Episode 80: Year B – Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord
In this episode, we focus on two details found in the first and second readings, along with the Gospel, for this upcoming Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord, Year B. Both of them pertain to the Eucharist. The detail in the first reading, taken from Exodus 24:3-8, overlaps with the one detail in the Gospel that we’re going to focus on—“the blood of the covenant.” For the second reading, we focus on the teaching that Christ has entered the heavenly sanctuary with his blood once for all and its relation to the Catholic understanding of the Mass as Christ’s sacrifice.
Hey everyone,
Welcome to The Sunday Catholic Word, a podcast where we reflect on the upcoming Sunday Mass readings and pick out the details that are relevant for explaining and defending our Catholic faith.
I’m Karlo Broussard, staff apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers, and the host for this podcast.
In this episode, we’re going to focus on two details found in the first and second readings, along with the Gospel, for this upcoming Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord, Year B. All of them pertain to the Eucharist. The detail in the first reading, taken from Exodus 24:3-8, overlaps with the one detail in the Gospel that we’re going to focus on—“the blood of the covenant.” For the second reading, we’re going to focus on the teaching that Christ has entered the heavenly sanctuary with his blood once for all and its relation to the Catholic understanding of the Mass as Christ’s sacrifice.
Since the detail in the first reading re-occurs in the Gospel reading, I’m going to save it for our treatment of the Gospel and start with the second reading, which is taken from Hebrews 9:11-15. The author states the following,
When Christ came as high priest
of the good things that have come to be,
passing through the greater and more perfect tabernacle
not made by hands, that is, not belonging to this creation,
he entered once for all into the sanctuary,
not with the blood of goats and calves
but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.
For if the blood of goats and bulls
and the sprinkling of a heifer’s ashes
can sanctify those who are defiled
so that their flesh is cleansed,
how much more will the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God,
cleanse our consciences from dead works
to worship the living God.
For this reason he is mediator of a new covenant:
since a death has taken place for deliverance
from transgressions under the first covenant,
those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.
The one detail that I want to highlight for this upcoming Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord is the statement, “he entered once for all into the sanctuary, not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption” (v.12).
The sanctuary that the author is speaking of is the heavenly sanctuary, which he says in 8:2 is “the true tent . . . set up not by man but by the Lord.” And notice Jesus takes his blood into this sanctuary. Why?
Well, as the author of Hebrews says in 8:3, “For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; hence it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer.” The blood that Jesus takes into the heavenly sanctuary is that which he will offer to the Father as his sacrifice, thus fulfilling his high priestly ministry.
Surely, though, this offering of his blood can’t be a different offering other than the one offering that he offered on the cross—“once and for all,” to quote Hebrews 7:27. Therefore, it must be the same offering of his blood on the cross made present to the Father in the heavenly sanctuary, just in a different mode or manner.
Why is this important?
Many Protestants object to the Catholic understanding of the Mass as the re-presentation of the one sacrifice of Christ. But if a Protestant is going to have a problem with the idea itself (the making present of the one sacrifice of Christ in an unbloody manner), then he’s going to have to have a problem with the author of Hebrews’ teaching that Christ makes his single offering of blood present to the Father in the heavenly sanctuary in an unbloody manner.
Now, whether the Mass is actually the making present of Christ’s one offering of blood is a separate question. But, at least, a Protestant shouldn’t be opposed to the principle since it has biblical precedent.
Okay, let’s now move to the Gospel reading, which is basically Mark’s account of the Last Supper, taken from Mark,
On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread,
when they sacrificed the Passover lamb,
Jesus’ disciples said to him,
“Where do you want us to go
and prepare for you to eat the Passover?”
He sent two of his disciples and said to them,
“Go into the city and a man will meet you,
carrying a jar of water.
Follow him.
Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house,
‘The Teacher says, “Where is my guest room
where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”‘
Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready.
Make the preparations for us there.”
The disciples then went off, entered the city,
and found it just as he had told them;
and they prepared the Passover.
While they were eating,
he took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, gave it to them, and said,
“Take it; this is my body.”
Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them,
and they all drank from it.
He said to them,
“This is my blood of the covenant,
which will be shed for many.
Amen, I say to you,
I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine
until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
Then, after singing a hymn,
they went out to the Mount of Olives.
There are two details here that would be worth highlighting. But due to time constraints I will have to pass over them and only mention them here.
