Mark 14:  12 -16.  22 – 26

On the first of the Days of Unleavened Bread, the day they prepare the Passover sacrifice, his disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go and make preparations so you can eat the Passover meal?”

He directed two of his disciples, “Go into the city. A man carrying a water jug will meet you. Follow him. Ask the owner of whichever house he enters, ‘The Teacher wants to know, Where is my guest room where I can eat the Passover meal with my disciples?’ He will show you a spacious second-storey room, swept and ready. Prepare for us there.”

The disciples left, came to the city, found everything just as he had told them, and prepared the Passover meal.

In the course of their meal, having taken and blessed the bread, he broke it and gave it to them. Then he said, “Take, this is my body”.

Taking the chalice, he gave it to them, thanking God, and they all drank from it. He said, “This is my blood, God’s new covenant, Poured out for many people”.

“I’ll not be drinking wine again until the new day when I drink it in the kingdom of God.”

They sang a hymn and then went directly to Mount Olives.

Gospel Reflection

The Eucharist of the Resurrection would have been easily explained as a food for the spirit; for the intangible; an optional extra in an age of reason. Jesus is not just spirit but flesh and blood. He knows what hunger is like; he knows the gnawing longing that fills the flesh and the mind and the imagination. When you are hungry, really hungry, then all you can do is think, feel, remember, and desire nothing else than food; beyond reason.

This is how hungry our desire should be for God; physical, emotional, spiritual; unable to be satisfied by anything other than God. In the Eucharist, Jesus feeds all of us with all that he is –‘this is God’s body, this is God’s blood’ – it is for you to question whether it is true – ‘it is your faith that will save you’.