Today's gospel is the New Covenant gospel, comparing the covenant with
Moses to the new covenant with Christ. It is always unsettling to see
the bloody bond made with Moses. It looks primitive and savage, blood
all over an altar in the desert. And the new testament, with its
horrible crucifixion, is worse.
Somehow this event at the Last Supper civilizes it a bit, makes it more
abstract and cerebral. And social. There is a community aspect of this
covenant, a sharing with sustenance and enjoyment qualities.
The Church itself has never seemed clear on this. For years the mass was
celebrated as a symbolic recreation of the crucifixion, the priest with
his back to the congregation as their representative, the focus on the
recreated death of Christ. Now, the altar is turned around, the priest a
fellow participant, and the emphasis is upon the Last Supper, not the
crucifixion.
It's as if Christ wanted us to put our bloody hands behind us.
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