Daily Meditation: Thursday, March 24, 2005

Bread and wine - their rite of consecration originates with Melchizedek

03/24/2005

To understand the true dimension of Communion, it is necessary to go far back in time, all the way to Melchizedek who, for the first time, brought bread and wine to Abraham. For many Christians today, the consecration of bread and wine by the priest represents nothing more than the commemoration of an historic event which took place in Jerusalem one day 2000 years ago. It is true that Jesus said to his disciples after having shared bread and wine with them: ‘Do this in remembrance of me.’ But merely to preserve this memory is useless and does not exempt us from going deeper into the extraordinary symbolic meaning Jesus attributed to this act. Why didn’t he create a different ritual? He could have done so, but he repeated what Melchizedek had done before him. This not only reveals the importance he attributed to the two symbols of bread and wine, but also his wish to emphasize his membership in the lineage, the order, of Melchizedek.