Saturday, February 6, 2016

Take This and Eat It

"Take and Eat; this is My Body", (Matthew 26:26)
"...whoever 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)


Genesis 3: 1 - 5 reads;
            Now the snake was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He asked the woman, "Did God really say, 'You shall not eat from any of the trees in the garden'?" The woman answered the snake; "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; it is only about the fruit of the tree there in the middle of the garden that God said, "You shall not eat it or even touch it, or else you will die.' But the snake said to the woman, "You certainly will not die! God knows well that when you eat of it you will be like the gods, who know good and evil." 
            11- 12 ".....(God asked Adam) Have you eaten from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat? The man replied, "The woman whom you put here with me -- she gave me the fruit from the tree, so I ate it"

I once noticed a parish priest, while praying the institution narrative (aka the "words of consecration"), in the Anamnesis (great prayer of remembrance) emphasize the THIS when speaking Jesus' instruction to,"Take this and eat it." This profound emphasis taught me that these words (and food they transubstantiate) of Truth and Life perpetually undo the lie that led Eve and Adam to death of body and soul.

Eve reasoned "that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and the tree was desirable for gaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it." (Gen. 3:6). She did not believe trust that eating the forbidden fruit would kill her. She did not understand that her disobedience would darken her search for a way back to God, make her children heirs to confusion and bring death into the world.  

Do we believe with trust that the perpetual Holy Sacrifice and its fruit; the taken and consumed Eucharistic food; illuminates the Way, generates the Truth and brings the world back to Life?





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