Holy Thursday: Jesus Gives Us a Mandate

Yesterday, on Spy Wednesday, I said I wouldn't post today but I dawned on me today that Holy Thursday, or Maundy Thursday, was too important and special NOT to say something on Raising Little Saints.  "The feast of Maundy (or Holy) Thursday solemnly commemorates the institution of the Eucharist and is the oldest of the observances peculiar to Holy Week." (source: New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia). Do you know what the word "maundy" means?  In Latin, it means COMMAND or MANDATE.  So today is the day that we call the Thursday which the Lord left us a command.  What command would that be?  Well lets turn to Scripture for that:

 "If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is My flesh, for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying: How can this man give us His flesh to eat? Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day." (John 6)

"Jesus was only nine months in the womb of Mary, three hours on the Cross,
three days in the sepulcher, but He is always in the tabernacle.
Does our reverence before Him bear witness to this most blessed truth?"
Based on John 6, the words of Jesus Christ, Himself.

How does anyone not read this and realize the whole of our existence depends on this single pronouncement? It is not bread, it is not wine, it is your Creator, giving Himself to you gratuitously. Does any Christian that believes in Sola Scriptura not see that their belief system contradicts the Bible, and that in this passage God does not speak cavalierly?

His allegories, or parables, are for instruction. This is NOT an allegory. This is a very POINTED, blunt, take it or live it literal commandment. He went out of His way to make this point.

If He wishes the redemption of humanity for all the rest of time, this giving of His Body and Blood is not a symbol, and it wasn't just for His time. Those that believe in the Most Blessed Sacrament are the true fundamentalists, and we stake our very souls on this basic belief, that Jesus is Truth Incarnate.

He cannot deceive, nor be deceived. 

He redeems us all, in His Body, and His Blood. 

In this any Christian lives forever, or dies forever.

Agnus dei qui tollis peccata mundi,miserere nobis.
(Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.)