By Leon Bent –
More than a Meal
“Jesus did not redeem the world with beautiful words, but with his suffering and death,” then Cardinal Ratzinger said to a group of catechists in 2000. “His passion is the inexhaustible source of life for the world; the Passion gives power to Jesus’ words….Whoever omits the Cross, omits the essence of Christianity (see 1 Cor.2:2).”
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, “Address on the New Evangelization, at the Jubilee of Catechists” (December, 12, 2000.
Without the Eucharist you cannot understand the Cross. If you omit the Cross, you leave out what Christianity is, quintessentially. If you exclude the Eucharist, however, you bypass what explains, how Christ’s death became the means to our salvation.
So, how does a Roman execution become a holy sacrifice? And, not just any holy sacrifice, but the supreme self-emptying sacrificial love of all time. He fulfilled the Passover supper of the Old Testament into the Passover of the New Covenant or Testament: a promise of redemption by God to people as individuals, rather than as a nation and on the basis of God’s grace rather than a person’s adherence to the Law.
The situation became extremely confusing at the end of the Meal, when Jesus took the third Cup of Blessing, and said, “This is the Chalice of my Blood of the New and Eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many.”
The Crucifixion was more than an Execution
The answer to this question became plain just hours later, on Good Friday. On the Cross, Jesus’ body was given up, and his blood poured out. On Calvary, as our High Priest, he offered himself as a sacrifice, the Sacrifice of the New Covenant, the Lamb of God.
Calvary is a sacrifice, if it’s the culmination of Christ giving himself away, not primarily as a victim of injustice, but rather as a victim of love. This is a mighty example for Couples wedded to Christ, in and through the Sacrament of Matrimony. If we have sacrificial love there will be no un-forgiveness, no long-standing misunderstanding and frequently riding roughshod over open, bleeding wounds, no running to the Marriage Tribunal and Civil Marriage Courts, no living separately, bleeding inside, but showing a heroic exterior. All we have to do is sit at the foot of the Cross. Marriage derives its meaning from living it in the shadow of the Crucified Christ- Resurrected Christ. Nothing more, nothing else. This is why frequenting the Eucharist every day, but especially on Sunday, is a must for every Christian, more particularly, conjugal couples.
The mystery of the Eucharist is what transforms Jesus’ suffering from a bloody execution into a holy sacrifice: The Resurrection.
Scott Hahn, Evangelizing Catholics, A Mission Manual for the New Evangelization, Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, Indiana, U.S.A., 155-157.
St. Paul tells us in Romans, the Resurrection was necessary, because it is the means by which we die and rise to new life in Christ. For Catholics salvation means so much more than being redeemed from sin. It’s not just what we’re saved from, but what we’re saved for. It’s not just to watch Jesus experience this new resurrected life, but also to share in it ourselves.
“We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death, so that, as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life. So, you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus (Rom.6:4, 11).
In other words, the Resurrection was necessary to complete our work of salvation. St. Paul explicitly states that, Romans 4:25 that Jesus was “put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” This is to say, Jesus’ death is not the only aspect of his saving work. His resurrection is just as essential. Our salvation involves two elements: the payment rendered on the Cross for the debt for our sin and his resurrection for the sake of our justification.
Christ’s resurrection was not simply for our own sake. It was more than a vindication for him; it was a gift to us, a gift that makes it possible for our humanity to be ,united to his divinity.
The Catechism explains of the Catholic Church:
The Paschal Mystery has two aspects: By his death, Christ liberates us from sin; by his Resurrection, he opens for us a way to a new life. This new life is above reinstates us in God’s grace….Justification consists in, both, victory over death caused by sin become Christ’s brethren….and a new participation in grace (cf.2:4-5; 1 Pet.1-3). It brings about filial adoption, so that, men become Christ’s brethren….We are brethren not by nature, but by the gift of grace, because this adoptive filiation gains us a real share in the life of the only Son, which was fully revealed in his Resurrection (CCC 654).
And, where is that gift given to us? In the Eucharist.
More than Resurrection
Scripture tells us that the Resurrection of the Lord’s body is so much more than a corpse coming back to life. The Resurrection is the glorification of his sacred humanity It’s a humanity, deified and deifying. It is also what makes his sacred humanity communicable to us. It’s what makes the glorified body, dare we say, edible by us.
In the Eucharist, it is the Resurrected Lord that, comes to us. The Holy sacrifice of the Mass is one and the same sacrifice offered at Calvary, but the Jesus we receive in the Eucharist, is not the bleeding, battered Jesus, who hung on the Cross. It’s Jesus the High Priest of heaven and the Lamb of God. In the Mass, he is the one offering, and the one offered – and he offers himself, not as a reward for our righteousness, but as a remedy for our sins, our weaknesses and our failures.
Scott Hahn, Evangelizing Catholics, A Mission Manual for the New Evangelization, Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, Indiana, U.S.A., 158.
Why does he do that? One reason: Love! Love is the key to unlocking the Paschal Mystery. Love is the truth that underlies it all – from Holy Thursday to Easter Sunday, to a Tuesday – morning Mass.
