Father Noël Alexandre's Commentary on 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
Literal Commentary
1 Cor 11:23-24: "For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, 'Take and eat; this is my body which will be given for you; do this in remembrance of me.'"
You are departing from my doctrine—indeed, from the doctrine of Christ—by rendering yourselves unworthy of communion with the Eucharist and by hindering in yourselves its salutary fruit through the luxury of banquets, pride, intemperance, injury to the poor, and contempt for the Church of God.
For what I learned not from men but from Christ the Lord through revelation, that very thing I taught you integrally, faithfully, and sincerely—first without writing, but now through this letter, for the perpetual remembrance of so great a Mystery.
The Lord Jesus, on the very night in which He was betrayed to death by Judas and the Jews, after the legal supper and after eating the Paschal Lamb, took bread; and when He had given thanks to the Father for the benefits bestowed upon Himself and upon His Mystical Body—especially for the Sacrament about to be instituted—He broke it and said to His disciples, who alone were reclining at table with Him:
"Take and eat."
"This which I give you to eat is my body"—not a mere sign and empty figure of the body, but the true body, which is about to be delivered to death for you shortly; or, as the Greek text has it, τὸ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν κλώμενον ("which is broken for you"), referring either to the species which are broken, or to the fact that it is soon to be crushed, torn, and broken for you by most grievous torments in the Passion and on the Cross.
"What I now do, and what you do at my command, I order to be done by you and your successors, and by the rest of the faithful respectively, in commemoration of my passion and death."
By these words, Christ constituted His Apostles priests of the New Testament and commanded their successors in the priesthood to offer [the Sacrifice], just as the Catholic Church has always understood and taught.
Therefore, these words—"Do this in remembrance of me"—pertain to the Apostles insofar as they confer upon them and their successors in the priesthood the power of offering the Sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ. Nevertheless, they also refer to all the faithful insofar as they include the precept of receiving and eating the body of Christ in memory of His passion.
Moreover, the Eucharist is a sacrifice of commemoration of Christ's death, and at the same time of redemption and propitiation, in which His body, immolated for us on the Cross, and His blood, poured out for us for the remission of sins, are offered to God; the power of His passion and death is applied to us by Christ Himself, Priest and Victim, offering Himself through the ministry of the priest.
"As often as the commemoration of this Host is celebrated, so often is the work of our redemption exercised"—as the Church speaks in her liturgical prayers.
1 Cor 11:25: "In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.'"
"In the same way"—that is, observing a similar rite and order—"after he had supped" (after the legal supper), He took into His hands the mystical cup, saying:
"This cup is the New Testament in my blood."
This is a metonymy: the container for the thing contained. "This cup"—that is, what is contained in this cup—"is my blood, by which the New Testament" (or new covenant) "is confirmed"—not, as the old covenant was, by the blood of brute animals.
Those heretics overthrow Christ's Testament who substitute an empty figure of Christ's blood in place of His true blood, which is the price of our redemption.
"Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."
Make this memorial of me as often as you drink it; recall that He Himself whom you drink in the Sacrament was poured out in the passion and on my Cross for your redemption and that of all men.
He does not say absolutely concerning the cup, "Do this," as if Christ were commanding communion of the Blood under the species of wine to all men, just as He absolutely commanded communion of the Body under the species of bread to all. But, dictated by the Holy Spirit, He added the determining words: "as often as you drink it."
1 Cor 11:26: "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes."
"As often as you eat this bread"—the Eucharistic flesh of Christ, which is truly food, and the living and life-giving bread—"and drink the cup"—the blood which flowed from His side—"you will proclaim the Lord's death": you will make commemoration of the death of the Lord, "until he comes" (until His second coming).
So long will the unbloody Sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ endure in the Church.
The death of the Lord is proclaimed and represented by the continual Sacrifice of the Eucharist, when the body of Christ is offered, immolated, and set forth really and substantially present—by the power of the very words of Christ pronounced by the priest—as bloodless and dead under the species of bread, and the blood separately in the cup, as if poured out by the sword of the words, under the species of wine.
Communion of the body and blood of Christ under either species also proclaims and recalls to memory the death of Christ.
Moral Commentary
1 Cor 11:23-24: "For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, 'Take and eat; this is my body which will be given for you; do this in remembrance of me.'"
Let the ministers of the Eucharist, and all who wish to communicate worthily, recall to memory the immense benefit of divine generosity, the ineffable pledge of divine love, by which Christ gave us His body as food for our souls in so admirable a Sacrament, that we might be made one body with Him.
"We have been made one body of Christ, and one flesh."
What shepherd feeds his sheep with his own blood?
To each of the faithful, Christ mingles Himself through the Mysteries, and those whom He has begotten, He nourishes by Himself, nor does He entrust them to another—thereby persuading you once more that He has assumed your flesh.
Let us not therefore grow slack, having been deemed worthy of such love and honor.
Do you not see with what readiness infants seize the breast, and with what eagerness they press their lips to the nipple? Let us also approach this Table with such alacrity—nay, with far greater—let us draw near like nursing infants to the grace of the Spirit; and let this be our one sorrow: to be deprived of this food.
He celebrates the most holy Sacrifice of the Mass and receives the sacred Eucharist in commemoration of Christ who: approaches the holy Altitude with firm faith, burning charity, mortified in flesh and spirit; poured out in thanksgiving for so great a benefit; offers himself to God as a sacrifice together with Christ and through Christ, devoting his life and death to Him; and with sincere and constant purpose of soul determines to destroy sin in himself, and to resist always and in all occasions and places, even unto death, all motions, affections, and desires of sin.
"You have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin" (Hebrews 12:4).
We owe our blood and life to Christ, who shed His precious blood for us and gave it to us to drink. Let us not deny at least our hearts to our most beneficent and loving Redeemer.
For in the consecration of our heart is placed the making of a new covenant with God through the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.
"This cup is the New Testament in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."
The Eucharist was instituted that it might represent the death of Christ in all places and at all times; that it might make known His power; that it might apply His merit to us; that we might render thanksgiving to Christ for so great a benefit.
Those proclaim the death of Christ who imitate Him; who fulfill the Passion of Christ in themselves and in their bodies; and who express it through mortification and penance.
"For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes."
Let us watch with the Lord; let us be compunctious with the disciples; let us devote ourselves to prayer; let us not give ourselves over to delicacies, from which arise untimely laughter, idle words, witticisms, and trifles full of destruction—and unworthy of those who have received the body of Christ and ought to proclaim the death of the Lord.
CONTINUE
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