The New Pasch. (31st Homily on St. Matthew, LXXXI., Vol. Ii., P. 459.)
And whilst they were at supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke, and gave to His disciples, and said: Take ye and eat: this is My Body. And taking the chalice, He gave thanks, and gave to them, saying: Drink ye all of this; for this is my Blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins. Consider what great hardness of heart the traitor showed. Partaking of the mysteries, he remained the same, and enjoying that most tremendous Banquet, he was not converted. This Luke plainly intimates when he says that after these things the devil entered into him, not despising the Lord’s Body, but scorning the traitor’s shamelessness. For his sin was the greater for two reasons: that he approached the mysteries with such a mind, and that, approaching them, he grew no better. Neither fear, nor gratitude, nor the honour received, had any influence over him. And although Christ knew all things, He did not forbid his approach in order to show you that He leaves no means of conversion untried. Therefore, both before this and after this, He continued to exhort and to check Judas both by actions and words, by fear and by kindness, by threat and by benefit. But nothing availed against that grievous sickness of his. Hence, leaving Judas to himself, He again reminds the disciples through the mysteries of His death as victim, and during the progress of the table discourses about the Cross, seeking, by His insistence in foretelling His passion, to find an entrance for it in their minds. If, with all that was done and foretold, they were troubled, what would they have suffered if they had heard none of these things? Whilst they were eating, He took bread and broke it. Why did he carry out this mystery at the time of the Pasch? In order to teach you everywhere that He is Himself the Lawgiver of the old dispensation, also, and that its ordinances were made to foreshadow these things. On this account He adds the reality to the type. The evening signified the fulness of time, and the end itself to which things were coming. He gives thanks, teaching us how we are to carry out this mystery, and showing us that He goes not unwillingly to the Cross. And He instructs us that, whatever we may suffer, we should bear it with thanksgiving, and opens out from this good hopes for us. For if the type released men from so grievous a slavery, how much more will the reality set the world free, and be bestowed for the blessing of our nature. For this reason He did not institute this mystery until the enactments of the Law were to cease, and He brings to a conclusion the chief of their feasts by translating them to another and a most awful Table, and says: Take and eat, this is My Body which is broken for many. How should they not have feared when they heard this? He had spoken to them often and much before on the same subject. Therefore, He no longer prepares them for it, for they had heard of it sufficiently; but He tells them the reason why He suffers—the remission of sins. He calls His Blood the Blood of the new Testament, that is, of the promise, of the gospel, and of the new law. For this both had been promised of old, and is the bond of the new Covenant. And as the old Covenant had sheep and heifers, so the new Covenant had the Lord’s Blood. Then He goes on to show them that He is about to die, and therefore He commemorates the Covenant, and recalls the old Covenant to their minds, for that too was consecrated through blood! And again He tells them why He is to die, which is shed for many unto the remission of sins, and He says: Do this for a commemoration of Me. Do you see how He leads them away and withdraws them from Jewish customs. ‘As you did that,’ He says, ‘for a commemoration of the wonders in Egypt, so do this for a commemoration of Me.’ That blood was shed to save the first-born sons: this Blood for the remission of the sins of the whole world. This is My Blood, He says, which is shed for the remission of sins. He said this to show by this also that His sufferings and His cross are a mystery, and again, to comfort His disciples through it. And as Moses had said: Let this be to you a perpetual memorial, so He said, For a commemoration of Me, until I come. And again, With desire I have desired to eat this Pasch, that is, ‘to give you the new gifts, that Pasch by which I intend to make you spiritual’. And He Himself drank of it. In order that men, hearing this, might not say: ‘How is this? Are we drinking blood and eating flesh?’ and then be troubled (for words of His on this subject had already disturbed them, and many had been scandalised by them); to remove, I say, their trouble, then also He did it first Himself, and led them gently to a participation of the mysteries. Therefore, He drank His own Blood. ‘How is this?’ you ask. ‘Did men of old do it?’ Certainly not. Therefore, He says: Do this, that He may draw them away from the other. For if this work the remission of sins, as indeed it does, the other is superfluous for the future. Now, as in the case of the Jews, so was it here. He bound up the commemoration of the benefit with the mystery, thereby stopping the mouths of heretics. For when they say, ‘How do we know that Christ suffered?’ amongst other arguments, we silence them also with the mysteries. If, indeed, Jesus did not die, what do the things involved in the rites symbolise?