The Real Presence: The Holy Eucharist is the Whole Christ [Catholic/Orthodox Caucus]

The Holy Eucharist is the Whole Christ

by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

The most fundamental question to ask about the Blessed Sacrament is, "Who is the Holy Eucharist?" And the correct answer is: The Holy Eucharist is Jesus Christ.

There is more behind this answer than many Catholics realize. When the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century defined the meaning of the Eucharist, it declared that "the Body and Blood, together with the Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore the whole Christ, is truly, really and substantially contained in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist."

Shortly after Trent, Pope St. Pius V authorized the publication of the Roman Catechism which built on the Council of Trent and explained its teachings for the pastors of the Church.

Regarding the Real Presence, the pastors were told to explain that "in this sacrament is contained not only the true Body of Christ-and that means everything that goes to make up a true body, such as bones, nerves, and so on-but also Christ whole and entire." Consequently the Eucharist contains Jesus Christ in the fullness of his divinity and the completeness of his humanity.

Jesus is therefore in the Blessed Sacrament "whole and entire: the Soul, the Body and Blood of Christ, with all their component parts. In heaven a complete human nature is united to the divine nature in one. . . person. It is a denial of the faith to suppose that in this sacrament there is anything less."

It is not speculation but cold revealed fact that the Holy Eucharist is the Son of God who became the Son of Mary.

Whatever makes Christ, Christ, is in the Holy Eucharist; nothing less.

Consequently when we speak of transubstantiation, we mean that the whole substance of bread and wine, its "breadness" and "wineness," is replaced by the living and glorified Jesus Christ. What remains of what had been bread and wine is only their external properties that can be perceived by the senses. As the Greek Fathers of the Church say, the ousia or being of bread and wine is changed into the being or reality of Jesus Christ. On the altar after the consecration there is no longer bread and wine but the same Jesus who was crucified, died and rose from the grave; and who will come in his glory on the last day to judge the living and the dead.

Is there any real difference between Jesus in heaven and Jesus in the Eucharist? No, it is the same Jesus. The only difference is in us. We now on earth cannot see or touch him with our senses. But that is not a limitation in him; it is a limitation in us.

JESUS is really now on earth in the Eucharist.

Jesus IS really now on earth in the Eucharist.

Jesus is REALLY now on earth in the Eucharist.

Jesus is really NOW on earth in the Eucharist.

Jesus is really now ON earth in the Eucharist.

Jesus is really now on EARTH in the Eucharist.

Jesus is really now on earth IN THE EUCHARIST.

The foregoing six statements, repeated and separately emphasized, explain why the Catholic Church has defended the reality of the Real Presence so strenuously down the centuries.

What else could she do? She believes that our Lord's promise, "I will be with you all days, even to the end of the world," is being literally fulfilled in every tabernacle of the Catholic world. He is in our midst with all that makes him man, including his pulsating Sacred Heart. And he is here to continue his work of redemption by giving us the light and strength we need to serve him with all our heart.

We speak correctly of believing in the Real Presence. But we should grow in our understanding of what this implies.

The living, breathing Jesus Christ is in the Blessed Sacrament. This is the reality. When we speak of presence, however, we are saying something more.

Two people may be really near each other physically, but not present to each other spiritually. To be present to each one means to have another person in mind by being mentally aware of their existence, and to have them in one's heart by loving that other person.

What, then, is the most important implication of our belief that Jesus is on earth in the Holy Eucharist? It is our duty to cultivate an awareness of this fact and to act on the awareness with our love.

When we sing the Tantum Ergo at Benediction, we ask "that our faith may supply for what our senses cannot perceive." What are we saying? We profess to believe that Jesus is in the Eucharist with all the qualities of his risen humanity, although our senses cannot perceive what we know, on faith, is true.

The reality of the Eucharist is clear. It is Jesus of Nazareth who was born of the Virgin Mary. But we must make ourselves mentally conscious of this reality and voluntarily respond to what we believe.

Jesus is on earth in the Blessed Sacrament. Why? In order that we might come to him now no less than his contemporaries did in first century Palestine. If we thus approach him in loving faith, there is no limit to the astounding things he will do. Why not? In the Eucharist he has the same human lips that told the raging storm, "Be still" and commanded the dead man, "Lazarus, come forth!"

