Ex 40:38 This began the idea of an eternal lamp beside the Jewish
tabernacle. A thousand years later the Temple lamp miraculously continued to
shine for eight days with only one day's supply of oil. The Celtic Orthodox
Church continues this ancient Israelite tradition by placing a lighted candle
beside the tabernacle in which the consecrated Hosts repose.
In
the center of the tabernacle was a room called the Holy of Holies. Once a year
the cohen gadol, the high
priest, alone would enter that room. In it was the Ark of the Covenant. Inside
the ark were the two stone tablets with the Ten Commandments, a golden bowl of
manna, and the five Torah scrolls. The Torah was a witness against the
Israelites, Dt 31:26 but above it all was God's solid gold mercy seat, with a
crown and two cherubim kneeling in prayer. Above the mercy seat, between the
two cherubim, was a brilliant light, the shining glory of God. Ex
25:22 "From above the mercy seat, from between the two
cherubim that are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you."
When the priest saw that light he took a huge cup of blood and sprinkled it
until it was empty. Jewish tradition holds that not one drop of the blood of
sacrifice ever touched the mercy seat or the cherubim; it all went into the
bright light of God's glory. Jesus said, Jn 8:12
"I am the light of the world." Jesus' covenant family gave Him their
imperfect sacrifices, and He gave them His perfect sacrifice.
The Todah Sacrifice
The
ancient Jews had a special ritual meal called the Todah (Hebrew: thanks) (pronounce: Taw-DAH). Although the Todah sacrificed an animal, it was
greater than other animal sacrifices because it added the suffering of one's
own life. David wrote, Ps 40:6,8 "Burnt offering and sin offering Thou hast not
required.
I delight to do Thy will, O my God; Thy law is within my
heart." Again, David wrote, Ps 51:17 "The
sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit." And again, Ps
69:30 "I will praise the name of God with a song; I will
magnify Him with thanksgiving. This will please the Lord more than an ox or a
bull with horns and hoofs." Isaiah spoke the words of God, Is
1:11 "I have had enough of burnt offerings of
rams." God called instead for a baptism: Is 1:16
"Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings
from My eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good."
The
seventy elders who went up with Moses to see God offered the Todah: Ex
24:11 "They beheld God, and ate and drank." Twelve
centuries later, twelve apostles beheld God, and ate and drank as Jesus
prepared to offer His Todah
sacrifice: Lk 22:19 "He took bread, and when He had given thanks He
broke it
" From the beginning, Christ's Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity has
been called Holy Eucharist (Greek: eucharistia,
thanksgiving).
The
ancient rabbis believed that when the Messiah would come all sacrifices except
the Todah would cease, but the Todah would continue for all
eternity. In 70 AD the Temple fell to earth and all of the bloody animal
sacrifices stopped. Only the Todah
remains, the eucharistia, the
Final Sacrifice at which the last words spoken are Todah l'Adonai, "Thanks be to God."
Jesus
was pre-figured in the original Passover, when God commanded that Moses tell
the Israelites, Ex 12:5-6 "Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male
the
congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs in the evening," as Jesus
the Lamb of God was crucified in dim light. Mt 27:45 God
commanded, Ex 12:8 "They shall eat the flesh that night," and
told Moses, Ex 12:12 "I will smite all the first-born in the land of
Egypt." But He promised, Ex 12:13 "The blood shall be a sign for you
when I see the
blood, I will pass over you." Most of us know that the original Passover
pre-figured the Body and Blood of the crucified Lamb. But there is more to the
Passover story.
Pharaoh
commanded the death of every Hebrew male infant in Egypt, Ex
1:22 but death passed over Moses. Ex
2:5-10 Twelve centuries later, before Herod commanded the death
of every Hebrew male infant in Bethlehem, Mt 2:13
death passed also over Jesus.
The
Jewish celebration of Passover has from the beginning been an experience of
exile and return, as its participants re-live the experience of the desert and
encounter with God. After Jesus was crucified the apostles also experienced a
sense of exile in the desert followed by a transforming encounter with God. In
this way Jesus is spiritually present in the entire Seder.
The
Seder table is different in many ways from the Jewish table setting on all
other nights, as the ma nishtano
acknowledges. God chose a young Jewish girl, a virgin who lived in Nazareth, to
begin the rest of the story. Mary began her own Seder each year as Jews have
since time immemorial, by lighting candles to give festive light to the table.
Mary also gave us Jesus, the Jn 8:12 light of the world. Jesus has been at every Seder from
the first one to this very day, spiritually present in the bread, wine, and
lamb.
John, chapter 6: Sermon of the Bread of Life:
53- "Let me solemnly assure you,
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no
life in you.
54- Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will
raise him up on the last day.
55-For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink..." (John
6:53-55)
Chapter
6 of St. John has the sixth treasure of the Gospel, the Sermon of the Bread of
Life, where Jesus promises us our daily bread, to live on earth this beautiful
life in Christ as a wedding feast, to have eternal life, and to help others to
do so.
This
Sermon was the announcement of the Eucharist, we have to eat his flesh and
drink his own blood, the most substantial Sermon of Jesus... but it was the
greatest scandal in the life of Jesus, the multitudes and the 72 disciples left
him thinking he was crazy, to eat his flesh and drink his blood?!... and not
only that, here Jesus signed his death sentence, because "after this Jesus went about in
Galilee; he did not wish to go about in Judea because the Jews were looking for
an opportunity to kill him" (7:1)... and the next time he went
to Judea they killed him!... on a Cross!.. they were not bluffing.
The
chapter starts with two of the seven miracles of the Gospel: The multiplication
of the seven barley loaves and two fish, to feed 5,000 people (6:1-14), and
Jesus walking on water (6:18:21)... both of them show us the power of Jesus on
nature, preparing us for the announcement of the greatest miracle on nature,
the Eucharist, the Bread of Life.
The
multitudes were so impressed with the multiplication of the bread and fishes
that they wanted to make him a king!, but Jesus withdrew again to the mountain
by himself (6:15).
The
next day, when they found him, they asked him: "What must we do to perform the the works of God? Jesus answered
to them: This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has
sent" (6:28)... and he will repeat it four times in this
chapter, "This
is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him
may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day"
(6:40, 28, 35, 47)... four times repeats it, to prepare us for the great
announcement we have to believe and do, to eat his flesh and drink his
blood!... as hard as it sounds!... just as Jesus will repeat it 8 times!.
Now
they ask Jesus for a "sign", as the "manna" was a sign for
their ancestors, for 40 years in the wilderness. Jesus tells them that it is
the Father who gives the bread from heaven, or the bread of life. So they said
to Jesus: "Sir, give us this Bread of Heaven always" (6:30-34).
And here it comes, the Sermon of the Bread of Life, or the Bread
of Heaven,
in John 6:35-69:
"Jesus said to them: I am the bread of of life. Whoever comes to me will
never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty" (6:35). Then the Jews murmured about him
because he said "I am the bread of life", and they said,
""Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph?... and then the Jews
quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat? (6:35-2)...
it is for real!... we have to eat his flesh!... he is crazy!... and the
multitudes of 5000 men went away taking Jesus for a mad-man...
... And
when the multitudes were disputing this and going away,
Jesus did not take a word out of it, rather, he repeats 6 times to
them: "Very
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. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have
eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food
and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in
me, and I in them...", read it by yourself in full in 6:52-58,
repeats it 6 times in different ways!... it is real... really real!...
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