THE MOST HOLY
BODY & BLOOD OF CHRIST (B)
(Exodus
24:3-8; Hebrews 9:11-15; Mark 14:12-16, 22-26)
It was noticeable
that the first reading taken from the book of Exodus, and also the second one
from the letter to the Hebrews, mentioned only blood: the blood sprinkled on
the Israelites by Moses in the desert, or that poured out by Christ on Calvary
to cleanse His people from their sins.
At the Last Supper, however, as St. Mark’s Gospel told us, we heard how
Jesus blessed and offered -- first of all --bread, saying “This is my Body”,
and only afterwards, some wine, saying, “This is my Blood”. Now, why did Jesus not simply offer His
Blood? Why did He bless bread and offer
His Body also?
Our Lord’s divine
wisdom is beyond any merely human explanation or scrutiny; and that is why
Mother Church offers us several readings at Holy Mass, so that we might gain some
understanding and appreciation of Jesus’ actions in the Gospel by viewing them
in the light of other bible texts, both of which, in this case, as I said,
speak only of blood, thereby inviting and provoking me, and I hope you also, to
wonder why Jesus took both bread and wine, offered both His Body and His Blood.
In our reading from
the book of Exodus, Moses had led the people of Israel out of Egypt and they
had arrived at their first destination, Sinai, where Moses had encountered God
on the mountain top and been given the Law; then we are told:
Moses came to the people and related all the words and ordinances of the
LORD, they all answered with one voice and said, "We will do everything
that the LORD has told us." Moses
then wrote down all the words of the LORD.
Our reading from the
letter to the Hebrews spoke of Jesus ascending, not simply to the top of a
mountain, but to heaven itself with His blood:
Christ came as High Priest of the good things that have come to be, passing
through the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made by hands, that is, not
belonging to this creation, He entered once for all into the sanctuary, not
with the blood of goats and calves but with His own blood, thus obtaining
eternal redemption.
Both readings
emphasize the blood, used by Moses and given by Jesus, and both tell us what
the blood was for:
Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, saying, "This is
the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with
all these words of his."
If the blood of bulls and goats and the sprinkling of a heifer’s ashes can
sanctify those who are defiled so that their flesh is cleansed, how much more
will the blood of Christ, Who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself
unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works to worship the
living God?
The blood was,
therefore, for a sacrificial cleansing leading to a commitment to God by
observing His laws, following His teaching, and loving His Word.
By those two
readings we are encouraged, almost forced, to think, on hearing the Gospel
passage: why did Jesus add the bread, His Body? This question becomes all the more important
when we realize that blood alone evokes easily and clearly that cleansing from
sin and commitment to God; but when bread is also used we begin to think of
both bread and wine as one, with an implication of food and drink, with the
result that the Body and the Blood offered seem likewise to take on a
suggestion of nourishment, refreshment.
The People of
Israel, the original Chosen People, as you heard, pledged themselves to keep
the Law given to them through Moses by the Lord:
All the people answered with one voice and said, "We will do
everything that the LORD has told us."
However, both early
on in their desert wanderings, and ultimately, and most comprehensively, over
the span of many centuries leading to the Messianic times, they failed,
repeatedly and most seriously, to keep their part of the covenant they had
originally entered into with God at Sinai.
They failed because
they tried to do the impossible: not that God had required what was impossible
of them, but because they failed to recognize and appreciate the divine aspect
of their calling, and this, because the basic sin of devilish pride was once
again reasserting itself in mankind’s relationship with God. Instead of invoking God’s help in their
weakness and His grace for their ignorance, they tried to keep the Law not so
much by aspiring towards, longing and praying for, its spiritual fulfilment, as
by reducing its scope to the level of their own natural understanding and its
requirements to the limits of their own natural capacity for meticulous
observance. In that way their fulfilment
of the requirements of the Law became a testimonial to their own undeniable strength
of character and to a uniquely spurious holiness, rather than a means for their
education into a truly spiritual understanding of God’s choice of Israel for
His People and mankind’s Servant, and a spur to their whole-hearted acceptance
of and response to the inconceivable wisdom and immeasurable love behind that
choice and such a plan.
The offering of
sacrificial blood alone came to remind the Israelites above all of obligations,
requirements, to be met, as they had promised, in a vain attempt to legally
fulfil their side of a bilateral agreement made at Sinai. For the old covenant entered into by Moses
at Sinai had been one of the type made between a sovereign Lord and his
vassals, a type of treaty common in the Near East of those early days, a treaty
in which a Great King would offer a binding covenant to His subjects, whereby
He would protect them, and they, in return, would fulfil certain specific
obligations of praise, honour, and service as His servants. However, such treaties were not commonly
considered -- by the subject nations around – to bind the minds and hearts of
those obliged to obey.
Humankind has always
striven, since stretching out a grabbing hand for forbidden fruit in the
original temptation of Eden, to become like to God without in any way becoming
godly:
For God knows that in the day
you eat of (the apple) your eyes will be opened,
and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. (Gen 3:5)
Indeed, such is the
extent of the human version of devilish pride, that some human beings will even
seek to make themselves superior to God; trying to force Him, for example by
magical practices and incantations, to do their will.
The Son of God, out
of His great love for His Father and compassion for our suffering and
subjection, came as One among us offering both His Body and His Blood, in order
to convince His People of their constant need for both cleansing and strength:
the Gift of the Eucharistic Food, Bread and Wine, Body and Blood, is meant to
help us become a humble and grateful People, constantly aware of our need for
the purification and power of that heavenly nourishment whereby we can walk – in the power of the Spirit --
safely and successfully along the way of Jesus through the desert of this world
towards the promised fulfilment of our heavenly Father’s home.
But there is yet
more, for by bringing in the aspect of food and nourishment whereby we
constantly look to God for help and strength to follow His guidance and do His
will, we are also made aware of our calling to an eternal banquet in heaven,
whereat we will find ourselves being given a place at the divine table that we,
most certainly, could never have stolen for ourselves: a position of honour and
– in Jesus, by the Spirit -- of a certain equality with God, as His adopted
children in the Kingdom and Family of their eternal Father. The New Covenant is no longer a
mighty-Lord-and-vassal covenant but a living bond of mutual love, by the Spirit,
in Jesus, wherein we share in the very relationship that exists between Jesus
and His Father, as children of the Father, adopted indeed, but most truly His
children, because the Spirit uniting Jesus and the Father is our very life, the
spiritual blood coursing through our veins and in our heart, the breath of life
that fills our lungs.
Today, therefore,
thanks to the readings Mother Church has chosen to give us along with Saint
Mark’s Gospel account of the institution of the Eucharist, we have recognized
something of what Jesus’ offering of bread and wine can mean for us: it both
humbles and exalts us. By directly
humbling us it can save us from the folly of human pride; while the exaltation
it promises us is above anything we could ever have imagined, and thereby,
indeed, humbles us yet more, spiritually this time, in a gratitude that knows
not what to acclaim loudest, “Thank you Lord for such unimaginable blessings”,
or “Lord, I am not worthy.” And since
neither acclamation can ring pure and true without the other, let us,
therefore, most whole-heartedly embrace both, and, leaving aside our own
cogitations, calmly trust the Spirit both to guide us in our choice and form us
by their use.
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