Word to the Wise
Saturday, July 24, 2021 - Saturday in the 16th Week in Ordinary Time
[Exod 24:3-8 and Matt 13:24-30]Taking the book of the covenant [Moses] read it aloud to the people, who answered, "All that the Lord has said, we will heed and do." Then he took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, saying, "This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words of his." [Exodus]
Moses' words may sound familiar! We hear an echo of them at Mass in the words of consecration over the wine that is transformed, along with the bread, into the Body and Blood of Christ. "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 for the forgiveness of sin. Do this in remembrance of me."
In the Bible, blood is life. It is not simply a physical thing but means "life" in itself. It has an almost sacred status. This is one reason why observant Jews require that meat intended for human consumption be slaughtered in such a way that all the blood of the animal has been drained from it.
By today's standards, the temple worship of Jesus' time was a very messy affair with animals being slaughtered and burned in offerings all day long. The destruction of the temple by the Romans in 70 A.D. occurred as a result of a Jewish revolt. This was the second temple, the first having been destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC. The temple that Jesus' entered was the result of a restoration by Herod the Great of a smaller temple built by the returning Jewish exiles from Babylon. After the destruction of this magnificent structure, Judaism gave up centralized sacrificial worship in favor of local synagogue observance. The Eucharist recalls the symbolism of the temple and bloody sacrifice which is replaced by the single sacrifice of Christ. The Letter to the Hebrews goes into great detail about this (chs. 9 and 10).
The broad significance of the Eucharist can be lost in our individualistic needs that we bring to "Mass." What Jesus gave to us at the Last Supper is something new AND something old. AMEN