SCRIPTURE COMMENTARY by Brendan Byrne SJ

This commentary has recently been revised and updated.

The feast of the Body and Blood of Christ enables the Eucharist to be set in a broader scriptural context than is possible on Holy Thursday. This year the wider context appears in a set of readings unified around the theme of the ‘blood of the covenant’.

The first reading, Exod 24:3-8, describes the solemn ritual in which the Sinai covenant was sealed. Moses has received the Torah (Law) from God and put it in writing. In the context of a sacrificial ritual, he reads out the law to the people and following their consent to abide by all the commandments in the Torah, he sprinkles them with the blood from the sacrifices, saying ‘This is the blood of the Covenant that the Lord has made with you.’ In this way the covenant that bound God to Israel and Israel to God is formally ratified and sealed through blood. Of course, the blood in question is the blood of animal sacrifices. But blood is taken to be a symbol of the life-force. Hence its significance.

The old covenant had a ritual, celebrated yearly on the Day of Atonement, when the barrier to the covenant relationship created by the accumulated sins of the people over the past year were wiped away by God. On this one day of the year the High Priest entered the most sacred part of the Temple, the Holy of Holies, and sprinkled the blood of a sacrificed animal upon the cover over the Ark of the covenant (Lev 16:11-16). This ritual enacted God’s wiping away the sin of the people and the renewal of the covenant relationship. The extract from the Letter to the Hebrews in the second reading (Heb 9:11-15) portrays Christ’s saving action in terms of this ritual, while insisting upon its vastly superior efficacy and the fact that, unlike the older rite, it is ‘once for all’, needing no repetition. The blood is not now the blood of animals but the precious blood of Jesus himself; the sanctuary that he has entered is not the earthly Holy of Holies but the sanctuary of heaven itself, which he has entered in resurrection and exaltation to God’s right hand.

The eucharistic traditions of the Gospels (and Paul’s account in 1 Cor 11:23-25) carry further this association of blood and covenant. Drawing on Jeremiah’s prophecy of a ‘new covenant’ (Jer 31:33), they see the sprinkling of Christ’s blood on Calvary as God’s establishment of a ‘new covenant’ for a renewed People of God. On the night before he died, Christ shared a final Passover meal with his disciples. Modifying the Passover ritual, he impressed a special meaning upon the death he was to undergo the following day: the shedding of his blood, symbolised in the cup of wine, would be the inauguration of a ‘new covenant in his blood’. Though the command to repeat the eucharistic gestures (‘Do this in memory of me’) does not appear in the Markan account set down for today’s Gospel (14:12-16, 22-26), as it does in Luke (22:19) and Paul (1 Cor 11:24, 25), the inauguration of a ritual to be repeated is clearly implied. When believers of subsequent generations recall and repeat what the Lord did at that Last Supper, they place themselves in a situation similar to that of the Israelites whom Moses sprinkled with blood at the ratification of the first covenant. They appropriate to themselves all the saving benefits associated with the ‘new covenant’ established in Christ’s blood.

The Markan (as also the Matthean account [26:28]) specify that the blood will be ‘poured out for many’. The little phrase ‘for many’ echoes the climax of the Fourth Servant Song of Isaiah, where the Servant’s suffering and death is stated to have meaning because in his death he ‘made many righteous’ and ‘bore the sin of many’ (53:11-12). In an earlier echo of the Song, Jesus had countered the false ambition of his disciples by explaining that he had come, ‘not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many’ (10:45). The Eucharist catches up this sense of the divine ‘service’ performed by Christ upon the cross: one innocent person giving himself up to death in order to free ‘many’ (potentially the entire human race) from the captivity and condemnation associated with sin. The Eucharist, then, continually re-enacts the loving, costly outreach of God in Christ to draw human beings into the life-giving covenant.

The cleansed and renewed pilgrim People of God celebrate the Eucharist in anticipation of the ‘new wine’ of the Kingdom and as a means whereby it is continually cleansed and renewed on its journey.

SACRAMENTS

RECONCILIATON 2020- postponed due to COVID lockdown. A new date will be set as soon as possible.

Please pray for the children making their 1st Reconciliation.

FIRST EUCHARIST - St Anne's School Mass - Sunday 25 July at 2.30pm

CONFIRMATION - Sunday 22 August 2pm and 4pm Masses

RECONCILIATION 2021 enrollment - Nov 2021 date to be confirmed.

The Sacramental program will go ahead within the COVID restrictions.

STOLES FOR SACRAMENTS

A Stole is to be worn during the Sacraments. The Stole can be individual to the child or a family Stole. The Stole can be hand made or purchased through our supplier.

HOLY BEGINNINGS - supplies the Stoles for the Parish. An order form has been sent home with children.

To order these please send the order form back to school with a cash payment, alternatively you can contact Anita to pay for the Stoles via direct deposit.

ANZ bank

Anita M Hughes

BSB 013-593

Account no. 322691326

Please put child’s full name in the details.

Candidates for Sacraments will be contacted 4 weeks before each Sacrament to order stoles so that there is time for these to be made.

HOLY BEGINNINGS can be contacted directly if you wish to order your stole independently. 0450 782 558 Anita

You will need to do this independently if you miss the date.

Stoles will be delivered to St Anne's school and will be dispersed to families from there.

Pope Francis Prayer Intention for June

The beauty of Marriage

Let us pray for the young people who are preparing for marriage with the support of the Christian Community: may they grow in love, with generosity, faithfulness and patience.

Amen

Dates For Your Diary

Term 2

June

Term 3

July

August