What is so moving is the gift Jesus chose for us, a gift that would unite us to him forever. “This is my body, This is my blood”. It is not only the gift of his body, but of his blood. In the Torah no Jewish person is permitted to consume blood ‘because the life is in the blood”. (Lev. 17:11-14) Everyone knew that loss of blood in any creature results in death, and since it is God who gives life to all things, blood is not to be consumed. Even today, that taboo is observed in the way the animal is dispatched and in the recipes for serving meat, which must not allow for any blood, for life is in the blood.
In that Last supper, Jesus’ gift meant a sacred breeching of that Law. And it would have been the very first time the apostles partook of what they were to understand was the Lord’s blood, his very life joined to their own ‘for the life is in the blood.” This is what Jesus thought to give us, his goodbye gift, that unites us to him and to each other in his love, and united to him in this way , we bring his life and love to our world, until we all meet him face to face in that joyous reunion.
–Sister Wendy Cotter CSJ
Images: Rey Proenza/Unsplash
