June 30, 2024, 12:00 PM

The Eucharistic Prayer in Mass tells us what Christ did at the Last Supper, taking the bread, blessing it, breaking it, and giving it to His disciples, and then He takes the cup filled with wine, blesses it and shares it with them. “This is my Body; this is my blood.” Let’s take a closer look at the words of consecration over the wine. Christ says, “Take this, all of you, and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my blood, the Blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory of Me.” Now, consider the overall meaning of “the cup” in the New Testament. Here are a couple of examples. There is a sense of the cup as a sign of courageous discipleship. Jesus asks, “Can you drink the cup that I will drink?” During the Agony in the Garden, Jesus prays that “this cup” might pass Him by. The earliest Christians clearly understood “the cup” to represent suffering and death, just as Christ suffered and died for all. “The cup” is not some kind of optional addition to our lives as Christians; it is at the heart of it. Now, look at how Christ associates “the cup” of His Blood to “the new and eternal covenant” between God and humanity. We return to the fundamental reality of the covenant, and it is revealed and sealed, not by the blood oaths of ancient covenants, but by the Blood of Christ Himself. If the Eucharist is the renewal of our covenant relationship, it is the cup that explicitly conveys this. Now you know!