Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, there are many figures of our Christian Eucharist in the history of
God’s Chosen People of old. From the
most ancient times sacrifices offered to the Lord in the Temple were
accompanied by a sacred meal, where the faithful partook of the flesh of the
victim given in sacrifice. As you well
know, the most famous of all these meals was the Paschal meal, of which Our
blessed Lord partook before finally transforming it into His own Eucharistic
Offering.
There are, however, other -- less obvious -- anticipations of our Eucharist in Israel’s history. For example, Israel’s traverse of the desert from the slavery of Egypt to the Promised Land, was only made possible thanks to that great historical figure of the Eucharist, namely the manna of the desert. There, God’s food was given directly for Israel’s survival, not even for His own worship: Moses ordered that just one jar of manna be kept as a historical testimony to God’s saving care (Exodus 16:33). Manna was essentially food of necessity, not of delight. Likewise, the bread Elijah received from an angel, which enabled him to walk 40 days and 40 nights to meet God on Mount Horeb (1 Kings 19:4-8), surely foreshadowed the bread our Blessed Lord gives to fortify us for our journey to His Father on the holy mountain of the heavenly Jerusalem.
This line of holy and venerable tradition reaches its summit, as you might expect, in
the Gospel, dear friends, but before coming to that we should glimpse for just a
moment at one of the very earliest figures in Israel’s history, Melchizedek, interpreted to us by one of Israel’s latest
prophets, Malachi.
That mysterious, ancient, person of Melchizedek (Genesis 14:18ff.), foreshadowed our blessed Lord Himself as the eternal King of Peace: for the Fathers of Holy Mother Church saw in his offering of bread and wine a figure of that PURE OFFERING of which the Lord Himself speaks in the prophecy of Malachi (1:11), telling us that He, the Lord, saw the nations of the world presenting incense and pure grain to His name from the rising of the sun even to its setting in Messianic times.
Dear Catholic People of God, how impenetrably mysterious is,
and sublimely sacred must be, this reality of our Eucharist, which was
foreshadowed, prepared for, over so many centuries, and which Our Lord Himself
did not transmit to us without much further preparation by His own words and
deeds!
For Jesus Himself knowingly prepared for and presented to us two striking miracles: one feeding 5,000 followers wanting above all to hear His teaching, and then a second where another 4,000 suchlike were fed; both events being figures of, and immediate preparations for, the great Messianic banquet which is now ours: bread consecrated by the words of the Lord, feeding great numbers of listening-and-self-forgetful followers. Bread, food, given to fully satisfy many very hungry people, but nevertheless, not fully consumed; bread of life and strength, given LEST (THEY) FAINT IN THE WAY as Our Lord said.(Mark 8:3)
Of such bread we can say that it was given to fulfil an
immediate purpose – to satisfy His followers’ hunger -- but not to exhaust its
full potentiality; because, after all had eaten to their satisfaction, much more
was left to be carefully gathered up. Jesus’
miraculous bread was ordinary -- five loaves and two fish -- in its origin, super-abundant
for its immediate purpose, and sublime in its ‘mysterious residue’ of yet
greater promise … enough for how many? The whole world??
Oh, most blessed, most glorious Eucharist! Glorious indeed, because It is the Body and Blood of the living, glorified Christ! Jesus, risen from the dead, triumphant over sin, suffering, and death and resplendent with divine Love and Life; Jesus, present there in all save earthly appearances. Jesus, our All, is present in our Mass in His consuming Filial love for His Father and His self-forgetting compassion for all those who believe in Him and obey His words. Jesus is indeed our eternal Rock and bulwark, our unassailable Citadel and sure Refuge; do you, dear People of God here present today, want to feel secure in, stake your lives on, His faithfulness; do you want to find your true delight by sharing in His love.
ASK AND IT WILL BE GIVEN YOU (Matthew 7:7). Yes, ask when this our King of Glory is
offering Himself for you in prayer to the
Father at Holy Mass. Speak then to Him,
for a share, however humble, in Him, with Him. Pray, beseech Him then, for Mass is the
supreme time for heartfelt prayer, when your life, your hope, your strength,
your desire, your love, your all, is present, and in His eternal act of
consummate love wants to draw you to Himself and with Himself, to the
Father. All is yours for the asking at
Mass, because Jesus is present for you, for all of us, because He is one
of us, one with us. He is so close to us that His very Mother is our Sister,
sharing in our humanity and native weakness, but transformed for His purposes
by her total obedience and the Spirit’s transcendent and transforming love.
Rejoice
in the Lord always; again I will say, REJOICE IN THE LORD! (Phil. 4:4).
