Understanding our Faith

Development of the Liturgy of the Eucharist

Last week, we looked at the origins of the liturgy of the Word. This week, let’s explore the origins of the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

The celebration of the Eucharist had its origins in the Jewish Prayers of Blessing at meals on the Sabbath, and on the great feasts like the Passover. The Passover is especially important because it is the setting which the gospels give us for the death and resurrection of Jesus and the Last Supper.

The Jewish Passover meal was a celebration of the delivery of the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt. It was the great feast of the Jewish year and the prayers, the actions, and the food involved in it were all linked in one way or another to the Exodus or the Passover of the people from slavery to freedom.  A passover epitomised in their passing through the waters of the Red Sea as they escaped the clutches of the Egyptian army. It was this event which founded the OId Testament people of God as a people.

This biblical background had its influence on Jesus himself, and on his gift of himself to his disciples, which we celebrate in the Eucharist. The death and resurrection of Jesus is often described as his passover or as his Paschal Mystery. In his death and resurrection, Jesus passes over from life as we know it into the risen life which is life with God. In this passover, death’s power is destroyed and we are set free from it, as we are also set free from the things which separate us from God as Jesus leads us into union with God.

So, Jesus’ death and resurrection is understood by the first Christians against the background of the Old Testament exodus event. He is the one in whom God completes what he was beginning in the Exodus.

Jesus changed the meaning and direction of the Passover meal. His words directed its meaning no longer to the exodus but to his death and resurrection. His words given to us on the gospels express this redirection: This is my Body given for you; This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant which will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me.

And we also need to remember that, as has been mentioned several times in this series of articles, that the structure of the Eucharist comes from the actions of Jesus at the Last Supper which were the actions to be done by the Father at the Jewish ritual meal: Take, Bless, Break, Give.

By Fr Frank O’Loughlin