I love the early summer
liturgical “trifecta” of Pentecost, Trinity, and Corpus Christi, forming a kind
of “encore” to the joyful Easter Season focusing in succession on three
fundamental realities of the Christian life: the Holy Spirit in the Church, the
Triune Godhead, and the Eucharist. This “trifecta”
comes to an end this week with the celebration of the Body and Blood of Christ.
The Readings for this Solemnity obviously focus on types and descriptions of the Eucharist, but there is a notably priestly theme that also runs through them. In this way, we observe the connection between priesthood and Eucharist. This connection first dawned on me personally in the fall of 1999, when I was first exposed to the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. Coming across St. Ignatius of Antioch's famous passage concerning the Eucharist in his Letter to the Smyrneans (ch. 7), I suddenly realized that the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist was—and is—the constant belief of the Church from apostolic times to the present day:
The Readings for this Solemnity obviously focus on types and descriptions of the Eucharist, but there is a notably priestly theme that also runs through them. In this way, we observe the connection between priesthood and Eucharist. This connection first dawned on me personally in the fall of 1999, when I was first exposed to the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. Coming across St. Ignatius of Antioch's famous passage concerning the Eucharist in his Letter to the Smyrneans (ch. 7), I suddenly realized that the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist was—and is—the constant belief of the Church from apostolic times to the present day:
But consider those who are
of a different opinion with respect to the grace of Christ which has come unto
us, how opposed they are to the will of God.
They have no regard for love, no care for the widow, or the orphan, or
the oppressed; of the bond, or of the free; of the hungry, or of the thirsty.
They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not
the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for
our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again. Those,
therefore, who speak against this gift of God, incur death in the midst of
their disputes. (Ignatius of Antioch,
Letter to the Smyrneans 6-7)
Upon reading this,
supported with other teachings of the Fathers on the Eucharist, I came to
believe in the Real Presence. But then
the following chain of thoughts occurred to me:
(1) Let us acknowledge that
Eucharist host is truly transformed into the Body of Christ. This is the
teaching of Scripture and the Fathers.
(2) But does this happen
when any Christian, at any time, prays over bread? Does every Christian have the power and
authority to make bread into the true Body of the Lord? Surely that would be
ridiculous, and lead to abuses of all kinds: persons confecting the Eucharist
in sacrilegious ways, and treating the Eucharistic Lord without proper
reverence.
(3) Therefore, it must be
the case that only certain persons, at certain times, can transform bread into
the Body of Christ.
(4) Who would those persons
be, and what would those times be?
Surely they must be persons authorized by the Church to do so, at the
times when the Church authorizes the Eucharist to be celebrated.
(5) But to be entrusted by
the Church with the authority to celebrate the Eucharist is an awesome responsibility
that marks a person out from among the laity of the Church.
(6) Therefore, the Real
Presence of Christ in the Eucharist inevitably requires that there be a class
of persons marked out from among the ranks of believers who are set aside and entrusted
with the authority to celebrate the Eucharist at the proper times. This class of persons would constitute a
priesthood.
This line of reasoning
could surely be stated better and more succinctly by others, but I hope I have
made it somewhat clear why a Real Presence doctrine of the Eucharist, in which
the bread and wine are truly transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ,
requires a new covenant priesthood. On
the other hand, if the Eucharist is merely symbolic, it does not require
priests to celebrate it. And indeed:
Protestantism has a non-sacramental, non-priestly, purely functional view of
their clergy.
On to the Readings:
The First Reading is Gn 14:18-20:
In those days, Melchizedek,
king of Salem, brought out bread and wine,
and being a priest of God
Most High,
he blessed Abram with these
words:
“Blessed be Abram by God
Most High,
the creator of heaven and
earth;
and blessed be God Most
High,
who delivered your foes
into your hand.”
Then Abram gave him a tenth
of everything.