There are no limitations to Christ's power, as God, which he exercises through his humanity in the Eucharist. The only limitation is our own weakness of faith or lack of confidence in his almighty love.

The Old Testament

God Raises His Covenant Children

Jesus introduced the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist. It did not exist during the days of the Old Testament. However, our Father in heaven gradually prepared us to receive it. These Old Testament accounts describe pre-figurations of the Holy Eucharist.

Abel

The earliest shadow of the Sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood was Abel, the younger son of Adam and Eve. Cain murdered the good shepherd Abel. The Lord told Cain, Gn 4:10 “The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground.” The Book of Hebrews reminds us of, Heb 12:24 “… [Christ’s] sprinkled Blood that speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel.”

Melchizedek

Melchizedek pre-figured Christ. When Abram returned from his victory over Chedorlaomer, Gn 14:18 “Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was priest of God Most High …” to bless Abram, pre-figuring the bread and wine consecrated by a priest at Mass. The Book of Hebrews tells us, Heb 7:2 “[Melchizedek] is first, by translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem [shalom], that is, king of peace. He is without father or mother or genealogy, and has neither beginning nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest for ever.”

Moses

Moses, the first Israelite priest, read the Torah to all of the six hundred thousand Israelite people assembled at the foot of Mt. Sinai, and threw the blood of sacrificed oxen on the people, saying Ex 24:8 “Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you.” Jesus said at the Last Supper, Mt 26:28 “This is my blood of the covenant.”

Ex 34:29 “When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tables of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain ... the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God ... he put a veil on his face.” Jesus comes to us veiled, under the appearance of bread and wine. We could not stand the superbrilliant light of His full glory compared to our own souls darkened by sin.

The Harvest

In ancient Israel, the Spring harvest consisted of grain or wheat. Bread has long been the symbol of the Spring harvest. The Autumn harvest was mostly grapes and olives. Grape wine and olive oil were symbols of the Autumn harvest. Bread and wine. God commanded, Lv 23:12-13 “You shall offer a male lamb a year old without blemish as a burnt offering to the Lord. And the cereal offering with it shall be two tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil … and the drink offering with it shall be of wine.” Priests anoint with oil. Torah unites bread and wine, and the priest, with the sacrifice of the lamb.

Tabernacle Sacrifice

Bread of the Presence

The Bread of the Presence, in the ancient Tabernacle and later in the Temple, 1 Kgs 7:48 prefigured Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.

In the Tabernacle God commanded Moses, Ex 25:8 “Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst.” In the sanctuary, in the ark of the covenant, God told Moses, Ex 25:22 “There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you...” God added, Ex 25:30 “You shall set the bread of the Presence on the table before me always.” Jesus told us, Mt 28:20 “I am with you always.”

Abimelech the priest gave David this sacred bread. 1 Sam 21:6 “So the priest gave him the holy bread; for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence.” Jesus taught us that it was for all His disciples. Mt 12:1 “At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the sabbath; his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck ears of grain and to eat. ... [Jesus] said to them, ‘Have you not read what David did, when he was hungry, and those who who were with him: how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence ... I tell you, something greater than the temple is here.”

Jesus showed us what was greater than the Temple. Lk 22:19 “He took bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’”

Blood of the Lamb
During Moses’ time the priests sacrificed in the Tabernacle, a portable house of God in the wilderness. After Solomon built the First Temple, it became the place of sacrifice. The highest form of Hebrew worship was sacrifice, not prayer alone, just as the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the highest form of Catholic worship. A priest is one who offers sacrifice. The Catholic priest is the counterpart not of the rabbi, but of the ancient Jewish priest who offered bloody sacrifices. The deacon, who reads the Gospel, is the rabbi’s counterpart.

The Old Testament sacrifice of a lamb, as opposed to any other animal, was important. The lamb did not resist, run away, or even cry out. Isaiah had foretold that the Lamb of God would do the same, Is 53:7 “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.”

