Thursday, March 28, 2013

Maundy Thursday: "Partaking of the sacrificial body"

Again from catholicity and covenant:

Do the disciples understand the nature of the bond? Jesus has blessed his food, to be the body he will offer in his sacrifice; do they know that they are committed to membership in such a body as that?  A body flogged, broken, crucified - see, he crumbles the loaf before their eyes.  Do they perceive the new meaning in the ancient custom, the breaking of the bread?  Are they willing to be parts of such a body, are they willing that his body, with its sacrificial destiny, should be theirs?  The disciples were not yet fully willing, but they came to be, and so we all must; for if we do not want to be given and surrendered to God, why touch religion at all?  By partaking of the sacrificial body, we are to be made capable of sacrifice, taken up, as we are, into the sacrificial being of Christ.

From Austin Farrer's address "This is my Body", given at the 1958 Eucharistic Congress, in Said and Sung.

(The painting is Georges Rouault Christ and the Apostles.)

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