Melchizedek's name is
Hebrew for “King of Righteousness.” He
is also identified as “king of Salem.” “Salem”
is a form of the Semitic root for “peace,” as in the Hebrew “Shalom.” “Salem” is also the archaic name for
Jerusalem, employed in at least one Egyptian inscription (on a campaign
itinerary of Ramses II on the walls of one of the Temples in Karnak, if memory
serves) as a reference to the city. It’s
also used in Psalm 76:2 as a name for the holy city.
Jewish tradition held that
Melchizedek was none other than Shem, son of Noah, based on the fact that Shem
lived into the lifespan of Abraham, and who else would be qualified to invoke a
blessing upon Abraham? “Melchizedek” was
then understood as a throne name (which it surely was, whatever one may think
of the identification with Shem). Thus,
in the ancient Jewish view, Melchizedek transmitted to Abraham the blessing of
the patriarchs extending through Noah all the way back to Adam.
Some hold that the bread
and wine brought out were merely for the refreshment of Abraham and his
men. The text, however, connects the
bread and wine to Melchizedek's priesthood and the conferral of the blessing,
so it would be better to understand the bread and wine as liturgical offerings
(i.e. a grain offering with a libation).
To be specific, in the Hebrew, the phrase “Now he was a priest of God
Most High” appears to be an explanatory clause giving the background or
rationale for the statement, “And Melchizedek … brought forth bread and wine.”
The fact that the “bread
and wine” were a liturgical offering does not exclude a practical use for the
refreshment of those present, because liturgical offerings in the ancient world
were often consumed by the worshipers as part of the ritual.
So it seems that the
kingship of the city of Jerusalem carried with it a priestly role, going back
at least to the figure of Melchizedek.
Later, in 2 Samuel 5, when David becomes King of Jerusalem, he seems to
take on the priestly role that comes with his office, a kind of “Melchizedekian
Succession.” In 2 Samuel 6, for example,
we see David functioning as a priest when the ark is brought up into Jerusalem
(vv. 12-19). The liturgical feast that David
provides on that occasion [2 Sam 6:17-19) is itself a type of the Eucharist. David's priestly role was transmitted to his
sons, according to 2 Sam 8:18. Jesus is
the ultimate Son of David, whose priesthood can be traced back to Melchizedek
(and then, if Melchizedek is Shem, back to Adam). Thus, Jesus' priesthood is more ancient and
venerable than the priesthood of the Levites, which was only conferred on them
after the sin of the Golden Calf (Exod 32:25-29). This is one of the arguments of the Book of
Hebrews (see Hebrews 7).
To sum up, Gen 14:18-20
reminds us that in Jesus we still have a priest who exercises the priesthood of
Melchizedek, a priesthood that involves the offering of bread and wine which
confers on the recipients blessing and salvation from their enemies.
2. The Responsorial Psalm
is Ps 110:1, 2, 3, 4:
R. (4b) You are a priest for ever, in the line of
Melchizedek.
The LORD said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand
till I make your enemies your footstool.”
R. You are a priest for ever, in the line of
Melchizedek.
The scepter of your power the LORD will stretch forth
from Zion:
“Rule in the midst of your enemies.”
R. You are a priest for ever, in the line of
Melchizedek.
“Yours is princely power in the day of your birth, in
holy splendor;
before the daystar, like the dew, I have begotten you.”
R. You are a priest for ever, in the line of
Melchizedek.
The LORD has sworn, and he will not repent:
“You are a priest forever, according to the order of
Melchizedek.”
R. You are a priest for ever, in the line of
Melchizedek.
Psalm 110, like Psalm 2,
was probably an ancient coronation hymn sung when each new successor of David
mounted the throne to begin his reign.
Psalm 110 reminds the new Davidic king of his noble priestly role, a
role (as we saw above) that goes back to the great Melchizedek himself. The words of this hymn are hyperbolic when
applied to any of the merely natural sons of David, but the words reach their
full potential and meaning when applied to Jesus Christ. He is the one truly “begotten” by God, like
the “dew,” which forms before the start of the “day,” (that is, before the dawn
of creation). He is a priest “forever” in the fullest sense, for he never dies.
Nonetheless, the Father has not yet made all his enemies “at footstool for his
feet,” and he “rules in the midst of his foes,” that is, He leads us (the
Church) to victory even though we are surrounded by enemies and persecutions in
this life.