One drop of Jesus’ precious blood was enough to redeem the whole human race. One act of obedience was all it took. But Jesus gave so much more than that. He gave everything to pay a debt we couldn’t pay. That should have incurred for us an even greater debt. We ought to owe more in the wake of his passion and death. We should bear a greater debt. We should owe more in the wake of his passion and death. We should bear a greater guilt. But we don’t.
Scott Hahn, Evangelizing Catholics, A Mission Manual for the New Evangelization, Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, Indiana, U.S.A., 159.
We don’t because God’s love was superabundant. His executioner’s malice was great, but his love was greater. The magnanimity of his love outweighed the guilt of those who crucified.
Reflecting on this truth, Pope Benedict wrote, “The Cross reminds us that there is no true love without suffering, there is no gift of life without pain.”
Pope Benedict XVI, “General Audience Remarks,” September 17, 2008.
Married Couples please take note. We must learn to suffer in a manner, at least to some degree. Then, we will not consider that there is such a state, as incompatibility, in marriage.
If Christ’s love is what his suffering as a sacrifice, then Maundy Thursday is, when he institutes the sacrament of love, Good Friday is when he endures the suffering of love, and Easter Sunday is when he provides us with the sacrament that, enables us to love in a way that, is truly Godlike, and to share in a life that is truly divine.
Etymology. Middle English maunde, from Old French mandé, from Latin mandatum command, order; from the words spoken by Jesus to his disciples after washing their feet at the Last Supper, “a new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another” (John 13:34 Authorized Version). The ceremony of washing the feet of the poor, esp. commemorating Jesus’ washing of His disciples’ feet on Maundy Thursday. Also called: maundy money. Money distributed as alms in conjunction with the ceremony of maundy or on Maundy Thursday. The Maundy part comes straight from Latin—specifically, the word mandatum, which means “command, order.” Mandatum is also the source of the word mandate.
Because of the Resurrection, we become “partakers of divine nature” (2 Pet.1:40), at every Mass, every day of our lives.
Please get this right. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass isn’t just in the New Testament. It is the New Testament. The Eucharist is the New Testament. This is what Jesus says in the Gospel, as he institutes the Eucharist: “This…is the New Covenant in my blood” (Lk.22:20). The Latin word for covenant is “testamentum”. And, the only time these words appear together in the New Testament, is right here.
Not surprisingly, the disciples and the early Fathers followed Christ’s example, referring to the Eucharist as the “New Testament.”
At the Last Supper, Jesus didn’t say, “Write this in memory of me.” Rather, he said, “Do this in Memory of me.” And this is what the disciples did. Only a handful of them authored books of the Bible. But, from the beginning, they celebrated Mass. The made Jesus known in the Breaking of the Bread as seen in the Breaking of the Bread.
The Eucharist is for all. It illuminates Jesus’ Jesus’ suffering on the Cross, revealing to us, as St. Thomas Aquinas said, that it is not how much Jesus suffered on the Cross that saves us; it’s how much he loved us from the Cross. It’s the love of the Son, expressed through the obedience of his suffering that redeemed us.
The Eucharist gives us the capacity to love with a love that is not only natural, but supernatural, to enter into the inner logic of God’s love and accept suffering, to carry our Crosses. Again, the Eucharist is what transforms us into living sacrifices, enabling is to enter a life that, is divine and do what we would never be able to do on our own.
Scott Hahn, Evangelizing Catholics, A Mission Manual for the New Evangelization, Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, Indiana, U.S.A., 160-161.
This is why God the Father want everyone to enter into a covenantal union with him, and receive his life through the Eucharist, through the sacrifice of the New Covenant, so that, he can evangelize us, week after week, making it possible for us to offer our own lives back to him as living sacrifices.
This is what we must proclaim in the New Evangelization. And, at every Mass, we’re called to discover it for ourselves, to remember it, and to live it anew.
What we proclaim – the folly of the Cross – is foolishness to those who seek wisdom and a stumbling stone to those looking for signs of power. A long time ago Pope Benedict XVI wrote: “God’s success comes about through the Cross, and is always found under that sign.
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, God Is Near Us: The Eucharist, The Heart of Life, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1003.
“Enter by the narrow gate,” Jesus tells us. “For the Gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that, leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Mt.7:13-14).
This is Jesus’ take on the road to heaven: the gate is narrow and those who find it are few.
Leon Bent is an ex-Seminarian and studied the Liberal Arts and Humanities, and Philosophy, from St. Pius X College, Mumbai. He holds Masters Degree in English Literature and Aesthetics. He has published three Books and have 20 on the anvil. He has two extensively “Researched” Volumes to his name: Hail Full of Grace and Matrimony: The Thousand Faces of Love. He won The Examiner, Silver Pen Award, 2000 for writing on Social Issues, the clincher being a Researched Article on Gypsies in India, published in an issue of the (worldwide circulation) Vidyajyoti Journal of Theological Reflection, New Delhi. On April, 28, 2018, Leon received the Cardinal Ivan Dias Award for a research paper in Mariology.