The night before Jesus died, Jesus gathered in a room with his Apostles to celebrate the Passover feast – the feast that recalled the angel of death “passing over” all the Israelites who partook of the first Passion in Egypt. On Holy Thursday, though, Jesus was not celebrating his Passover one last time. He was fulfilling it and instituting a new Passover feast.
In the midst of the old Passover liturgy Jesus said to his disciples “This is my body which will be given up for you.” “This is the chalice of my Blood, the Blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many.”
It’s those words, spoken at the meal, which makes what happened a few hours later on Calvary a sacrifice. Without those words, Jesus’ death is not a sacrifice; it is just an execution – the bloody, violent taking of an innocent man’s life. But with those words, Jesus’ death is the sacrifice of the true paschal lamb.
In the Eucharist, we consume the lamb of God as the Israelites consumed the sacrificed lamb. That lamb is the resurrected Cbrist. At every mass we consume Jesus’ resurrected, glorified body under the appearance of bread and wine. This reception makes possible what Jesus promised long ago: “that whoever ate his flesh and drank his blood would not perish but have eternal life. In Holy communion he enters into our mortal bodies so that we, in turn, can enter into his immortal, glorified body.
Let me explain this in another way. When we eat a pizza or an apple, that pizza or apple becomes part of us. We assimilate it into our bodies. But, when we consume the Body and Blood of Christ in Holy Communion, the exact opposite takes place. Instead of assimilating Jesus into our bodies, He assimilates us into his body. The Eucharist becomes the instrumental cause of our resurrection. His body has been glorified and his humanity defied, and as it enters into us, it creates the capacity within us to be glorified and defied too, to be resurrected on the last day.
“I am the living bread which came down from heaven…