3. The Second Reading is 1 Cor 11:23-26:
Brothers and sisters:
I received from the Lord
what I also handed on to you,
that the Lord Jesus, on the
night he was handed over,
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.
In the New Testament the
sequence of verbs “take,” “give thanks” (or “bless”), “break,” and “give” are
almost a technical sequence denoting the celebration of the Eucharist or its
types. In this recitation of the
Eucharistic “Institution Narrative” by St. Paul (which most closely resembles
Luke of all the Gospels), we see the first three in this verbal sequence: “take,”
“give thanks” (Gk eucharisteo), and “break.”
We note here the role of
tradition. This passage, in fact, is
witness to the process of sacred Tradition: authoritative teaching handed down
from Christ through the Apostles. St. Paul
speaks of “receiving” (Gk paralambano) teaching from the Lord and then “handing
it on” (Gk paradidomi). The verb
for “hand on” (paradidomi) corresponds to the Greek noun for “tradition”
(paradosis). The Eucharist is the
great tradition par excellence of the Church.
The Eucharist is the
“new covenant.” As Dr. Scott Hahn is fond
of pointing out, the “new covenant” (or “new testament”) is not first of all a
collection of 27 sacred books. It is,
first of all, a liturgical act, a ritual celebration of bread and wine
transformed into the Body and Blood of Jesus.
The twenty-seven books of the “New Testament” only come to take on that
name because of their association with the celebration of the Eucharist. They are the books read at each renewal of
the new covenant.
It is so striking that
Jesus identifies his Eucharistic Body and Blood as the new covenant
itself. This fulfills the prophecies of
Isaiah 42:6 and 49:8, that the “servant of the LORD” would actually be given as a covenant; in
other words, he would become the
covenant. We recall that a covenant, in
the ancient world, was essentially a conferral of kinship via an oath. The Eucharist confers divine kinship in the
most direct way possible, by placing within us the very body and blood of
God.
4. The Gospel is Lk 9:11b-17:
Jesus spoke to the crowds
about the kingdom of God,
and he healed those who
needed to be cured.
As the day was drawing to a
close,
the Twelve approached him
and said,
“Dismiss the crowd
so that they can go to the
surrounding villages and farms
and find lodging and
provisions;
for we are in a deserted
place here.”
He said to them, “Give them
some food yourselves.”
They replied, “Five loaves
and two fish are all we have,
unless we ourselves go and
buy food for all these people.”
Now the men there numbered
about five thousand.
Then he said to his
disciples,
“Have them sit down in
groups of about fifty.”
They did so and made them
all sit down.
Then taking the five loaves
and the two fish,
and looking up to heaven,
he said the blessing over
them, broke them,
and gave them to the
disciples to set before the crowd.
They all ate and were
satisfied.
And when the leftover
fragments were picked up,
they filled twelve wicker
baskets.
Here we see the sequence of
Greek verbs by which the New Testament typically denotes the Eucharist or its
types: “take”, “bless” (functional equivalent of “give thanks”), “break,” “give.” Although the Church gives the most liturgical
attention to the account of the Feeding of the 5000 in John 6, this miracle
narrative functions as a Eucharistic anticipation in all four of the
Gospels.
We learn about the
Eucharist by reflection on this miracle.
The Eucharist is our supernatural food.
It is not the product of the personal efforts of the clergy: the
disciples admit they don't have the resources to feed the people.
The Eucharist comes to us
as we live in distress in the midst of the world. This world is truly a spiritually “deserted
place,” a place without any lasting satisfaction, a place without the resources
to satisfy our deepest hunger, which is for God Himself.
But the Eucharist is the
food we may eat and truly “be satisfied.”
Twelve baskets full are picked up afterwards, which (1) foreshadows the
care for every particle of the Eucharist that later will be manifest by the
Church, and (2) denotes by the number twelve the fullness of the tribes of
Israel. Those who partake of the
Eucharist are constituted as the New Israel, the new Twelve Tribes ruled over
by the Son of David who is a “priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”
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