‘This Is My Body.’ (1st Homily on the Betrayal of Judas, Benedictine Edition, T. Ii., P. 381.)
Then the disciples came to Him. Then. When? When these things were taking place, and the betrayal was effected, and Judas destroyed himself, the disciples came to Him, saying, Where wilt Thou that we prepare to eat the Pasch? Mark you the difference between disciple and disciples? The one betrays his Lord, the others busy themselves with preparing the Pasch; the one makes a bargain, the others minister for His table: both the one and the others had enjoyed the same miracles, the same teaching, the same authority. Now, how do they differ? In the will: this is everywhere the cause, both of all good and all evil. Where wilt Thou that we prepare to eat the Pasch? Then was that same evening. As Our Lord had no house of His own, they said to Him, Where wilt Thou that we prepare to eat the Pasch? We have no settled dwelling-place, neither tent nor house. Let those who dwell in splendid houses, and spacious courts, and large precincts be taught that Christ had not where to lay His head. Therefore they asked, Where wilt Thou that we prepare to eat the Pasch? What Pasch? This was not our Pasch, but still the Jews’ Pasch; it was this Jewish Pasch which they prepared; Our Lord Himself prepared ours. Not only did He prepare it Himself, but He became our Pasch. Where wilt Thou that we prepare for Thee to eat the Pasch? This was the Jewish Pasch which had begun in Egypt. Now, why did Christ partake of it? Because He accomplished all the observances of the law. At His baptism He said: Thus it becomes us to fulfil all justice. I came to redeem man from the malediction of the law. For God sent His own Son, made of woman, made under the law, that He might redeem those who were bound by it, and might put an end to the law. Now, to prevent anyone from saying that He abolished the law because He was unable to fulfil it, as being burdensome, and hard, and oppressive, having first Himself carried it out, He then dissolved it. On this account He held the Pasch also, for the Pasch was an ordinance of the law. And why did the law order the eating of the Pasch? The Jews were ungrateful towards their benefactor, and so immediately after the benefits they forgot God’s precepts. When they came out of Egypt, and saw the waters parted, and again closed, and a thousand other wonders, they said, Let us make to ourselves gods who may go before us. What say you? You still touch the wonders with your hands, and have you forgotten the benefactor? Since, therefore, they were thus without feeling or understanding, God kept alive the memory of His gifts by the ordinance of feasts, and He commanded the Pasch to be sacrificed, so that if your son ask you, ‘What is this Pasch?’ you may answer, ‘Our forefathers in Egypt sprinkled their doors with the blood of the lamb, lest the angel of destruction, when he came, should enter in and smite with the plague’. Thus the feast was a perpetual memorial of salvation. Moreover, not only did these feasts benefit them by keeping fresh the memory of graces in the past, but something much more, for they foreshadowed what was to come. That lamb, indeed, was the figure of another Lamb, a spiritual Lamb, and that sheep of another Sheep. The one was a shadow, the other the reality. When the Sun of Justice appeared, the shadow forthwith ceased, for at sunrise the shadows depart. Consequently, at that table itself, each Pasch takes place—the Pasch of the figure and the Pasch of the reality. Just as painters use one and the same canvas for outlining their subject and depicting shadow, and then add colouring to make it life-like, so did Christ act. At one and the same table He showed forth the typical Pasch, and set up the true Pasch. Where wilt Thou that we prepare for Thee to eat the Pasch? It was then the Jewish Pasch, but when the sun appears let the lamp be extinguished; with the advent of truth let the shadow languish.
I say these things to the Jews since they seem to celebrate a Pasch, since the uncircumcised in heart put forward their unleavened bread with a gross mind. Tell me, O Jew, how do you sacrifice the Pasch? The temple is destroyed, the altar has been taken away, the holy of holies has been trampled under foot, all show of sacrifice has ceased. Wherefore, then, do you venture to carry out practices so illegal? You went out once into Babylon, and there those who had taken you captive said, Sing us a song of Sion, and you would not. And David spoke with the same intent: We sat beside the waters of Babylon and wept; we hung up our organs on the willows in the midst of it, that is, our instruments, harps, lyres, and the rest. Men of old used these things, and thus sung hymns, and when they went into captivity took them so as to have a reminder of their life in their own country, not to use them. For there, he says, they who held us captive asked us for words of songs, and we said, How shall we sing the song of the Lord in a strange land? What! you will not sing the song of the Lord in a strange land, and yet will you celebrate the Pasch of the Lord in a strange land! What ingratitude and iniquity! Because those who constrained them were enemies, they dared not even sing a psalm in a strange land. And now of themselves, whereas no man puts force upon them, they wage war against God. Do you see how their unleavened bread is unclean and their feast illegal? Now there is no Jewish Pasch. There was one then, but it is dissolved now, and the spiritual Pasch came, which was given then by Christ. For as they were eating and drinking, the Evangelist says, taking bread, He broke and said: This is My body, which is broken for you unto the remission of sins. The initiated understand these words. Then, taking the chalice, He said: This is My Blood, which is shed for many unto the remission of sins. And Judas was present as Christ spoke thus. This is the very Body which you have sold for thirty pieces of silver, O Judas; this is the very Blood which you have just shamefully bartered to the unfeeling Pharisees. O loving kindness of Christ! O foolish madness of Judas! On the one hand Judas sold Him for thirty pieces of silver, whilst Christ even after this did not refuse to give that Blood, which had been betrayed, to the traitor for the remission of his sins, if he had so willed. And Judas was there, and he partook of the sacred table. For, as Our Lord had washed his feet, together with the other disciples’, so did he eat with them of the sacred table, in order that he might have no excuse for remaining obdurate. Our Lord did everything in His power, yet Judas persisted in his wickedness.
