What do we normally eat at a feast? While our customs may vary depending on our families and our cultures, we normally have meat at the feast. Meat has always been a standard feature of a feast, while the absence of meat gives the meal a rather penitential or impoverished characteristic. How can we celebrate Thanksgiving if we don’t have the turkey? Could it really be the Fourth of July without a hamburger or hot dog? Can we really enjoy the Super Bowl without chicken wings? Meat has been throughout human history and culture a symbol of feasting and rejoicing, in particular the Jewish feast of Passover, where the lamb is sacrificed and feasted upon by all at table.
Yet Jesus transforms this Passover meal on this night. He uses the great Jewish feast of freedom and salvation to establish a different feast, though still signifying freedom and salvation. Jesus uses the Passover as the type that foreshadows the complete sign of feasting and rejoicing. Jesus transitions the Passover from being the salvation feast of a small nation and people into the sacrifice of praise offered by the entire world. He does all of this in the institution of the most holy Eucharist.
The Passover meal heralds the ultimate feast of faith for Christ and His Church. Everything that the Passover represents for the Jews corresponds to a reality which we shall encounter over the next few days. But the central image of Passover is the paschal lamb, the animal sacrificed by the Jewish priest then completely consumed by everyone in the household. The lamb provides the meat for the feast, a feast that originally began as a meal eaten in haste, in preparation for leaving Egypt.
But if the Passover is the type or symbol of the Eucharist, then where is our meat for our feast? What shall we eat in our new Passover meal, which supersedes the old? We feast on the new paschal lamb, sacrificed upon the altar of the Cross. This is the mysterious reality at the heart of the institution of the Eucharist on this night. If the Mass is the feast of faith, then there must be meat for that feast, and Jesus offers us the purest meat possible: His own body, offered as the sacrifice so that we might pass over from death unto life.
This is why the Eucharist is called the source and summit of the Christian life: everything that we believe and do flows from this. We have bishops and priests so that they may re-offer this sacrifice and feed us once more this most savory meat. We receive the sacraments of initiation so that we may approach the table and partake of this feast. We go to confession so that we may be worthy once more to receive this meat. It is the sun that illumines our day; without it, our souls would grow dark and cold.
Yet how much do we appreciate this gift? How much do we really treasure this morsel from Heaven? What is our attitude towards this feast of faith? Do we treasure it with reverence and sacredness or do we treat it as another chore to check off the list? The Eucharist is not a snack to reward a child for a good deed; it is the food by which we are sustained in this hungry world. But it cannot nourish us if we remain indifferent to it, if we treat it as something less than what it is.
As we plunge into the mysteries of faith over these next three days, I implore you to spend some time in serious consideration of your faith. Does any of this really matter to you? Is all of this really the feast of faith, the center of our universe, or is it another chore that we check off the list? Is the Eucharist really the means of communion, of union with Christ, or is it just something that I pop into my mouth and then go off as if nothing happened? God desires so much more from us; will we give it to Him? I encourage you to spend some time tonight in adoration, in quiet time before the Lord who prays in the garden that He may do the will of His Father: to die for our sins. May we appreciate more fully this sacrifice so that we may be truly nourished at this feast of faith.
No comments:
Post a Comment