Fifth Gospel, Part 3

Seeing the Eucharist as Bread for the bivouac

06/24/2024

After another lengthy hiatus, we again board this train of homilies to virtually tour the Holy Land, the Fifth Gospel. Remember our destination is to learn how the land shapes the liturgy. The stones cry out to teach us the Good News. The second and third Masses (or liturgies) are celebrated by Moses in Exodus 12 and by David in 2 Samuel 6. Let’s look briefly at how these two primordial liturgies and try to understand how the sacred stones of the Holy Land are uniquely equipped to teach some profound lessons about the liturgy.

In Exodus 12, like we saw in Genesis 14, God commands that the Israelites utilize bread (actually unleavened bread) and wine as the principal component of their worship. Bishop Barron write insightfully: “Just as trouble began with a bad meal – Adam and Eve eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil – so redemption is tied to a rightly ordered meal, commanded by God and serving to bring the families of Israel together.” 

For our purposes, though, we want to examine how, besides the unleavened bread of the Passover supper, God provided another symbol of the Eucharist in Exodus 16, the manna in the desert, bread for the bivouac (a bivouac is a camping tent). When the restless people complained of hunger on their journey, we read in Ex 16:14, “there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as hoarfrost on the ground.” In his untiring love, God would continuously provide this “food for the journey” for forty years, until the people entered the Promised Land.

That is, through the rest of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and even to the end of Deuteronomy, God gives the people manna for food as they walk. Hence, when Israel finally enters and occupies the Holy Land the manna ceases. It is not until the beginning of the book of Joshua that we read: “And the manna ceased on the next day, when they ate of the produce of the land; and the sons of Israel had manna no more, but ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.”

In other words, the stones of the Holy Land, witnessing the entry of the Chosen People into the Promised Land, immediately understood the provisional purpose of the manna in the desert. Thus, they teach us how the Eucharist is truly food for the Christian pilgrimage through the wilderness of this world. That is, one day, we will no longer need the earthly Manna of the Mass, because we, too, will eat “of the produce of the land,” that is, of the produce of Paradise.

When a priest is called to the hospital in the middle of the night because a Catholic is dying, he should always take along not only the Holy Oils for the Last Rites, but also the Blessed Sacrament for Holy Communion. Why? Well, because receiving Communion for the last time is called Viaticum, literally meaning food for the journey, Bread for the bivouac, indeed, when you strike your tent for the last time. A Catholic having his last meal in the desert before crossing the spiritual Jordan River into the Promised Land.

You may know that prisoners on death row are often given a “last meal” before their execution. Some ask for lobster, others for steak, some ask for scrambled eggs. But back in 1916, Roger Casement was tried for treason in the United Kingdom. He converted to Catholicism days before his execution by hanging. For his last meal, he asked for Holy Communion, saying, I go “to my death with the body of my God as my last meal.” Whatever controversies swirl around his life and legacy, Roger Casement died in God’s good graces by receiving Viaticum, Bread for the bivouac.

How then does the land teach us about the liturgy? By witnessing how the manna stopped at the borders of the Holy Land the stones “cry out” that the liturgy of the Eucharist will one day be “retired” and replaced by the eternal liturgy of heaven. These earthly Masses and liturgies are temporary, only preparing us for the eternal. And that is an urgent lesson to learn because we sometimes think we will live forever on earth, or at least we wish we could. But that is a grave error. But one day we will die and fold up our tent, and the Fifth Gospel is trying to teach us that lesson that real life begins in the Promised Land. In short, Grace will give way to glory.

Let’s look at how King David celebrates another “preliminary Mass” or liturgy in the Old Testament by assuming the role of both priest and king, shades of Melchizedek. In 2 Samuel 6, David triumphantly escorts the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem to be install and consecrate it as the prized showpiece of the Holy of Holies. Along the way, ascending to Jerusalem, he puts on a linen ephod in 2 Sm 6:14 (priestly vestments, like modern priests wear a white alb), and distributes to the people “a cake of bread, a portion of meat, and a cake of raisins” in 2 Sm 6:19.

David, imitating his predecessor Melchizedek, a priest-king who shared a sacred meal with Abram, now shares a sacred meal with the whole people of Israel. But I would like to draw your attention not only to the meal of bread, wine, and meat but in particular to the Ark of the Covenant, which contained the manna of the desert, the bread for the bivouac. Here again the land will teach us something significant about the liturgy.

We read in 2 Sm 6:15, “David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting, and with the sound of the horn.” And surely those sacred stones “cried out” in jubilation as they supported the sandaled feet of faithful pilgrims making that ascent, especially the feet of Melchizedek’s successor in Jerusalem, the priest-king David. The stones would prophesy like Isaiah: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the one bringing good news” (Is 52:7).

For several years now on the Sunday of Corpus Christi our parish participates in a liturgy of Eucharistic Procession. We literally carry Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, shaded under a square, embroidered canopy, throughout the city as we too sing and shout God’s praises. What are we doing? We are imitating King David, who carried the Ark with the manna into the city.

Pope Benedict XVI noted the unmistakable parallels between the Ark’s entry into the city of David and Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, remarking: "This point is made most clearly in Matthew’s account through the passage immediately following the Hosanna to Jesus, Son of David: “When he entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying, Who is this? And the crowds said: This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee” (Mt 21:10-11)…Now the people were “quaking”: the word that Matthew uses, eseísthē (seíō), describes the vibration caused by an earthquake."

And we all know how Luke records Jesus’ reply to the Pharisees who told him to tell his disciples to stop shouting “Hosannas”, answering: “I tell you, if they keep silent, the stones will cry out” (Lk 19:40). Later, at the end of Holy Week, Matthew will recount at Jesus’ crucifixion, “the earth shook, and the rocks were split” (Mt 27:51). The stones of this land are literally “at pains” to teach us about the liturgy.

To summarize: the land of Israel can teach us a profound liturgical lesson in urging the absolute appropriateness and supreme importance of Eucharistic Processions. When we walk through the streets of a city, singing and dancing with all our might like David – to the point that his wife Michal felt he made a fool of himself (2 Sm 6:20) – and carried the Ark with the manna, we, too, should see a snapshot of our whole life in these Eucharistic Processions.

How so? The entire Christian life is a journey not just to the old Jerusalem on earth like Bishop Pohlmeier invited me to take, but especially to the new Jerusalem in heaven. We dare not forget to pack the Manna, the Bread for the bivouac, our “last meal” before we die. And the stones of the Holy Land cannot contain their joy in teaching us this liturgical lesson.

Praised be Jesus Christ!