Heed me, and you shall eat well, you shall delight in rich fare. Come to me heedfully, listen, that you may have life.
So wrote Isaiah about heeding and eating. The psalmist echoed Isaiah:
The hand of the Lord feeds us;
he answers all our needs.
The eyes of all look hopefully to you,
and you give them their food in due season;
you open your hand
and satisfy the desire of every living thing.
Christ opened His hand and blessed bread. Then He miraculously multiplied it. And the 5,000, as Isaiah prophesized, received grain without paying.
Notice how the distribution of the food worked. It started with an amusing command from Christ, who, knowing the disciples had no food, told them: “Give them some food yourselves.” After they explained the situation, which Christ then remedied, again take note: Christ gave the food to His disciples—who in turn gave the food to the people.
Do you see what Christ was putting in place during this miracle, the only miracle recounted in all four gospels? Christ’s multiplication miracle was a foretaste of the Most Holy Eucharist. And it involved a practice-run for what would become the new Christian priesthood, without which there would be no Eucharist.
Priestly mediation occurs all over the Old Testament, which Christ did not abolish, but fulfill.
And so, at the Last Supper, after Christ took bread in His hands and solemnly stated, “This is my Body,” He commanded His new priests to “Do this in memory of me.” And what was He saying there? He was saying, “Give them some food yourselves.”
Eyes and hands are featured in the passages from Isaiah, Sunday’s Psalm, and the multiplication passage in the Gospel, for in it, Christ took bread and looked up to heaven. Note that He also looked up at the Last Supper, directly before He changed bread and wine into His Body and Blood.
This action of Christ is re-presented (made present) at Holy Mass. And it happens during the high point, the climax of Mass, which is also the most ancient part, known in our Latin Rite as the Roman Canon. Since 1970, we have known the Canon, meaning “fixed” or “unchanging,” as Eucharistic Prayer I, because in the late 1960s, a small, secretive committee in Rome made up three new Eucharistic Prayers (II, III and IV).
In the Canon (Eucharistic Prayer I), it states that Christ looked up; He raised His eyes to heaven. Do you know it was a rubric (rule) for centuries for the priest at Mass to look up as he prayed those words? And why not? The priest was standing in for Christ, repeating His very words. It only made sense to mirror His bodily actions.
I look up, I raise my eyes to the heavens, toward the crucifix above the altar, directly before the consecration of the bread and wine. I do that because it is still the rubrics to do so when praying the Roman Canon. It is not a rubric in the three new prayers from the 1960s. They removed it. Why? What was the point of discarding a centuries-old rubric that is modeled on Christ and Scripture?
What about Christ’s hands? In the ancient Roman Canon, right before it states, “with eyes raised to heaven,” it states, “He took bread into His holy and venerable hands.” The Latin is venerabiles, meaning “commanding respect, worthy of reverence.” Now, this is interesting: The three new Eucharistic Prayers from the 1960s do not mention Christ’s eyes or His hands. Why not? Also, in 1969, they replaced precious chalice with cup. Why?
What kind of image does “cup” conjure up in your mind? A cup of coffee or tea? A cup of cold water? The idea in 1969 must have been to sell a poor, humble “Jesus of the people” who would never have dared use something as ostentatious as a precious chalice. Never mind the fact Christ celebrated the Last Supper (First Mass) in the large upper room of some wealthy person’s home located on some prime real estate in Jerusalem. Odds are the owner had some elite vessels for special occasions.
In 2011, thanks to Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, “cup” was changed back to what it always was: “chalice.”
This really is not all that complicated, is it? Christ touched the lame and the sick with His hands, and He healed them. One can then deduce that the Man had holy and venerable hands. He took bread in those hands and turned it into His Body. He did the same with wine, turning it into His Blood, the precious liquid that is our ticket out of hell. Does that not merit a precious chalice? Or does a mere cup suffice?
What about your hands? Are your hands holy and venerable? When you were a child, did your mother ever say to you: “Don’t touch it”? At the time your childish brain may have not understood her command. But as you grew older, you saw it was for your own good and protection.
It’s interesting about being a child. Christ stated, “Whoever humbles himself like a little child will be greater in the kingdom of heaven.” The Psalm states, “As a child has rest in its mother’s arms, even so my soul.” The Church is our mother. We call her Mother Church. And for most of her 2000-year history, do you know what she told her children regarding the Holy Eucharist? She told us, “Don’t touch it.” She did that for own good and protection.
What about my hands? Are my priest hands holy and venerable? Any more than yours might be? My hands were consecrated with holy oil by a bishop, a direct successor of the Apostles. Does that make me holier than you? Not necessarily. It does however make me different, not just in degree, but in essence. I have been set aside for a special mission. St. Thomas Aquinas explains:
The dispensing of Christ’s body belongs to the priest for three reasons. First, because…he consecrates in the person of Christ…Secondly, because the priest is the appointed intermediary between God and the people, hence as it belongs to him to offer the people’s gifts to God, so it belongs to him to deliver the consecrated gifts to the people. Thirdly, because out of reverence toward this sacrament nothing touches it but what is consecrated, hence the corporal and the chalice are consecrated, and likewise the priest’s hands, for touching this sacrament.
Still, why should I, a sinner just like you, get to touch the Eucharist when for most of Catholic history, you the lay faithful could not? Think on that, but then understand: It’s not really my hands we are talking about here. The hands are Christ’s. Christ is the one making this miracle happen, not me. I am just standing in for Him. The Psalm states: “The hand of the Lord feeds us.” It doesn’t say “Fr. Drew feeds us.”
Another Psalm has the Lord give the command: “Open your mouth and I will fill it” (81:10). It’s interesting that everyone started filling their own mouths and touching the Eucharist with their own hands shortly after contraception became widespread practice. This grave sin led to drastic increases in other grave sins and soul-destroying behaviors. Similarly, the touching of the Eucharist with unconsecrated hands has led to profanation and sacrilege against Christ’s Body and Blood. It has led to an increase in the soul-destroying behavior of people eating their own condemnation (1 Cor. 11:29).
My friends, the hand of the Lord feeds us, so take heart. Christ opens His hand and fulfills the desire of the living. But understand something very important: That only happens after He opens His holy and venerable hands to have spikes driven through them. Only after that divine bloodletting on the cross, made present at the Holy Sacrifice of Mass, does Christ tell His priests, “Give them some food yourselves.”
So, that is what we do, with elite vessels marked for the special occasion. At Mass we heed the Lord, and we eat well. We delight in rich fare, that we may have life.
Photo by Julia Michelle on Unsplash
