Blood Relations
Mk 14:12-16, 22-26

Fr. Jijo Kandamkulathy CMF
Claretian Publications, Macau

The introductory lines of the gospel of today give us two symbols from the Old Testament: the unleavened bread and the Passover lamb. Going through these two symbols will give us most of the theology connected with the Solemnity of Corpus Christi.

The unleavened bread is a bread that the Israelites kept in the ark of the covenant from the time they were fed with manna (Exodus 16:33-34) as a sign of God’s unceasing providence. In the holy of holies of the Jerusalem temple, 12 loaves of unleavened bread used to be placed, which would be changed every Sabbath, with the older ones consumed by the priests. One cannot say that the Catholic tradition of preserving the Eucharist came from this practice, as the earliest writings of the Church show that the Eucharist was preserved for distributing to the sick. However, this reserved sacrament today is the symbol of God’s desire to live with humanity forever.

The other symbol is that of the Passover lamb. What would happen in the last supper most notably is the absence of the lamb, which is mandatory in the Passover meal. An unsuspecting reader would ask, “We have the table and bread set; where is the lamb for the Passover meal!” The lamb of sacrifice is Jesus himself. So, no other lamb is on site. At the time of the last supper, the unleavened bread and the Passover lamb merge into one. “This is my body….” The Passover lamb is different from that of the lamb of sacrifice for the sin offering done during the Yom Kippur celebration of the Jews. The sin offering lamb of the Yom Kippur is the scapegoat. The lamb that got identified with Christ in the gospel of John (Jn 1:29, 1:36) and in the letter to the Hebrews (Heb 9) is this scapegoat. But in the context of today’s gospel from Mark, the lamb mentioned is the Paschal lamb. The lamb delivers from the slavery in Egypt (sin symbolically) and leads one into the promised land (eternal life).

As Christ mentions, “This is my body, take and eat,” the entire import is “I am the Passover lamb and eat my flesh that you be saved from the bondage of sin (Egypt), and pass over to liberation.” “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood will live forever” is in the context of the Passover lamb.

The Solemnity of Corpus Christi evokes four unique aspects of Catholic faith, all derived from biblical foundation: 1. The Eucharist is a sacrifice. 2. The Eucharist is a meal. 3. The Eucharist is a covenant. 3. The Eucharist is the real presence of Christ.

The name for the Eucharistic bread is “host,” which means “victim.” That term refers to the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist, where Christ is sacrificed for the eternal forgiveness of the sins of humanity. The concept of the sacrifice comes from the scapegoat of Yom Kippur (Leviticus 16) mentioned in the letter to the Hebrews 9. The sins of the people are ritually transferred to the lamb, and it is slaughtered to eradicate the sins of the people. The second part of that ritual is the sprinkling of the blood of the sacrificial animal on the participants as a sign of the covenant. In the new covenant as in the Eucharist the sins of humanity are transferred to the fresh lamb (Jesus Christ) that is sacrificed, and people share his blood as a sign of establishing the New Covenant. Usually, in a sacrifice, someone else chooses the victim of the sacrifice. Here Jesus himself chooses to be the victim of the sacrifice. When he gives, he distributes his own body—he himself becomes the priest of the ceremony.

The Eucharist is a meal. Christ shares his own body to be eaten… This is the highest expression of love. Sharing a meal with someone is the expression of a very close friendship. When one feeds one’s friends with one’s own body, no greater expression of love can be invented.

Someone who wants to live with humans forever chooses to live in them as the Eucharist. Like the food that is digested and becomes part of our body, so does Christ in the species of the bread and wine become part of us. We carry in our bodies the strength of that food and drink given from above.

The Eucharist is a covenant. The covenant is sealed by the blood of Christ as we reflected earlier. This is the most challenging and risky covenant. Jesus leaves his body to be victimized in the hands of the fragile erring humans. He makes that generous offering of his body with the risk of being disrespected, desecrated, and destroyed. Yet he makes that risky offering of his body and blood to humanity. By extension, everybody has to be respected as sacred and be treated with respect.

© Claretian Publications, Macau
Cum Approbatione Ecclesiastica 2024