For my notes on article 1 of Sacramentum Caritatis, go here.
2. In the sacrament of the altar, the Lord meets us, men and women created in God’s image and likeness (cf. Gen 1:27), and becomes our companion along the way. In this sacrament, the Lord truly becomes food for us, to satisfy our hunger for truth and freedom. Since only the truth can make us free (cf. Jn 8:32), Christ becomes for us the food of truth. With deep human insight, Saint Augustine clearly showed how we are moved spontaneously, and not by constraint, whenever we encounter something attractive and desirable. Asking himself what it is that can move us most deeply, the saintly Bishop went on to say: “What does our soul desire more passionately than truth?” (2) Each of us has an innate and irrepressible desire for ultimate and definitive truth. The Lord Jesus, “the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6), speaks to our thirsting, pilgrim hearts, our hearts yearning for the source of life, our hearts longing for truth. Jesus Christ is the Truth in person, drawing the world to himself. “Jesus is the lodestar of human freedom: without him, freedom loses its focus, for without the knowledge of truth, freedom becomes debased, alienated and reduced to empty caprice. With him, freedom finds itself.” (3) In the sacrament of the Eucharist, Jesus shows us in particular the truth about the love which is the very essence of God. It is this evangelical truth which challenges each of us and our whole being. For this reason, the Church, which finds in the Eucharist the very centre of her life, is constantly concerned to proclaim to all, opportune importune (cf. 2 Tim 4:2), that God is love.(4) Precisely because Christ has become for us the food of truth, the Church turns to every man and woman, inviting them freely to accept God’s gift.
I find it interesting that the Pope would bring up the Genesis passage about our being made in God’s image while saying that in the sacrament the Lord “comes to meet us” and “becomes our companion on the way.” These phrases bring up to my mind other passages of Genesis. The Hebrew word for “way” is halak, and it can mean way, as in Psalm 1:1. But it can also mean walk, and is in fact the word used in Gen 3:8 when it is said that the fallen Adam and Eve heard God “walking in the garden.” This was of course after they had eaten of the tree of the knowledge of (in the biblical sense of experiencing) good and evil. As a result of this meeting between our first parents and the Lord, Adam and Eve lost access to the tree of life and were banished from the Garden. The Eucharist is part of God’s reversal of that situation.
Consider this. St John tells us that the multiplication of the loaves and the discourse which followed it took place when “the Jewish Feast of Passover was at hand” (Jn 6:4). We know that in Jesus’ day the readings used in the synagogue liturgy near Passover were Genesis chapters 1-8. Now read Genesis chapters 2 and 3 and note how many times the word “eat” is related to “life” and “death”. Then read John’s Eucharistic discourse and do the same thing. Coincidence? While you’re at it, read also Exodus chapters 12 and 16; and Numbers chapter 11, again noting the themes. These passages were also used in the synagogue at Passover time. Interesting, ain’t it? Also, it makes you want to think twice about an unworthy reception of “the food of truth,” doesn’t it? (See Here)
Also, Jesus was crucified and rose again at Passover time. This is what John writes in 19:41-42:
41: Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb where no one had ever been laid.
42: So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, as the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.
The old Adam brought the curse of death upon himself and us and died outside the garden. But the Lord came to “meet us” and “became our companion along the way” of this life in our fallen world. Becoming a curse for us he died upon a tree (see Galatians 3:13), outside a garden and, within that garden, he came to new life.
Our old mother, the woman Eve, took the fruit from the tree and gave it to her husband, setting in action our fall. It is fitting, therefore, that our new mother Eve, the woman Mary, mother of Jesus, was there. For when the Word became flesh, the second Adam, he became the fruit of her womb, and it is this which hung upon the tree.
Don’t you wish you knew the Bible better? What’s stopping you? Get thee to an adoration chapel or an altar rail.
I want to say something about Jesus as the “food of truth”, but this will have to wait, my mind is starting to wander.