But it is now time for us to approach that tremendous table. Let us, therefore, all go to it with becoming sobriety and watchfulness. Let there be no Judas here, no guilty man, no one infected with poison, no man with one thing in his mouth and another in his mind. The same Christ is now here Who prepared that table. And He it is Who is now preparing it. For it is not a man who makes the offerings become the Body and Blood of Christ, but the very Christ for us crucified.21 Fulfilling what he represents, the priest stands there, speaking those words; the power and grace of them are God’s. This is My Body, he says, and this word transforms what lies before him;22 and just as the words, Increase and multiply and fill the earth, were once spoken and endue our nature through all time with fruitfulness, so those other words once spoken from that time till to-day and until His coming, make the sacrifice over each table in the churches complete. Therefore, let no hypocrite approach, no one filled with sin, no one with poison in his mind, that he may not receive judgment to himself, for then, too, Judas had partaken of the oblation when the devil leapt into him; not that the devil despised the Lord’s Body, but Judas for his shameful conduct. This was to teach you that the devil continually attacks and assails those who unworthily partake of the divine mysteries, as he did Judas. For honourable things profit the good, but inflict a greater punishment on those who abuse the use of them. I say this not to terrify but to fortify you. Let there be no Judas, then; let no one enter in poisoned with evil. For the sacrifice is spiritual food; and just as bodily food, when received by a stomach which has bad humours, strengthens disease, not from its own nature but because of that stomach’s weakness, so does it usually happen with the spiritual mysteries. They, too, when received by a soul full of wickedness, wither it up and corrupt it the more, not by their own nature, but through the weakness of the participating soul. Let no one, therefore, indulge in bad thoughts; let us rather cleanse our mind, for we are approaching an immaculate sacrifice; let us make our souls holy. This may be done even in one day. How? If you have anything against an enemy cast out your anger, cure your wound, give up your enmity, in order that you may receive a healing from that table, for you are approaching a tremendous and all-holy sacrifice. Reverence the reason which prompts this offering. Christ lies slain before you. Why was He slain, and on what account? That He might bring about peace between the things of heaven and the things of earth; that He might make you the friend of angels, and reconcile you to the God of all; and that, whereas you were a foe and an enemy, He might transform you into His friend. He gave up His own life for those who hated Him. You continue in enmity with your fellow-servant, and how will you be able to approach the table of peace? He did not refuse even to die for you. Will you not put away for your own sake your anger against your fellow-servant? What excuse has this conduct? ‘He has treated me badly,’ you say, ‘and has been most grasping.’ What is this? It was a sheer money loss, but he was far from wounding you as Judas did Our Lord. Yet He gave that very blood which poured from Him for the salvation of those who shed it. What have you to put against this? If you do not forgive your enemy you have wounded not him but yourself. You have often done him some harm in this life, but you have prepared for yourself a relentless sentence in the enduring day of eternity. For nothing is so hateful to God as a revengeful man, an unforgiving heart, and an angered mind. Listen to what He says: When thou offerest thy gift at the altar, and as thou standest there, rememberest that thy brother hath anything against thee, take thy gift from the altar, and going away, be reconciled to thy brother, and then offer thy gift. What? Do you tell me that I must forgive? ‘I do, indeed,’ He says; ‘this sacrifice was instituted in order that you and your brother should be at peace.’ If, therefore, it was instituted that you might be at peace with your brother, and you do not enjoy peace, it is idle for you to take part in the sacrifice, and it has been instituted in vain as far as you are concerned. Do, then, in the first place, that for which the sacrifice is offered, and then you will enjoy its full benefit. The Son of God came down from heaven that He might reconcile our nature to its Lord, and on this account not only did He come, but wished also to make us who should do the same things participators of His Name. Blessed are the peacemakers, He says, for they shall be called the sons of God. That which the only begotten Son of God did, do you also according to your human power, by becoming a bond of peace to yourself and to others. This is why He calls you who are a peacemaker a son of God; this is why, in the time of sacrifice, He is mindful of no other commandment than that of reconciliation with a brother, showing that it is the greatest of all. Would that I could go on with the argument, but what I have said is sufficient for those who are here present, if they will lay it to heart. Let us always be mindful of these words, beloved brethren, and of the holy kiss of peace, and of the most sacred embrace which we give to each other. For this it is which holds our minds together, and makes us all one body, since we all partake of one Body. Let us then blend ourselves into one body, not mixing our bodies, but uniting our souls in the bond of charity; thus we shall be able to enjoy the table set before us with confidence. For even if we should be righteous a thousand times over, and yet have revengeful spirits, all is vanity and deception, and we shall be powerless to gain fruits of salvation here. Recognising this, let us put off all anger, and, purifying our conscience, let us with all meekness and humility approach the table of Christ, to Whom, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, be all glory, honour, and power, now and for ever! Amen.