The Holy Eucharist Given to Us at Jesus' Passover Supper

Today we celebrate the feast of Holy Thursday, the day that the Lord instituted the Holy Eucharist when, at the Passover Supper with His disciples, He  "took bread, and after He had given thanks, broke it and said, 'This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in  my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.' for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,  you proclaim the death of the Lord until He comes."  At every liturgy the priest consecrates the bread and the wine which, in the consecration, the bread and the wine becomes the body and blood, soul and  divinity of the Lord. Through the priest, the Lord then says to us: Take and eat and take and drink: "This is my body that is for you...[and] this cup is the new covenant in my blood," poured out for you. Each participant at this holy banquet then receives the Holy Eucharist, which is the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ.  What a gift! What a meal! What awesome nourishment. And what a gift to be part of this holy banquet until Jesus comes again and in the act of celebration proclaiming, in faith,  the death and resurrection of the Lord! 

I thank my parents and religious education teachers and the priests of my childhood for passing on this faith to me. And I thank God for giving me this gift of faith through them!  May my faith deepen day by day until my death in the Lord Jesus and my entrance into eternal life!

Our Blessing Cup: The Communion with the Blood of Christ

In today's first reading, Exodus 12: 1-8, 11-14, the Israelites, God's chosen people, celebrate the feast of Passover.  God instructs each family through Moses to "procure  for  itself a lamb,...The lamb must be a year-old male and without blemish...[W]ith the whole assembly of Israel present, it shall be slaughtered during the evening twilight.  They shall take some of its blood and apply it to the two doorposts and the lintel of every house in which they partake of the lamb...[T]he blood will make the houses where you are. Seeing the blood, I will pass over you; thus, when I strike the land of Egypt, no destructive blow will come upon you."

"Our blessing-cup is a communion with the Blood of Christ, the unblemished male, the Lamb of God, through whom we are saved. "[N]o destructive blow will come upon" us who "eat of this bread" and "drink of this wine." Just as the Israelites celebrate the Passover as "a memorial feast...,which all...[of their]generations...celebrate with pilgrimage to the Lord, as a perpetual institution," so, too, do we Christians "offer [a] sacrifice of thanksgiving [the Sacrifice of the Mass] and "call upon the name of the Lord" in every Eucharistic celebration until the end of time.

The Covenant of the Old Testament is given to the people by Moses. The Covenant of the New Testament is given to us through Christ Jesus.

Just as Yahweh would lose none of His chosen people to their slave owners, neither will Jesus lose anyone of us to Satan, who prowls about the world seeking someone to devour! O, the greatness and the goodness and the mercy and the love of our God, revealed to us in Christ Jesus, whose blood was poured out for us on the cross!