Meditations Before Mass
by Romano Guardini

XXIV. The Memorial of the New Covenant

How DID Jesus establish the act by which He passed on to His followers the memorial of His Person and redemptory fate? According to St. Luke He did so as follows:

Now the day of the Unleavened Bread came, on which the passover had to be sacrificed. And he sent Peter and John, saying, "Go and prepare for us the passover that we may eat it." But they said, "Where cost thou want us to prepare it?" And he said to them, "Behold, on your entering the city, there will meet you a man carrying a pitcher of water; follow him into the house into which he goes. And you shall say to the master of the house, 'The Master says to thee, "Where is the guest chamber, that I may eat the passover there with my disciples?"' And he will show you a large upper room furnished; there make ready." And they went, and found just as he had told them; and they prepared the passover.

And when the hour had come, he reclined at table, and the twelve apostles with him. And he said to them, "I have greatly desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer; for I say to you that I will eat of it no more, until it has been fulfilled in the kingdom of God." And having taken a cup, he gave thanks and said, "Take this and share it among you; for I say to you I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God comes."

And having taken bread, he gave thanks and broke, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body, which is being given for you; do this in remembrance of me." In like manner he took also the cup after the supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which shall be shed for you" (Luke 22:7-20).

It is the feast of the Passover, which in accordance with the law is celebrated annually before the great Easter Sabbath as a fulfillment of the divine command recorded in the twelfth chapter of the Book of Exodus. For centuries the Hebrews had been living in slavery in Egypt. Then God ordered Moses to command Pharaoh to liberate them. Pharaoh had refused, and the mysterious plagues sent by God to overcome his resistance had affected him only briefly. Now the last and most dreadful of the plagues, designed to break his stubbornness, was at hand: the death of all the firstborn in the land, of men and of beasts. But to prove to His people that He was the Lord and to burn the memory of the liberation deep into their consciousness, God gave the event a form that could not fail to impress itself on the mind and the emotions alike. He commanded every Hebrew family to slaughter a lamb and to paint the doorposts with its blood, so that the angel of death on his way through the land would see the sign and pass over. (See Exodus 12:11-14.) Not only was the memory of this event to be kept alive by record and recollection, it was to be celebrated each year in liturgical ceremony. Thus God instituted the feast of the Passover, or Pasch.

At first the celebration had the form of a grave memorial; but gradually it assumed the character of a joyous festival. The meal grew increasingly rich. Those at table no longer stood, girt for the journey and staff in hand, but reclined comfortably; no longer did they eat in the originally prescribed haste, they dined in untroubled leisure.

The ritual of the feast was roughly as follows. To begin with, the host mixed and blessed wine in a beaker, which was then passed around. Then the first course was eaten and the second beaker was blessed and circulated. After that the host broke the unleavened bread lying on the table and handed each guest a piece. For each he dipped a small bunch of bitter herbs into a bowl and proffered it. Now a number of psalms were recited and the lamb was consumed, followed by a third beaker and a fourth. More psalms concluded the celebration. During the meal the host described the great event that was being commemorated in such a manner that those present could imagine themselves back in the days of Moses.

Jesus broke this pattern. He who knew Himself Lord of the law and the covenant put an end to the thought hitherto commemorated and established instead a new memorial. Similarly He put an end to the covenant that had been established by the event commemorated, and He sealed the new covenant of redemption with His death.

We can see the exact place where Jesus intervened. The cup mentioned by St. Luke in the foregoing passage is the third beaker of the Pasch. One interpreter beautifully complements the Lord's words, "Take this and share it among you" with "for the last time according to ancient rite." Then Jesus takes bread, offers thanks, breaks it and gives it to them; again the act which the host had always performed, only now it receives a new significance in Jesus' accompanying words: "This is my body, which is being given for you." Whereupon He takes the cup, "after the supper," as the host had always taken it, blesses it, thanks God, and offers it-again with the new significance of His words: "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which shall be shed for you."

The old covenant, sealed with the blood of sacrificial animals, is at an end. Now a new covenant has been sealed, again with blood, that of Christ. He Himself is offered up, like the lamb they have just slaughtered and consumed: His body, "which is being given for you"; His blood, "which shall be shed for you."

Here too it is a commemoration: "do this in remembrance of me." St. Paul continues the thought in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, in which he writes: "For as often as you shall eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord, until he comes" (11:26).

That is the event upon which the institution of the Mass rests. Christ Himself, His love and His redeeming fate are its contents, which He poured into the mold of the ancient covenant, now brought to completion. Only the form remains, the ceremonial supper. Henceforth the new covenant is there to contain those contents to the end of history, "until He comes."