For Jesus, the Last Supper was a way to say good-bye, however the disciples didn’t actually realise this, they thought it was just another Passover meal. The Messianic expectations were fulfilling the Old Covenant into the New Covenant, which gave Catholic salvation. Jesus gave the Passover meal a new meaning, which is explained in Mark’s commission.
Jesus was our personal saviour because he gave his life for us, to pay off in full, the debt of original sin, which means that man can now enter through the gates of heaven. Our vicarious salvation, which is at no cost to us (but to love Jesus in return), leads us to atonement and now we have the ‘Gift of Grace’, which is the gift of God’s love.
In the Last Supper God was showing how much he cared and loved us by sending his only son down to die for our sins and save us from eternal damnation.
What the Last Supper meant for his disciples
Jesus’ disciples saw the Last Supper as a Passover meal, they didn’t realise that it was Jesus offering himself up for them, changing the Old Covenant to the New Covenant. This feast was so special for the Jews because it commemorated Yahweh’s covenant with Moses and the Jews who inherited the land of Israel. It was re-enacted every year to remind each generation of the great deeds God performed for the Jews. His only desire was that his people love him and worship him as the one true God. The Passover celebrated the Jewish exodus from Egypt and the countless blessings God showered on the Jewish nation, which he rescued from slavery. To participate in this feast was to meet again as a people and celebrate God’s incredible love. All the disciples saw was the roast lamb, which symbolised the Passover lamb, who’s blood marked doorposts and lintels of the houses of Israelites to prevent the angel of death entering. However, for Jesus, the new lamb saves you from sin, but the disciples understood it as the old lamb, which saved you from death and in the Israelites case, slavery in Egypt. The bitter herbs reminded them of the bitterness of slavery. And the unleavened bread was the bread without yeast and this symbolised how they left Egypt in a hurry because baking bread with yeast takes time.
The disciples believed that they represented the twelve races of people living in Israel (God’s “chosen people”). God was known as Yahweh (the one true God) and he had the power over the false gods of Egypt.
A covenant was usually a human agreement where two parties promised certain obligations to each other. In this biblical covenant (Old Covenant), God promises that he will protect Israel, if Israel promises to obey his law. The New Covenant has changed this slightly in saying that it isn’t just Israel he will protect, but all nations. The bible says “Now the lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves’”. This is in the Old Testament where God is basically saying that he will look after and care for those who obey his laws i.e. the Ten Commandments. God said, “ I have heard my people suffering”.
The meaning of Eucharist for Christians Today
All Christians agree that the Eucharist is a sacrament – (Outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible Grace). The two main traditions (Catholic and Protestant) differ on the nature of the Eucharist. The Roman Catholic faith believes in transubstantiation (turning the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ), believing there is a real presence of Christ in it, whereas Protestants believe in consubstantiation, believing that Christ is there in a more symbolic presence. Protestants object to an on going sacrifice, for Catholics an on going sacrifice is like a thanksgiving act for Jesus, or another one is marriage, even though Protestants believe that marriage should be for life, that accept divorce whereas Catholics do not.
In a Roman Catholic Mass, we are not for the re-sacrificing of Jesus, but we tap into the on going event of crucifixion. In our Eucharist we give thanks for God’s ‘Gift of Grace’ because without it we would simply be in sin, and not have a chance to get into heaven and have eternal life in union with God. Because the crucifixion of Christ was two thousand years ago, Protestants believe their Sunday service to be a memorial to Jesus Christ, and a chance to make a personal commitment to God, whereas, the Catholic Eucharist is part of God’s sacrament to help us on the ‘journey of faith’.
Exodus 3:7; “Then the Lord said, ‘I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; I know their sufferings,’”.
For Catholics: the Eucharist is a calling from Jesus for a personal relationship, the Eucharist for today is an act of love from God and it is a call from God and requires a response from Christians, the meaning of sacrifice means to make holy therefore to sacrifice mass means to make us holy (it frees us from the act of sin and self-hate), the Eucharist is a celebration of unity of the community of the Church; John 15:5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
The Mass is a celebration of (1) unity in a lonely world, and (2) service to others, where Catholics are called to sacrifice their lives by overcoming selfishness.
The Eucharist today demonstrates God’s continuous love for us. Of all the sacraments, the Eucharist most dramatically symbolizes God’s love affair with his people. Through this sacrament we receive Jesus Christ, the one whom accomplished our salvation. It is a privilege to be able to receive our Lord under the consecrated forms of bread and wine. The Eucharist is a continual reminder to us that God loves us, cares for us and comes to us in the most intimate way. This great gift is ours for the taking. We need faith and we need o respond by accepting the gift.
The Mass remembers and re-enacts Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. The Eucharistic celebration makes present and real, the saving deeds that Jesus accomplished on the cross: The saving from sin and death. The Eucharist creates and celebrates unity among Catholics. All kinds of people – young and old, rich and poor, loveable an unloved, saints and sinners – gather together and share the Lord among themselves. The Mass reminds us of God’s covenant of love and his command to love and serve others. The Eucharist reminds us that we are “to break ourselves,” that is, to overcome our selfishness and serve others as Jesus served us. The Eucharist is the summit of Christian worship. Because the church worships God the Father in Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit, the Eucharist is a celebration of Christian life and identity formed by, in and through Jesus the Lord.
Evaluation
Does Holy Communion Matter?
To answer this question, I will consider the two sides of the answer, the for and against sides. I will then form my own conclusion on the matter, and whether or not, it has affected my own beliefs as a practising Catholic. Taking Holy Communion is an act of faith which means it is a high point of your faith.
It is spiritual food in the sense that we believe in a real presence of Christ. We also take it in memory of Jesus. Holy Communion recalls God’s love for us as he gave up his only son for us, and he also saved Israel from slavery. He refers to the Israelites as God’s chosen people. Holy Communion is a form of discipline, we are disciplined by it, by responding in deeds, and it’s also an act of love and serving God i.e. priest’s dismissal after Eucharist. Taking Holy Communion keeps your faith alive, it is contact with Jesus, because we accept the real presence as Roman Catholics. Holy Communion is a very personal part of mass – it helps your prayer life and personal relationship with Jesus.
However, Northern Ireland has the highest attendance on Sunday service in the world, yet there has been thirty years of sectarian hatred. There is also a lack of respect for Holy Communion e.g. picking it out of teeth, and some people also see receiving it in your hands is a lack of respect too. Because we are so used to taking it every Sunday, it is usually out of habit that a lot of people receive it, therefore it is a blind act or an empty ritual. Some people have so little respect for it that they chat on the way up the isle to receive it and some people only go because they’d feel guilty if they didn’t. Receiving Holy Communion is supposed to be out of an act of faith, yet a lot of Catholics don’t believe in the real presence. Masses used to be said in Latin, therefore people needed to know Latin to understand and to follow the mass but now that the mass has been turned into English people don’t concentrate as much on what the priests are saying. Having very young children at Holy Communion is very often a waste of time, because they don’t understand anything about it.
Holy Communion these days is less spiritual, and some people are less interested in it.
Having studied these points, and reading over my coursework, I still have as great a faith in my religion (Roman Catholic) and Holy Communion as I ever had. The word Eucharist means ‘thanksgiving’ and that is exactly what I believe we give every Sunday at Mass to God our Father for saving us from eternal damnation and sin, and giving us eternal life instead, and I will continue to have faith and give thanksgiving for as long as I live.
Bibliography
For my coursework, I used the following sources; the Holy Bible, my notes from school, a book called The Sacraments and You, and the Internet.
