White Robed Monks of St. Benedict

The Eucharist as a Blessing - A Biblical Approach

It has become commonplace to describe the Eucharist in terms of the Jewish blessing or baraka. This is because the last supper is regarded as being a progression from the Jewish meal blessing. Louis Bouyer states that the greek word, Eucharist, translates the Hebrew word, baraka, which means blessing. Whatever the merits of this approach, if we stick to the Old Testament as a source, we would come to a quite different way of understanding the role of Blessing in the New Testament.

The word Eucharist does not mean blessing, but thanksgiving. There is another Greek word, Eulogeo, which , in the Septuagint, the oldest of the Greek translations of the Old Testament, almost invariably translates blessing. In the Gospels of Mark and of Matthew, there are two miracles of loaves and fishes. In the first, Christ blesses and breaks bread, while in the Second he gives thanks and breaks bread. He also blesses the fish. Both of these passages are suggestive of the Last Supper, where in the Gospel of Mark and of Matthew, he blesses the bread which he declares to be his body. When he takes the cup of wine, he gives thanks.

See Passages

In the Gospel of Luke, Christ gives thanks at the Last Supper. In the First Letter of St Paul to the Corinthians, he tells us that Christ gave thanks at the Last Supper.

See Passages.

There are two types of blessings in the Old Testament. There are blessings by God and blessings by people. Both of these blessings are marked by a desire for fertility, for procreative good. Love is never separated from fertility and growth in the Old Testament.

This is the positive side of blessings but there are also negative aspects to blessings. They also act as a sort of separation. This is because an individual or a group may receives the blessing at the expense of another. Jacob and Esau are an example of this.

The fundamental blessing is in Genesis 1:22.

And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth."

In this Blessing, God blesses all living things, created on the fifth day of creation. The next blessing is of human beings.Genesis 1:28

And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."

Here there is a blessing which contains both a call to fruitfulness and which separates human beings from the rest of the animal kingdom. The process of separation continues. Later God will bless Abraham, thus separating him and his descendants from the rest of humanity but at the same time, there is a promise that all humanity can share in this blessing. Genesis 12:2-3

And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves."

When human beings bless it is often at the end of their lives e.g., Isaac blessing Jacob. They pass on the blessings which they have received from God. The call for fruitfulness is a call for the future, that there might be descendants. The approach of death calls for a need to say farewell and to look forward to the future. There is an example of a farewell, which does not involve death as such, but which provokes a blessing. Genesis 24:60

And they (the mother and brother of Rebekah) blessed Rebekah, and said to her, "Our sister, be the mother of thousands of ten thousands; and may your descendants possess the gate of those who hate them!"

Here Rebekah is going leave her people in order to marry Isaac. Her mother and brother pray that she might be the source of new life.

Blessings in the Old Testament.

Unlike in the Old Testament, Jesus does not pray for successors who will be his descendants. The cycle of Father and Son where the son replaces the father or the daughter the mother, which carries the blessing of God to the next generation is ended. Instead the Christ is continually present in his Eucharist. He passes on a blessing which is his own body, to be administered and shared with his church. The former people of God had perpetuated themselves through procreation. The new people of God perpetuate themselves through the sharing in the risen body of Christ. Since Christ is now risen, this blessing transcends death and is a sharing in the risen life of Jesus.

Just as there was one blessing through Abraham, now there is one Body through Christ.

The new blessing can be shared in by everyone and not just the physical descendents of Abraham. As St Paul says in the Epistle to the Galatians, 3:7-9

7 So you see that it is men of faith who are the sons of Abraham.
8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "In you shall all the nations be blessed."
9 So then, those who are men of faith are blessed with Abraham who had faith.

Another example of the new way of sharing in the blessing is in Luke 7:27-28.27

27 As he said this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, "Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked!"
28 But he said, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!"

The Eucharist is the greatest blessing of Christ, or perhaps it would be better to say the greatest form of the blessings of Christ. We receive this blessing in many ways, through the Sacraments, through prayer and through acknowledging God's power in our lives. By baptism, we become part of the body of Christ but through the Eucharist we are able to renew our sharing in that Eucharist.The Eucharist is the summit of all blessings because here we encounter the new life, the risen life of Christ by which we share in every blessing that God offers us through his Son. A blessing which escapes from the cycle of life and death, into a life beyond death, the blessing that only the risen Christ can offer.