The Jewish priests, before sacrificing the lamb, always asked, “Do you love this lamb?” If the family didn’t love the lamb there would be no sacrifice. Jesus three times asked Peter, Jn 21:15 “Do you love Me?” Jesus allowed Peter to replace his triple denial with a triple affirmation that he did indeed love the Sacrificed Lamb.

The family would place the lamb into the hands of the priest. When we give something to God we place it in His hands. Jesus’ last words on the Cross were, Lk 23:46 “Father, into Thy hands I commit My spirit!”

The priest and the head of the family then prayed together that God would accept the blood of the innocent lamb for the sins of that family for the entire year, just as the Lamb of God shed His Blood to redeem the sins of all His human family. The Catholic priest says, “Pray, brethren, that our sacrifice may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father.”

The head of household then cut the lamb’s throat with a sharp bronze knife while the priest caught the lamb’s blood in a large bronze bowl. The priest then made seven complete trips around the altar, sprinkling the blood from the lamb on each of the four “horns.” Then he took the lamb’s body and placed it on the altar and started the ritual fire. With a big fire and a small lamb, the sacrifice was over quickly. The smoke rose from the altar. If the wind blew the smoke away and dispersed it, the priest told the family that its offer was rejected, and that it should repent and come back the following year. But if the smoke drifted upward, higher and higher until it disappeared from view, the priest told the family that God had accepted the sacrifice.

Before the great tabernacle sacrifice, Jewish priests washed their hands in a bronze laver, or basin. Ps 26:6 “I wash my hands in innocence, and go about Thy altar, O Lord.” Today the Catholic priest washes his hands saying inaudibly, Ps 51:2 “Lord, wash away my iniquity; cleanse me from my sin.”

The first priest attended at a great golden lampstand with seven oil lamps, called a menorah. It was dark in the tabernacle, and the menorah gave light.

The second priest attended at the table of showbread. God had commanded Lv 24:5 that the Jewish priests, from Aaron forward, place twelve loaves of bread on a golden table “before the Lord.” On each sabbath, the priests ate the bread which had been set in place on the preceding sabbath. This bread was to be eaten by the priests in a sacred place since it was Lv 24:9 “most holy” among the offerings to the Lord. God had said, Ex 23:18 “You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leavened bread.” During the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass the Catholic priest consecrates unleavened bread on the altar which becomes Christ’s Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, and is consumed by the royal priesthood as the most holy offering in the New and Everlasting Covenant.

The third priest served at the altar of incense. It looked like a small altar of sacrifice, with the same four horns. On it was a bronze laver. The priest would take a red-hot burning ember from the fire in which the lamb had been sacrificed, put it in the basin, and pour some incense on it, that his prayers might have a fragrant scent and go straight up to God. On solemn occasions Catholics spread incense about the altar as an act of reverence and purification. The smoke rising to heaven represents our own desire to have our prayers ascend heavenward in God’s sight. Ps 141:2 “Let my prayer be counted as incense before Thee, and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice.”

God told Moses to place the Torah in the Ark of the Covenant, which in turn was placed within a tabernacle. God commanded, Ex 27:20 “You shall command the people of Israel that they bring to you pure beaten olive oil for the light, that a lamp may be set up to burn continually.” All was placed within the tabernacle. By night, there was always a fire over the tabernacle, Ex 40:38 This began the idea of an eternal lamp beside the Jewish tabernacle. A thousand years later the Temple lamp miraculously continued to shine for eight days with only one day’s supply of oil. Catholics continue this ancient Israelite tradition by placing a lighted candle beside the tabernacle in which the consecrated Hosts repose.

In the center of the tabernacle was a room called the Holy of Holies. Once a year the cohen gadol, the high priest, alone would enter that room. In it was the Ark of the Covenant. Inside the ark were the two stone tablets with the Ten Commandments, a golden bowl of manna, and the five Torah scrolls. The Torah was a witness against the Israelites, Dt 31:26 but above it all was God’s solid gold mercy seat, with a crown and two cherubim kneeling in prayer. Above the mercy seat, between the two cherubim, was a brilliant light, the shining glory of God. Ex 25:22 “From above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you.” When the priest saw that light he took a huge cup of blood and sprinkled it until it was empty. Jewish tradition holds that not one drop of the blood of sacrifice ever touched the mercy seat or the cherubim; it all went into the bright light of God’s glory. Jesus said, Jn 8:12 “I am the light of the world.” Jesus’ covenant family gave Him their imperfect sacrifices, and He gave them His perfect sacrifice.

