“Take and eat…take and drink…this is my Body…this is my Blood…do this in memory of me.” With these words, Jesus establishes the sacrifice of the New Covenant written in his Blood. In the Jewish Temple, there were two main kinds of animal sacrifice; the holocaust and the communion sacrifice. In the first, an offering for very serious sin, the entire animal sacrifice was burned as an offering to God for sin. The immolated animal died in place of the sinner, for to a Jew, all sin is an offence against God, deserving of death.
The Jewish Passover, from which comes the holy sacrifice of the Mass, is a communion sacrifice. The animal was killed by being bled to death, and the collected blood poured out at the base of the altar. Life was in the blood, and life belongs to God alone, for only he can give it. Of the rest of the sacrifice, a portion went to the priests for their support. The bulk of the sacrificed animal was returned to the offerer, who then held a communion meal, to which many were invited. In eating of the consecrated animal, they believed, they were somehow reaping all the blessings poured out by God through the offering. This explains why communion is so closely linked to sacrifice, and what the relationship between Jesus’ death and the Last Supper is. The new rite simply replaces the old. Or does it?
When Jesus tells his hearers, in John 6, that, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood shall not perish, and I will raise him up on the last day” his words are a double shock. First, eating Jesus’ flesh sounds like cannibalism, already a horror for the Jews. But next to drinking his blood, eating Jesus’ flesh pales in comparison. For not only is this the offence of blasphemy, but if Jesus really who he says he is, it is a blasphemy beyond telling; human beings drinking the blood of God’s Son, that is, consuming the divine, eternal life of God himself!
But this is exactly what Jesus does mean! He wants us to live in all eternity with him. For this to happen, we must receive his divine life. And one of the most important paths to this is through Holy Communion. Jesus focuses it into the bloodless sacrifice of the altar, where bread and wine become in reality, if not in appearance, his Body and Blood. In South African-speak, the Body and Blood of Jesus is the padkos of our journey to eternal life. And by consuming Holy Communion we, like the Jews of old, are being, literally, filled with all the graces and blessings that flowed from the cross at Calvary.
If we co-operate with God’s grace within us, we will be transformed, made ready and fit to live with him for ever. Holy Communion, as its name implies, is the one of the closest ways in which we come to a direct encounter with the living Jesus, who tells us, “Take and eat…take and drink…this is my Body…this is my Blood…do this in memory of me.” But it is up to us to allow the Lord Jesus to transform us from within by co-operating. Only we can do this. And if we do, what a world awaits us in eternity!
Fr Phillip