One is the timing of the Last supper: “On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover Lamb.” This detail often is seen to be in conflict with John’s time cue for Jesus’ trial and passion in John 18:28, where he says the Jews who led Jesus to Pilate didn’t enter the praetorium “so that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passover.”
It would seem that John puts Jesus’ trial before he eats the Passover whereas Mark clearly puts the trial after he eats the Passover meal. I’m not going to reconcile these two texts here due to time constraints. So, if you’re interested in the details, check out my article “The Timing of Jesus’ Trial” at catholic.com.
The other detail is Jesus’ reference to the contents of the chalice as “fruit of the vine” after the words of consecration. It’s argued by some Protestants that this proves the contents of the chalice weren’t his real and substantial blood. If it were, Jesus wouldn’t referred to it as “fruit of the vine.”
For my response to this objection, check out my book Meeting the Protestant Response: How to Answer Common Comebacks to Catholic Arguments.
Now, the detail that I want to focus on is the “blood of the covenant.” This is a direct allusion to the ratification ceremony of the Sinaitic Covenant in Exodus 24:3-8, which is the first reading. In Exodus 24:8, we read that Moses “took the blood and sprinkled it upon the people, and he said: This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.”
We know this is thew ratifying ceremony of the Sinaitic covenant because Hebrews 9:18 says so. Speaking of the event of Exodus 24, the author states, “even the first covenant was not ratified without blood.”
What I want to highlight is the author of Hebrews’ emphasis on the “blood.” The ratification ceremony of the Old Covenant involved real and substantial blood. This makes sense given that blood symbolized the covenantal bond that would come into existence between the two parties, which would be a family bond akin to blood relatives. Also, blood was considered sacred. Amere symbol of blood would not suffice for such covenant making deals.
Now, it’s this Old Testament backdrop that Jesus intends to be an interpretative key for what he’s doing at the Last Supper. He’s revealing that the Last Supper is the ratifying ceremony for the New Covenant. And if it’s the ratifying ceremony for the New Covenant, then it must involve real and substantial blood.
Why?
Consider this line of reasoning: If real blood was used to ratify the Old Covenant at its ratifying ceremony, and the Last Supper is the ratifying ceremony for the New Covenant, then why would our Lord use something less sacred than blood—mere wine—to ratify something more sacred than the Old Covenant, namely, the New Covenant? The answer is that he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t use something less sacred to ratify that which is more sacred.
So, the phrase “blood of the covenant” provides us reason to conclude that the contents of the chalice at the Last Supper was not merely a symbol of Jesus’ blood but was truly his blood.
Now, Protestant James White, in his book The Roman Catholic Controversy (pg. 176), tries to turn the table on us here and appeals to the “blood of the covenant” as evidence that the contents of the chalice are not his real and substantial blood.
In his argument, White directs our attention to the fact that “the blood of the covenant was blood from a sacrificial victim, not a living person.” Had the blood not been shed, he argues, it wouldn’t have been the blood of the covenant.
In light of this, White argues that because Christ’s blood had not been shed yet on Calvary when he spoke of the substance in the cup as his “blood of the covenant,” the contents of the cup couldn’t have been the blood of the New Covenant, for the blood of the New Covenant is Christ’s blood shed on the cross. Given this premise, White concludes that the contents of the cup “have to be symbols,” symbols of Jesus’ blood that would be shed the next day.
I deal with this objection in my book Meeting the Protestant Response. But I figured it would be good to share my responses with you here anyway.
One response is that the issue of whether real blood is present is different from the issue of whether that blood presently has the status of being “blood of the covenant.” Consider the victims on Sinai, for example. Before they were slain, their blood didn’t have the status of being the “blood of the covenant.” But that doesn’t mean the blood present in the victims wasn’t real blood.
Christ’s blood at the Last Supper could still be present in the chalice (per Jesus’ words, “this is my blood”) even if it didn’t yet have the status of being the “blood of the covenant,” since he hadn’t been slain yet. And that’s all the doctrine of transubstantiation requires: the belief that Christ’s real and substantial blood was made present in the cup at the Last Supper.
Whether his real blood is technically the “blood of the covenant” at that moment doesn’t bear on whether the wine became Jesus’ blood. We could suppose, for the sake of argument, Jesus was simply speaking about the substance in the cup as his real blood that would soon become “blood of the covenant,” but it would still be real blood.
