Happy Easter and the Daily Eucharist

Happy Easter and the Daily Eucharist*
In pursuit of the truth - www.cinopsbegoneblogspot.com - Sunday, April 8, 2012

Since it was not possible to repeat the Last Supper as such and as a whole, what is, then, the source from which the Mass derives its form? Where did the disciples turn to find this form?

Today, interpreters of Holy Scriptures frequently give one of two different answers to the question: some of them suggest that the celebration of the Eucharist in the fledging Church was modeled on the meals that Jesus shared daily with his disciples.

Others contend that the Eucharist was one of the meals that Jesus shared with sinners. This latter contention has become, for many, a fascinating concept, for it would mean that the Eucharist was a meal at which Jesus sat down with sinners; that it was an open invitation that he extended to everyone without exception.

That immediately led to a profound criticism of the ecclesial Eucharist, because it means, in fact, that the Eucharist can have no definite prerequisites, that it is not linked to either confession or Baptism…. However tempting the thought may be, it contradicts the witness of the Bible.

Jesus’ Last Supper was not the kind of meal that he shared with “tax collectors and sinners”. He modeled it on the traditional form of the Passover, which means that it was a meal celebrated in a family community - that is, a meal celebrated with his new family, the Twelve, with those whose feet he had washed, whom he had prepared, by his words and by the pardon signified in the washing of the feet, to enter into a blood relationship with him, to become one body with him.

But the Eucharist itself is not the Sacrament of Reconciliation to which the Lord invites those who have become one with him, though they remain sinful and weak, but who have, nonetheless, given him their hand and have become his family.

That is why this discernment has been made from the beginning with regard to the Eucharist: “All who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves” (1 Cor 11:29).

George H. Kubeck, * April 8th meditation from Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Co-Workers of the Truth - Meditations for Every Day of the Year, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1992 p. 116-7