Holy Thursday

THE BRIDGE BETWEEN THE COVENANT
AND THE EUCHARIST
By St Edith Stein 5
◊◊◊
We know from the Gospel narratives that Christ prayed as a Jew who
believed in and was faithful to the Law. When he was a child with his parents,
and later with his disciples, he used to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem at the
appointed times to take part in the festivals that were celebrated in the temple.
He sang joyfully with the pilgrims, “I was glad when they said unto me: We
will go into the house of the Lord”. He recited the ancient prayers of blessing,
which are still said today, for bread, wine, and the fruits of the earth, as the
accounts of the Last Supper bear witness. This was wholly consecrated to the
fulfillment of one of the holiest religious obligations: the solemn Passover meal
which commemorated the deliverance from slavery in Egypt. Perhaps it is here
that we are given the deepest insight into the prayer of Christ, as it were the key
which gives access to the prayer of the Church.

Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke
it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my
body.” And he took a cup, when he had given thanks he gave it to
them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the
covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of
sins”.

The blessing and giving of the bread and wine have become part of the
rite of the Passover meal. But at the Last Supper this blessing and giving takes
on a wholly new meaning. For this is the birth of the Church. Doubtless it was
only at Pentecost that the Church was born a spiritual and visible community.
But here, at the Supper, took place that grafting of the shoot in the vine branch
which made the outpouring of the Spirit possible. The ancient prayers of
blessing became creative words of life on Christ’s lips. The fruits of the earth
became his flesh and blood, filled with his life. The visible creation into which
he was inserted by his incarnation is now bound to him in a new and mysterious
way. The foods that are indispensable for the growth of the human organism
are transformed in their nature, and those partaking of them with faith are
themselves transformed too; incorporated into Christ in a living union, they are
filled with his divine life. The quickening power of the Word is fused with the
sacrifice. The Word becomes flesh to give us that Life which is his own. He
offered himself, and has thus offered the creation which he ransomed by this
offering, as a sacrifice of praise to the Creator. The passover of the ancient
covenant has become the passover of the new covenant, at the Lord’s Last
Supper, at the Sacrifice of the Cross, and, between the Resurrection and the
Ascension, at the joyful agape where the disciples recognized their Lord in the
breaking of the bread; and, in the Sacrifice of the Mass, at Holy Communion.

5
“Liturgy & Eucharist”, reprinted in “Lectures chrétiennes pour notre temps”: 8 1971, #2, E4. Abbaye d’Orval,
Belgium.