The Mass is truly a Sacrifice
A little boy returned home from Hebrew school and his father asked, "what did you learn today?"
"The Rabbi told us how Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt.”
"How?"
The boy said, "Moses was a big strong man and he beat Pharaoh up. Then while he was down, he got all the people together and ran towards the sea. When he got there, he had the Corps of Engineers build a huge pontoon bridge. Once they got on the other side, they blew up the bridge while the Egyptians were trying to cross."
The father was shocked. "Is that what the Rabbi taught you?"
The boy replied, "No. But you'd never believe the story he DID tell us!"
The Cross and the Last Supper are one Passover. At that supper Jesus took bread, gave the blessing and said, “Take and eat, this is my body.” Then he took the cup, gave thanks, and said, “Drink all of you…this is my blood which is to be poured out for the forgiveness of sins.”
Then Jesus did something very unusual. He said, “From now on, I tell you, I shall not drink wine until the day I drink the new wine with you in the kingdom of my Father” (Matthew26:29). Jesus does not drink the fourth cup of the Passover but leaves the meal and goes out into the night.
For a thousand years every Jewish family, including the family of Jesus, had celebrated the four cups of the Seder. The cups represent sanctification, deliverance, redemption and praise – God’s promise of redemption: “I will bring you out, I will deliver you, I will redeem you, I will take you as my people.”
The fourth cup of praise involves songs of gratitude that celebrate the possibility of a future filled with peace, justice, and solidarity. Jesus was not ready to celebrate the final cup until the events of Good Friday unfolded.
If we follow the course of that unfinished cup we find soldiers, on the way to the crucifixion, offering Jesus wine mixed with gall to deaden the pain (Matthew 27:14). Jesus refuses to drink.
Finally, in the account of John, when all had been accomplished, Jesus said: “A am thirsty.” They offered him a sponge soaked in vinegar on a hyssop stick. Jesus took it and then pronounced, “It is accomplished” (John 19:30).
The Passover was finally finished. Fulfilled. Jesus drank the fourth cup on the cross. The supper and the sacrifice are one event, one Passover, stretched from the table to the cross. The bread He called His body on Thursday and the body He offered on Friday are the same offering. (Explanations from The Catholic Bible Companion).
Just as the sour wine was lifted to Christ’s mouth on a branch of hyssop, God had commanded Israel to use the branch of a hyssop to spread the lamb's blood on their doorposts in Egypt. The same plant, the same Passover sacrifice.
The earliest Christians understood it. The lamb and the feast, the cross and the meal, one thing. The Mass altar and the Last Supper table are one. The Mass is that unbloody sacrifice of the Cross, offered again for our salvation.
Jesus said, “Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world” (John 6:51, 56).
(568 words)
