HOLY THURSDAY
EXODUS 12:1-8 and 11-14
In those days, the Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt:
– This month shall be for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats.
You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover.
For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.
This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast.
The celebration of Passover was (and is) the most important festival of Israel. It celebrates the birth of the People, as a spectacular display of God’s power, stronger than all powers (symbolized in Pharaoh and in the Sea), capable of freeing His People and leading them out of slavery to the Homeland.
The ecclesiastical interpretation is that Jesus is our Passover: the display of God’s power, which makes us come out of the sea of original chaos and frees us from the slavery of sin.
These symbols were tremendously expressive for a community of followers of Jesus that came from Judaism. Today we have to explain their meaning, and a symbol that needs to be explained loses all its force.
In any case, if this passage is read, I suggest that the paragraphs in italics be omitted. Imagining the God of Jesus, Abbá, the Father of all, murdering innocent children to protect His privileged people… is impossible.
I think an alternative reading could be chosen, equally referring to the Eucharist and, in addition, is supported by Jesus Himself:
EXODUS 16
The whole congregation of the people of Israel moved on from Elim and came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not. On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily.”
So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, “At evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against the Lord. For what are we? Your grumbling is not against us but against the Lord.”
In the evening quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning dew lay around the camp. And when the dew had gone up, there was on the surface of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.”
The Israelites called that substance “manna”: it was white, like coriander seeds, and tasted like honey wafers.
The Israelites ate manna for forty years, until they reached inhabited land. They ate manna until they crossed the border of Canaan.
Jesus himself referred to this scene, applying it to himself: (Jn 6:49)
Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert and died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever;
And for us, it is a beautiful image of Jesus: Jesus nourishes our faith, our hope, and our service. We feed on Him. We feed on His Word and His Spirit, which is given to us very especially in the gathering of the brothers and sisters, when we share the Word, when we eat His bread together and drink from His cup.
It is common to reduce the meaning of this passage from John to the Eucharist, to think that Jesus is bread only in the Eucharist. But it is not so: Jesus, His word, His deeds, His values, His death… all of Jesus is our Bread, our wine, our water, our Wind.
1 CORINTHIANS 11:23-26
I received a tradition from the Lord, which I in turn have handed on to you:
That on the night when He was to be handed over, the Lord Jesus took bread and, after giving thanks, broke it and said:
– “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
In the same way, He took the cup after supper, saying:
– “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”
We know that this is the oldest Eucharistic text, written around the year 55, probably from Ephesus, and therefore earlier than the writing of the Gospels. With this reading, we connect our Eucharist with the long chain of Eucharists celebrated by Christians from the beginning, from the communities of Paul, in remembrance of the Lord Jesus as He entrusted us.
It seems very significant to me that the four Eucharistic formulas we have (Mark, Matthew, Luke, and Corinthians) are different from each other, and that none of them is the same as the one we use today in our Eucharist. This could be a good reason for reflection for those who understand the “formula of Consecration” as quasi-magical words that produce the miracle.
José Enrique Galarreta, S.J.