The Todah Sacrifice

The ancient Jews had a special ritual meal called the Todah (Hebrew: thanks) (pronounce: Taw-DAH). Although the Todah sacrificed an animal, it was greater than other animal sacrifices because it added the suffering of one’s own life. David wrote, Ps 40:6,8 “Burnt offering and sin offering Thou hast not required. … I delight to do Thy will, O my God; Thy law is within my heart.” Again, David wrote, Ps 51:17 “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit.” And again, Ps 69:30 “I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify Him with thanksgiving. This will please the Lord more than an ox or a bull with horns and hoofs.” Isaiah spoke the words of God, Is 1:11 “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams.” God called instead for a baptism: Is 1:16 “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from My eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good.”

The seventy elders who went up with Moses to see God offered the Todah: Ex 24:11 “They beheld God, and ate and drank.” Twelve centuries later, twelve apostles beheld God, and ate and drank as Jesus prepared to offer His Todah sacrifice: Lk 22:19 “He took bread, and when He had given thanks He broke it…” From the beginning, Christ’s Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity has been called Holy Eucharist (Greek: eucharistia, thanksgiving).

The ancient rabbis believed that when the Messiah would come all sacrifices except the Todah would cease, but the Todah would continue for all eternity. In 70 AD the Temple fell to earth and all of the bloody animal sacrifices stopped. Only the Todah remains, the eucharistia, the Final Sacrifice at which the last words spoken are Todah l’Adonai, “Thanks be to God.”

Passover

Jesus was pre-figured in the original Passover, when God commanded that Moses tell the Israelites, Ex 12:5-6 “Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male … the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs in the evening,” as Jesus the Lamb of God was crucified in dim light. Mt 27:45 God commanded, Ex 12:8 “They shall eat the flesh that night,” and told Moses, Ex 12:12 “I will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt.” But He promised, Ex 12:13 “The blood shall be a sign for you … when I see the blood, I will pass over you.” Most of us know that the original Passover pre-figured the Body and Blood of the crucified Lamb. But there is more to the Passover story.

Pharaoh commanded the death of every Hebrew male infant in Egypt, Ex 1:22 but death passed over Moses. Ex 2:5-10 Twelve centuries later, before Herod commanded the death of every Hebrew male infant in Bethlehem, Mt 2:13 death passed also over Jesus.

The Jewish celebration of Passover has from the beginning been an experience of exile and return, as its participants re-live the experience of the desert and encounter with God. After Jesus was crucified the apostles also experienced a sense of exile in the desert followed by a transforming encounter with God. In this way Jesus is spiritually present in the entire Seder.

The Seder table is different in many ways from the Jewish table setting on all other nights, as the ma nishtano acknowledges. God chose a young Jewish girl, a virgin who lived in Nazareth, to begin the rest of the story. Mary began her own Seder each year as Jews have since time immemorial, by lighting candles to give festive light to the table. Mary also gave us Jesus, the Jn 8:12 light of the world. Jesus has been at every Seder from the first one to this very day, spiritually present in the bread, wine, and lamb.

Bread

Jesus is spiritually present in the bread. It is unleavened, pure as Jesus was pure. It has dark stripes, as His back was striped by Pilate’s scourging. It is pierced, as He was pierced on the Cross. Once it was the bread of life for Israel on the desert, as Jesus is the Jn 6:35 Bread of Life for all mankind. During the Seder, the head of the family takes three pieces of unleavened bread, reminding us of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He breaks in half the second piece, suggesting the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity crucified. He then wraps one of these two pieces, called the afikomen (Hebrew: festival procession), a reminder of Jesus’ constant call, “Follow Me,” in white linen, reminding us of Jesus linen burial cloth, and “buries” or hides it, as Jesus was entombed. Later the youngest at table “resurrects” or finds the afikomen as Jesus rose from the dead. The head of the family then breaks the afikomen and passes it around for all to eat, as Jesus did when He told His apostles, Lk 22:19 “This is My Body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.” In that way, Jesus through the Seder calls us to follow Him into His death and resurrection, to become a new person in Christ.