Another way we can respond is to challenge the assumption that Christ’s blood at the Last Supper cannot be described—even at this stage—as the “blood of the covenant.” There are two ways that we can do this.
First, if it is true that Jesus’ blood is truly present in the cup at the Last Supper, then his blood is the blood that will be used to solemnize the New Covenant on the cross. It thus can be described as “blood of the covenant,” whether or not the covenant has been solemnized yet, because it is the blood of the covenant. The same would be true of the blood of the offerings Moses used for the original covenant the day before they were slain and their blood was used to solemnize it.
Second, the objection wrongly assumes that Christ’s blood can’t be the “blood of the covenant” because Christ’s sacrifice hadn’t been offered yet on the cross. Why should we believe that Christ’s redemptive sacrifice is restricted to just the moment of his death? If we consider what the Bible teaches about sacrifices, there is good reason to think that Jesus’ redemptive sacrifice was not restricted to his death.
For example, death was a key moment in Old Testament sacrifices, but they didn’t begin at the moment of death. The sacrificial rituals consisted of many things that preceded death: bringing the animal into the sacred precincts (Exod. 29:42; Lev. 1:2-3), examining the animals for any blemish, placing hands on its head (Lev. 1:4; 4:15), the confession of sins by both the priest (Lev. 16:21) and the penitent (Lev. 5:5), etc. All of these things made up the one sacrifice.
Moreover, the New Testament teaches us that there’s such a thing as a living sacrifice. Paul tells the Romans, “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom. 12:1). Elsewhere, he considers the Gentiles as his “offering” in his “priestly service of the gospel of God” (Rom. 15:16).
This wide range of what’s possible for sacrifices in God’s plan of salvation shows that Christ’s redemptive sacrifice may not have been restricted to his death but may have begun while he was alive.
So did it?
The Catechism of the Catholic Church answers in the affirmative: “Redemption comes to us above all through the blood of his cross, but this mystery is at work throughout Christ’s entire life” (517; emphasis added). Even if an individual doesn’t accept such an expansive understanding of Christ’s sacrifice, Protestant theologians also identify Jesus’ sacrifice with his Passion as a whole.
On this we can agree: his redemptive sacrifice may reasonably include the sufferings that immediately led up to it and were intentionally directed toward the Crucifixion. The obvious example is his agony in the Garden where he requests three times that the Father remove the cup of suffering from him (Matt. 26:39-46).
Was Jesus already suffering at the time of the Last Supper (the relevant time frame for our purposes)?
Consider that Jesus would have been in distress over Judas’ betrayal, which he predicts at the Last Supper (Matt. 26:24-25; Mark 14:18-21; Luke 22:21-23; John 13:21-30). In John’s account, we even get a hint at Jesus’ inner suffering when he tells Judas, “What you are going to do, do quickly” (John 13:27). This suggests that Jesus isn’t looking forward to what is to come and—like most of us—wants to complete his Passion as quickly as possible without prolonging it.
Now, because this suffering at the Last Supper is directed to the cross we can reasonably say it’s a part of his redemptive sacrifice. And since Christ’s redemptive sacrifice is the New Covenant institution sacrifice, we can conclude that the New Covenant redemptive sacrifice has already begun at the Last Supper.
Thus, at the time of the Last Supper Christ’s blood already had the status of “blood of the covenant”: the real and substantial blood of the New Covenant sacrificial victim present in the cup and the New Covenant redemptive sacrifice. Yes, the sacrifice will culminate in his death the next day. But his blood is still blood of the New Covenant sacrifice, and thus reasonably can have the status of “blood of the covenant.”
Conclusion
Well, my friends, that does it for our reflection on the readings for this upcoming Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord, Year B. The details present in the readings provide opportunities to reflect on both aspects of the Eucharist: the sacrificial dimension and the Real Presence.
As always, thank you for subscribing to the podcast. And please be sure to tell your friends about it and invite them to subscribe as well at sundaycatholicword.com. You might also want to check out the other great podcasts in our Catholic Answers podcast network: Cy Kellet’s Catholic Answers Focus, Trent Horn’s The Counsel of Trent, Joe Heschmeyer’s Shameless Popery, and Jimmy Akin’s A Daily Defense, all of which can be found at catholic.com.
One last thing: if you’re interested in getting some cool mugs and stickers with my logo, “Mr. Sunday podcast,” go to shop.catholic.com.
I hope you have a blessed Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, Year B. Until next time, God Bless!