Mass - What happens when we go?

It was at the Last Supper, a festive meal that Jesus instituted the Eucharist. It is no wonder that it was at a meal that Jesus did institute it. For when we read the Scriptures we find more than four dozen accounts of Jesus’ eating or talking about food. In the religious culture of his time, Jesus by ‘breaking bread’ extended the hand of friendship and peace in a rite that united all in friendship. At meals, Jesus taught, healed, forgave sins and spoke of God’s love and mercy. His presence and sharing at these meals showed his complete willingness to do whatever was necessary to reconcile people to God the Father.

If this is what Jesus’ meal ministry was about, then, so much more was the Last Supper. If Jesus accomplished these things at meals at which ordinary bread was broken, what are the achievements of a meal in which the ‘bread’ broken and share is eternal - when the bread was his body and the wine his blood? They surpass all limitations.

The Old Testament uses images of bread and wine as signs of the joy and plenty of the Promised Land. This led Tradition to refer to the Eucharist as the foretaste of the Messianic Banquet of the Kingdom. These are but ways of speaking of heaven and of our eternal union with the Trinity and with each other. This Messianic Banquet is the overflowing banquet which is the ultimate reality beneath the veil of our Eucharistic signs.

Memorial
In following Jesus’ instruction at the Last Supper to “do this in memory of me” we are not simply recalling a historic event. The whole biblical concept of ‘memorial’ is far deeper than this. In the Eucharist we are acknowledging that through his grace and power, God is able even today to insert us into a past moment which is still living and actual. This mysterious action of God makes Jesus’ great salvific act of self-giving present to us and enables us to join with his act and so not only do we receive but also we offer ourselves - “May he make us an everlasting gift to you”. Through the Eucharist, we unite ourselves to God the Son, through the Holy Spirit to God the Father.

Real Presence
When we bring the bread and wine to the altar, they are simply that - bread and wine. By the power of the Holy Spirit, these imperfect gifts are taken over by Jesus and ‘from being signs or offering, they become signs of Christ and his self-giving. Modern Sacramental Theology teaches us that a sign is not something representing an absent reality but that it reveals and conceals a reality that is present. Jesus’ total self-giving in the world of sacramental signs means that the bread and wine are changed into Christ’s very self.

Saying that Jesus is present in the bread and wine goes beyond saying that he is present in an object or a person. It is a far richer concept. It is saying that in the Eucharist there is ‘a personal encounter with the Risen Christ’. All other modes of his presence - the Word, the assembly, the celebrant - come together in the celebration of the Mass. The presence of Jesus requires our presence and our response. When we present ourselves and respond to his presence, he nourishes our life of faith and so allows us to grow deeper into union with God and with others.

Sacrifice
The mystery of the Eucharist is also about the Sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross - the one and only sacrifice of Christ that brings salvation. Over the years we may have emphasised the Passion and Death of Jesus to the point where we divorced it from his life. Can we truly separate Jesus’ life from those moments on the Cross? Is sacrifice just a particular, isolated event - a sort of negative force that somehow has positive effects or is it a life-long positive commitment to living for values other than selfish ones. Jesus’ sacrifice is not this negative notion of ‘giving up’ but a positive option for God who desires union with us. This sacrifice is not a ‘giving up’ but a ‘giving for’. Eucharist was not something he shared only on the night before he died. It represented and reflected his entire life of self-giving.

The Eucharist is not just the commemoration of the sacrificial event of a single day but the celebration of the sacrificial gift of Jesus’ entire life. The implications of this for us as his followers are crucial in that they require us to live out fully our life-long option for God.