The unleavened bread also reminds us of the haste with which the Israelites left Egypt. The dough that they were sunbaking on the hot rocks of the Egyptian fields was removed before it could leaven, and so remained flat. It represents our need to remain ever alert and prepared for the day when God calls us to our destiny as Jesus told us, Mt 25:13 “Watch, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

Wine

Jesus is spiritually present in the wine. When the afikomen is broken and passed around for all to eat, Jews drink the third of four cups of wine, called the cup of blessing because it represents the blood of the sacrificed paschal lamb. It is the cup that Jesus gave to His apostles, saying, Lk 22:20 “This cup which is poured out for you is the New Covenant in My Blood.” He did not drink the fourth, the Kalah cup, explaining, Mt 26:29 “I tell you I shall not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” But later that evening at Gethsemane, Jesus prayed by moonlight, Mt 26:39 “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me.” After He was captured, Jesus asked Peter, Jn 18:11 “Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given Me?” Many Catholics believe that Jesus drank the last cup on the Cross, Jn 19:29 “They put a sponge full of the vinegar on hyssop and held it to His mouth. When Jesus had received the vinegar, He said, ‘It is finished’; and He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.”

Lamb

Pasch or pesach in Hebrew means “he passed over.” The paschal lamb recalls the lamb that was sacrificed that its blood might be daubed on the doorposts of every Jewish home, and its body eaten in every Jewish home, that the angel of death might know it as a household of the faithful and pass over. God had originally commanded Ex 12:6 that the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel kill the paschal lambs. When Solomon built the first Temple, Jewish priests sacrificed the paschal lambs there. But after Jesus ascended to heaven and the second Temple fell never to rise again, the Temple sacrifices could no longer be done, so Jews began to represent the paschal lamb with a lamb’s shank bone.

Jesus is spiritually present in the shank bone of the lamb. The Jews in Egypt ate the paschal lamb to be physically redeemed and led to the promised land of Canaan. Catholics for two thousand years have consumed the Body and Blood of the Lamb of God, Jn 1:29 that we might be spiritually redeemed and find the promised kingdom of heaven.

In the ancient days, when the Jewish priest had killed the last lamb of the Passover, he uttered the Hebrew word Kalah, “it is finished.” Moments before He died on the Cross, Jesus said, Jn 19:30 Kalah (it is finished).

The Exodus

After the Passover, with its pre-figuration of Calvary, the Israelite people began their long exodus from the land of Egypt to the promised land of Canaan. God told Moses, Ex 16:4 “I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law or not.” Moses told the Israelites, Ex 16:8 “When the Lord gives you in the evening flesh and in the morning bread to the full…” The “bread from heaven” reminds us of Christ’s words, Jn 6:49 “Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die.” The “evening flesh” reminds us of Christ’s sacrifice. Mt 27:45, 50 “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. … And Jesus cried again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.” The “morning bread” reminds us of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

The Israelites gathered up the manna, Ex 16:17 “…some more, some less. But when they measured it with an omer, he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack; each gathered according to what he could eat.” This reminds us of the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, Mt 15:37 “And they all ate and were satisfied.” That miracle pre-figured the Holy Eucharist, from which the smallest piece is a full portion of Christ’s Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, and which can never run out because Jesus said He would be with us until the end of time. Mt 28:20 As long as a priest lives we Christ’s flock can have all we want.

Elijah

At a time when the land parched from lack of rain, God sent Elijah the Tishbite to the brook Cherith, that is east of the river Jordan, promising, 1 Kgs 17:4 “You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” So Elijah went. 1 Kgs 17:6 “And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the brook.”

When the brook dried up God sent Elijah to Zarepath, saying, 1 Kgs 17:9 “Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” Elijah found the widow and asked her, 1 Kgs 17:10 “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” The widow and her son had virtually no food left and were near starvation. 1 Kgs 17:12 “As the Lord lives,” she said, “I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a cruse; and now, I am gathering a couple of sticks, that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.”

