Blood On The Door Posts.

Dear friend in Christ.

On this Holy morning of Good Friday, the day God died for us, my heart is filled  with the desire to share with you this awesome mystery that paid for our sins and  brought us back to life. Yesterday, at the Mass of the last Supper, the Church celebrated the institution of the Holy Eucharist.  " Jesus, on the night when He was betrayed took a loaf of bread and when He had given thanks He broke it and said, 'This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way He took the cup also, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes." (1 Cor. 11. 23-26).
On this night we encounter again the command about eating which God gave to our first parents in the Garden. Only the command is now inverted. In Genesis we read. "You shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die." (Gen.2:17). But tonight, only a few hours before His death on the cross, He commands us to eat this bread which is His body, and drink this cup which is the cup of His blood. " Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood you have no life in you." (John 6:53.).
In today's Office of Reading, there is a reading from the letter to the Hebrews ( Heb 9:11-28.) explaining how God prepared His people in the old testament by commanding them to sacrifice an unblemished lamb and eat it, and also to sprinkle the blood of the lamb on their door posts to keep the angel of death away. St. John Chrysostom continues ( in the second reading.) by saying that the blood sprinkled on the door posts is a prefigurement of the blood of Christ smeared on our lips when we drink of the cup of His blood. Our lips being the doors of the temple of Christ.
Here we can understand what the Eucharistic St. Paul means when he says. " if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." (Rom 10:9). This is the true confession of faith, the saying of Amen at the moment of receiving the Body and Blood of the Risen Lord. A mystery hidden from unbelievers, but revealed to those who are being saved.

"How deep are the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How inscrutable His judgements, how unsearchable His ways."  Now, through His passion and death we can participate in the command to eat, so as to repair the damage done be the disobedient eating in the Garden.
As we celebrate God' gift of Himself on this Friday, let us meditate on the last moments of Our Lord on the cross, when He shed His blood to the last drop, and try to begin to understand how much He loves us.