III. The Eucharist in the Economy of Salvation
The signs
of bread and wine
1333
At the heart of the Eucharistic celebration are the bread and wine that, by the
words of Christ and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, become Christ's Body and
Blood. Faithful to the Lord's command the Church continues to do, in his memory
and until his glorious return, what he did on the eve of his Passion: "He
took bread...." "He took the cup filled with wine...." the signs
of bread and wine become, in a way surpassing understanding, the Body and Blood
of Christ; they continue also to signify the goodness of creation. Thus in the
Offertory we give thanks to the Creator for bread and wine,152 fruit of
the "work of human hands," but above all as "fruit of the
earth" and "of the vine" - gifts of the Creator. the Church sees
in the gesture of the king-priest Melchizedek, who "brought out bread and
wine," a prefiguring of her own offering.153
1334
In the Old Covenant bread and wine were offered in sacrifice among the first
fruits of the earth as a sign of grateful acknowledgment to the Creator. But
they also received a new significance in the context of the Exodus: the
unleavened bread that Israel eats every year at Passover commemorates the haste
of the departure that liberated them from Egypt; the remembrance of the manna
in the desert will always recall to Israel that it lives by the bread of the
Word of God;154 their daily bread is the fruit of the promised land,
the pledge of God's faithfulness to his promises.
The "cup of blessing"155 at the end of the Jewish Passover
meal adds to the festive joy of wine an eschatological dimension: the messianic
expectation of the rebuilding of Jerusalem. When Jesus instituted the
Eucharist, he gave a new and definitive meaning to the blessing of the bread
and the cup.
1335
The miracles of the multiplication of the loaves, when the Lord says the
blessing, breaks and distributes the loaves through his disciples to feed the
multitude, prefigure the superabundance of this unique bread of his
Eucharist.156 The sign of water turned into wine at Cana already
announces the Hour of Jesus' glorification. It makes manifest the fulfillment
of the wedding feast in the Father's kingdom, where the faithful will drink the
new wine that has become the Blood of Christ.157
1336
The first announcement of the Eucharist divided the disciples, just as the
announcement of the Passion scandalized them: "This is a hard saying; who
can listen to it?"158 The Eucharist and the Cross are stumbling
blocks. It is the same mystery and it never ceases to be an occasion of
division. "Will you also go away?":159 The Lord's question
echoes through the ages, as a loving invitation to discover that only he has
"the words of eternal life"160 and that to receive in faith
the gift of his Eucharist is to receive the Lord himself.
The
institution of the Eucharist
1337
The Lord, having loved those who were his own, loved them to the end. Knowing
that the hour had come to leave this world and return to the Father, in the
course of a meal he washed their feet and gave them the commandment of
love.161 In order to leave them a pledge of this love, in order never
to depart from his own and to make them sharers in his Passover, he instituted
the Eucharist as the memorial of his death and Resurrection, and commanded his
apostles to celebrate it until his return; "thereby he constituted them
priests of the New Testament."162
1338
The three synoptic Gospels and St. Paul have handed on to us the account of the
institution of the Eucharist; St. John, for his part, reports the words of
Jesus in the synagogue of Capernaum that prepare for the institution of the
Eucharist: Christ calls himself the bread of life, come down from
heaven.163
1339
Jesus chose the time of Passover to fulfill what he had announced at Capernaum:
giving his disciples his Body and his Blood:
Then came the day of
Unleavened Bread, on which the passover lamb had to be sacrificed. So Jesus
sent Peter and John, saying, "Go and prepare the passover meal for us,
that we may eat it...." They went ... and prepared the passover. and when
the hour came, he sat at table, and the apostles with him. and he said to them,
"I have earnestly desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer;
for I tell you I shall not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of
God.".... and 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." and likewise the cup after supper, saying,
"This cup which is poured out for you is the New Covenant in my
blood."164
1340
By celebrating the Last Supper with his apostles in the course of the Passover
meal, Jesus gave the Jewish Passover its definitive meaning. Jesus' passing
over to his father by his death and Resurrection, the new Passover, is
anticipated in the Supper and celebrated in the Eucharist, which fulfills the
Jewish Passover and anticipates the final Passover of the Church in the glory
of the kingdom.
"Do
this in memory of me"
1341
The command of Jesus to repeat his actions and words "until he comes"
does not only ask us to remember Jesus and what he did. It is directed at the
liturgical celebration, by the apostles and their successors, of the memorial
of Christ, of his life, of his death, of his Resurrection, and of his
intercession in the presence of the Father.165
1342
From the beginning the Church has been faithful to the Lord's command. of the
Church of Jerusalem it is written:
They devoted themselves to the
apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers....
Day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes,
they partook of food with glad and generous hearts.166
1343
It was above all on "the first day of the week," Sunday, the day of
Jesus' resurrection, that the Christians met "to break
bread."167 From that time on down to our own day the celebration
of the Eucharist has been continued so that today we encounter it everywhere in
the Church with the same fundamental structure. It remains the center of the
Church's life.
1344
Thus from celebration to celebration, as they proclaim the Paschal mystery of
Jesus "until he comes," the pilgrim People of God advances,
"following the narrow way of the cross,"168 toward the
heavenly banquet, when all the elect will be seated at the table of the
kingdom.
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