Working with the Word

Focusing the Gospel

Key words and phrases: eat the Passover, Take it, my body, they all drank, my blood, will be shed for many

To the point: “[E]at the Passover.” Jesus clearly places giving us his Body and Blood to eat and drink in the context of his ultimate passing over from death to life. His gift of the Eucharist is an ongoing expression of this total gift of self. We who partake of his Body and Blood, then, also participate in his Passover. In the Eucharist we both give over our lives and receive the fullness of Life.

Connecting the Gospel …

… to the Second Reading: The “blood of the covenant” sprinkled on the people by Moses is that of sacrificed bulls. The "blood of the covenant" Jesus gives is not that of an animal but his very own Blood given for the life of the world.

… to experience: When a couple offers one another the gift of self expressed in marriage vows, they pass over together into a new way of relating and being. Old ways must die. But new life is experienced. Eucharist is Jesus' ongoing gift of self to us, through which we continually pass over from old ways of being to new Life.

**From Saint Louis University