Section III:

The Upper Room

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The love is in the food

There is a saying in many cultures that “the love is in the food.” This was never so true as for the bread that was broken in the Upper Room. For the bread is Jesus. As Pope Benedict XVI noted, “When Jesus speaks of his body, he is obviously not referring to the body as opposed to the soul or the spirit, but to the whole, flesh-and-blood person.” The Pope Emeritus then cited with approval the German theologian, Rudolph Pesch: “The disciples could understand that he was saying: this is I myself, the Messiah.” What the Apostles rightly understood became part of the Church’s deposit of faith, which has been celebrated through the ages and which we still proclaim today:

In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist “the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.” 

Mysterium fidei! Mystery of faith! When we “take and eat” in the Holy Mass, the love of God – substantially present in Christ – passes in mystery into us. In the Eucharist, Jesus has given what he commanded. Now, what he has done for us, we can do for others because it will be his love in us. “We love because he first loved us” (1 Jn 4:19). St. Teresa of Calcutta understood well that our “terrible hunger for love” could never be fully satisfied by another human being but only in the love divine, all loves excelling of the Holy Eucharist: “Nowhere on earth are we more welcomed or loved than by Jesus in the Eucharist.”

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From foot-washing to the breaking of the bread:

From Incarnation to Paschal Mystery

When Jesus laid aside his outer garment to wash his disciples’ feet, it signified how Jesus emptied himself in the Incarnation “coming in human likeness” (Phil 2:7). Yet only the breaking of the bread can bring us “to the end” of Jesus’s love (Jn 13:1) in the mystery that is called Paschal. The plunging into the passion, death and Resurrection is anticipated in scripture with the very words of what is called the “Institution Narrative”:

While they were eating, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his disciples said, ”Take and eat; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins” (Mt 26:26-28).

The “broken” body and the “shed” blood reveal to the disciples in the Upper Room that Jesus will be “obedient to death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:8). At the Last Supper, the Apostles were transported sacramentally to the altar of the cross, that is, to Good Friday. Such a profound mystery might lead us to ask:



But how can this be? Jesus, after all, is standing there in the midst of his disciples – what is he doing? He is bringing to fulfillment what he had said in the Good Shepherd discourse: “No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (Jn 10:18). His life will be taken from him on the Cross, but here he is already laying it down. He transforms his violent death into a free act of self-giving for others and to others.

(Source: archspmmainsite/Synod_Pastoral+Letter)