Dr. Brant Pitre hopes his new book on the Jewish roots of the
Eucharist will help Catholics understand the “great gift” of the
sacrament, as well as their privileged role in the “divine drama” of
salvation history.
In a recent interview with CNA, Dr. Pitre – a professor of Sacred
Scripture at Louisiana's Notre Dame Seminary – discussed his latest
book, “Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist: Unlocking the
Secrets of the Last Supper,” which was released by Doubleday on Feb. 15.
Dr. Pitre said that “excitement” is beginning to hum over the book as
people are realizing that “not only is the Eucharist something that's
important in their personal lives,” but that all of salvation history
held “signs and shadows of what God was ultimately planning to give us
in the Eucharist.”
“It makes us realize that we are a part of something much bigger than
ourselves,” he said.
“We're part of a divine drama that has been in
place since the beginning of creation.”
The scholar explained that he was asked several years ago to give a
talk on the biblical and historical underpinnings of the Eucharist. What
he found during his research for the address, however, was “dynamite –
it was explosive,” he said.
“What I began to discover,” he said, “is that there were Jewish
expectations surrounding the Messiah” that foreshadowed the Eucharist.
Dr. Pitre recalled that as he studied the historical account of
Jewish hopes for the Messiah, three specific aspects of Jewish history
and liturgy “really stood out” to him.
The first, he said, was the belief among the Jewish people at the time that the Messiah would institute “a new Passover.”
The first, he said, was the belief among the Jewish people at the time that the Messiah would institute “a new Passover.”
Citing the words of Christ in the Gospel of
John, Chapter 6 – often called the Bread of Life discourse – Dr. Pitre
said that by telling his disciples to eat his flesh and drink his blood,
“Christ is revealing himself as the new Passover lamb.”
“What does that mean about the way we receive salvation?” he asked.
It means “we receive salvation not only through faith in him as the
Messiah but also by obedience to his command that we would eat the flesh
of the lamb.”
“I think it's an important point for Catholics to understand that the
Passover paves the road to our understanding of the Eucharist as really
being the flesh of the Lamb of God.”
A second aspect of Jewish expectation of the Messiah that stood out
to Dr. Pitre was the “belief that when the Messiah would come, one of
the ways you'd know who he was, was that he would bring new manna from
heaven.”
As described in Exodus 16, Moses gave the Israelites manna – bread from heaven – in the desert to feed them.
When Christ says in the Gospel of John “that the Eucharist is the new
manna,” this “tells us that the Eucharist is not just ordinary bread –
it's miraculous,” Dr. Pitre said.
“If the old manna from heaven was miraculous bread from heaven, then the new manna in the Eucharist can not simply be a symbol.”
“The manna helps us see that every single Mass, no matter how simple
or grand, is a miracle – the miracle of Christ pouring out his body from
the heavenly altar on to every altar in the world.”
The third Jewish expectation of the Messiah that Dr. Pitre found was that he “was going to build a new temple.”
The author explained that one of the most important temple sacrifices
for the Israelites was the “unbloody sacrifice known as the bread of
the presence.”
“The bread of the presence was this mysterious bread and wine that
was kept in the tabernacle,” which the rabbi's called the “bread of the
face of God,” he said.
“In the temple in Jesus' day they would actually take the bread out
of the temple when pilgrims would come for feasts – and they would lift
it so all the pilgrims could see – and they would say 'behold, God's
love for you,'” Dr. Pitre said, noting the similarities in the
exposition during the Mass.
“This bread of the presence really seemed to me to be a crystal clear
foreshadowing of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist,” he
noted.
Another echo of Jewish liturgy found in the Mass today, was standard
blessing of the bread and the wine said during a Seder, or a traditional
Passover meal.
Dr. Pitre recited the ancient prayers over the bread and wine
verbatim, saying “Blessed are you, O Lord God, king of the universe, who
creates the fruit of the vine. Blessed are you, O Lord God, who brings
forth the bread from the earth.”
“Do those sound familiar?” he asked, referencing the beginning of the offertory during the Mass.
“As a Catholic when you see these things, it resonates with you – it's all very close to your heart.”
He underscored that the Jewish people “saw the bread as a sign of the everlasting covenant between God and his people.”
“That's the same thing today with the Eucharist – it is a sign that God is with us, he's not abandoned us.”
Dr. Pitre said that understanding the Jewish roots of the Eucharist
helps show how “God has had in store for us, since the dawn of time, the
great gift that he gives us in the Eucharist.”
“It helps us to realize the great privilege we have to receive this gift – it's very humbling and powerful.”