But Elijah told her, 1 Kgs 17:13 “Fear not; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord the God of Israel, ‘The jar of meal shall not be spent, and the cruse of oil shall not fail, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth.” The widow did as Elijah said, and she and her son and Elijah ate for many days. 1 Kgs 17:16 “The jar of meal was not spent, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord which he spoke by Elijah.”

After that, the woman’s son became ill and died. Elijah carried the woman’s son into the upper room where he had been living and prayed, 1 Kgs 17:21 “Oh Lord my God, let this child’s soul come into him again.” 1 Kgs 17:22 “And the Lord hearkened to the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived.”

The food brought by the ravens reminds us of the manna, which itself pre-figured the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes. The ravens brought bread, which pre-figured Christ’s Holy Eucharist, and meat, which pre-figured His redemptive sacrifice. The water from the brook which kept Elijah alive pre-figured the living water that flowed from Christ’s side. At Zarepath, Elijah was again fed by a pre-figure of the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes. The widow pre-figures our Blessed Mother, who was a widow on the day of Christ’s sacrifice. Her son pre-figures Christ, who died and rose from the dead.

In the wilderness Elijah was awakened by an angel’s touch. 1 Kgs 19:6 “There was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water.” The cake reminds us of the Holy Eucharist. The water, of the water that Jesus turned to wine at Cana Jn 2:9 and then to the Blood of the Covenant in Jerusalem. Mt 26:27 The angel told Elijah, 1 Kgs 19:7 “Arise and eat, else the journey will be too great for you.” Elijah took this food for his forty days’ journey to Horeb, the mountain of God. Jesus fasted forty days in the wilderness while He was tempted by the devil. Mt 4:1 Lest temptation be too great for us, we receive the Holy Eucharist, food for our pilgrim journey to Calvary, the new and true mountain of God.

Finally, Elijah 2 Kgs 2:11 “was carried up in a whirlwind into the sky,” as Jesus Lk 24:51 “was carried up into heaven.”

Elisha

God performed a miracle through the prophet Elisha. 2 Kgs 4:42 “A man came from Baal-shalishah, bringing the man of God bread of the first fruits, twenty loaves of barley, and fresh ears of grain in his sack. And Elisha said, ‘Give to the men, that they may eat.’ But his servant said, ‘How am I to set this before a hundred men?’ So he repeated, ‘Give them to the men, that they may eat, for thus says the Lord, ‘They shall eat and have some left.’ So he set it before them. And they ate, and had some left, according to the word of the Lord.”

Elisha’s miraculous feeding of a hundred men pre-figured Jesus’ Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes.

The Psalms

Jews two thousand years ago knew the 150 psalms by heart, as we know songs today. They were not numbered; they were identified by their first words. If the first words, or any words, from a psalm were quoted, a Jew would be able to quote the rest of it.

Jesus cry on the Cross, Mt 22:46 “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me,” reminded those present that His sacrifice fulfilled prophecy. Psalm 22 begins, “My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?” The Jews present on Calvary would have recited from memory the prophetic words, Ps 22:17 “I can count all my bones – they stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them, and for my raiment they cast lots.”

The Jews present would have recognized Jesus’ final words on the Cross as a Psalm quotation, Ps 31:5, “Into Thy hand I commit my spirit,” and recited from memory King David’s next words, “Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.” They would have continued reciting the psalm until its final words, “Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord!”

Psalm 23 contains the Eucharistic prophecy, Ps 23:5 “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” As we eat what God gives us, we will fear no evil but dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Psalm 78 refers to the manna. Ps 78:24 “[God] rained down upon them manna to eat, and gave them the grain of heaven.”

Ezekiel

God pre-figured the Holy Eucharist through the prophet Ezekiel. Ez 3:3 “’Son of man, eat this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it.’ Then I ate it; and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey.” Jesus often used the title, Son of Man, in Matthew 8:20, 12:32, 13:41, 16:27 and 17:9. God had called Ezekiel to eat a figure of the Word of God made flesh.

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