16/04/2023

There are no written records that survive from the period of the events recorded in the New Testament. The earliest fragments of the texts of the Acts are dated some fifty years after the Resurrection. By that time "The breaking of bread" had taken on the liturgical significance first mentioned by St Paul 30 years before that. 

The first Christians, who had not then acquired that name, lived with Apostles and others who had seen the Risen Lord and although they were unable to find the words to analyse their supernatural experience; they knew what they had seen and spoke with confidence to persuade others.

Jesus was not a wraith, a ghostly Spirit. The living Lord was flesh and blood. He breathed air and ate food and yet his body was not contained by the physical universe of which he was still part. We can ask Thomas what it was like to put his hand inside the flesh of his Rabbi and he has no reply except to worship. "My Lord and my God !"

Thomas was blessed for his total commitment as were all those who met in the Portico of Solomon. The "Breaking of Bread" has become the first liturgical event of the New Testament. The Holy Spirit has been breathed into the Apostles directly by the Son who has been raised to new life. God has put new wine into old wineskins. Baptism has recycled our flesh into vessels fit for the New Bread and Wine of the New Covenant and our first priests have been given a spiritual power that is not for their own benefit but to be shared among the people of God.

At the Last Supper, before Jesus blessed the broken bread and the wine, he performed the menial task of a household slave. There were no theatricals, no lace, no bells no Magna Capas. There was only the total humility of the Love that ranked sinful humanity higher than his Godhead.

Dear Lord, you know  that I keep repeating what I have learnt about you.You are my Father and my goal in life is to become ready to accept the punishment for the scourge of sin I have laid on you. May my atonement be sincere. and after the necessary punishment let my soul reach the perfection of Heaven where Mary and all the Saints join their prayers to those of thy people on Earth and in Purgatory. Thy will be done.