Why is the Eucharist bread and not meat?

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In the beautiful icon depicting The Fifth Luminous Mystery, The Institution of the Eucharist (in Michael Dubruiel and Amy Welborn’s ‘Praying the Rosary’ ISBN 1592760376), we see a roasted lamb placed at the very center of the table (with Judas greedily grabbing at it and gorging on it). We also know that Christ is often referred to as the Paschal Lamb or Lamb of God.

Why then did Christ choose bread rather than meat for the Eucharist? Wouldn’t meat have been the more logical choice? Does Christ’s choice of bread rather than meat suggest that plant foods have an inherently greater dignity and are more worthy of becoming Christ’s body than is meat?
 
I think that bread is seen as the most simple, humble, common, and basic food for man. Christ, therefore, wanted to identify himself and make himself available to all in this way. Not everyone has ready access to or can afford meat, but most everybody does to bread. Plus, bread can last and be preserved for a time later. What would a tabernacle for meat be like? Or a monstrance? Of course, manna was the bread for the journey during the period of exile. Sort of like the exile of this life for us. Nevertheless, since The Eucharist is Christ’s true body and blood, then it is in some sense meat, too, no? Anyway, what would it have sounded like to hear him say, “I am the meat. And whoever eats my meat…” 😉
 
Today 04:40 PMchicagoI think that bread is seen as the most simple, humble, common, and basic food for man. Christ, therefore, wanted to identify himself and make himself available to all in this way. Not everyone has ready access to or can afford meat, but most everybody does to bread. Plus, bread can last and be preserved for a time later. What would a tabernacle for meat be like? Or a monstrance? Of course, manna was the bread for the journey during the period of exile. Sort of like the exile of this life for us. Nevertheless, since The Eucharist is Christ’s true body and blood, then it is in some sense meat, too, no? Anyway, what would it have sounded like to hear him say, "I am the meat. And whoever eats

I agree with you! it is a humble thing and all men can afford a bread. Imagine if meat is being used in the mass? and God said “I am the bread of Life” and the last supper fall on the feast of the unleaven bread.
 
I agree, bread is a much more universal thing than meat. Prior to modern agriculture techniques and refrigeration, meat was used vary sparingly by all but the very rich - maybe good whole meat a couple times a year on very special occasions, and otherwise you might get the occasional sausage or cured meat or variety parts, but not on an everyday basis. Even today outside of wealthy nations, meat is not a common thing to eat every day. Most people sustain themselves on things like bread, rice and other grains, beans or lentils, and fruits, veggies, and fish when available.

So a practical consideration is that meat for the Eucharist would have been unaffordable, especially since it’s offered every day in the Catholic church. Jesus came for the rich and the poor alike, and said “blessed are the poor in spirit”. Bread is a much more appropriate choice for the “poor in spirit”, I think.
 
I think you guys have it preety well pinned down. Bread in one form or another is probably the most common food for all nations. The big roast lamb that has been postulated to have been on the table at the Last Supper would have come along many months probably after Jesus said,"I am the bread of life come down from heaven… He would have screwed up the intro if He switched to lamb. Besides our extra ordinary eucharistic ministers would have ended up with greasy fingers. Not a pleasant thought! 😃
 
Bread and wine are offered because Jesus Christ is a priest in the order of Melchizedek. The Eucharist is a Todah sacrifice, offering bread and wine, as Melchizadek offered for Abraham.

I’m sure a big roast lamb was at the last supper, it was Passover. Jesus used the bread and wine to fulfill the OT prophecies and the teaching of the ancient Rabbis that the only sacrifice that would continue after the coming of the Messiah was the Todah.

Todah means thank offering in Hebrew, same as Eucharist in Greek. It was also propitiation for sins and thanks for Mercy given though undeserved, a communal celebration in a meal setting. Wonderful foreshadowing of the Mass.
 
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chicago:
Nevertheless, since The Eucharist is Christ’s true body and blood, then it is in some sense meat, too, no?
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No, it is not meat in any sense. The change that occurs at Eucharist is a sacramental change. A metaphysical change, not a physical one. That is precisely why the concept of transubstantiation was articulated, to emphasize that the change that occurs is NOT like other types of transformation. If it were a simple physical change, then we would use the word transformation or something, not transubstantiation.

So no, there is no “meat” involved. Besides, “meat” refers to dead flesh. And we believe Christ is risen. The risen Christ is NOT meat.
 
Also, I highly doubt Jesus picked bread as opposed to meat because it is a more “universal” food. He did it because of its place in the passover meal, and the importance of bread in the Hebrew scriptures, i.e. manna, the multiplication of bread (by Elijah, I think), etc. plus, St Paul refers to the fact that just as the many grains come together to form one loaf, so do we who come together to receive and to become the Body of Christ.

Psychologically, Jesus probably would not have been thinking of a worldwide Catholic Church, or the use of tabernacles, or greasy eucharistic ministers’ fingers.
 
I would say for at least two reasons. First, we don’t sacrfice animals anymore because Christ told us not to. Number two, it is even more of a mystery that we can’t understand and makes the Eucarist even more powerful. Also people who call us canibles would have more back up to their arguments, but not much more.
 
Ooh! Can I oversimplify things?

The Eucharist IS meat! Under the appearance of bread.

I mean, what’s the point of basing an entire religion on the miracle of recieving flesh that has been transubstantated and miraculously changed from… flesh…

I mean, come on. Where’s the glory in that?

Plus being Christ is the fulfillment of the old testament, he must be the completion of mana, the bread come down from heaven. His only other option would be to use quail. Can you imagine a priest in full garb stanind at the altar holding up a quail, proclaming, “Behold the lamb of God!”

Plus the quail wouldn’t be a fullfillment of the passover either.

Josh
 
I think you are all missing the boat on this.

It is Bread because at the last supper, Jesus used bread.

Also, just to add a 2nd point.

John 6:35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.
 
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PJR:
Bread and wine are offered because Jesus Christ is a priest in the order of Melchizedek. The Eucharist is a Todah sacrifice, offering bread and wine, as Melchizadek offered for Abraham.

I’m sure a big roast lamb was at the last supper, it was Passover. Jesus used the bread and wine to fulfill the OT prophecies and the teaching of the ancient Rabbis that the only sacrifice that would continue after the coming of the Messiah was the Todah.

Todah means thank offering in Hebrew, same as Eucharist in Greek. It was also propitiation for sins and thanks for Mercy given though undeserved, a communal celebration in a meal setting. Wonderful foreshadowing of the Mass.
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PJR You make a good point
 
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gelsbern:
I think you are all missing the boat on this.

It is Bread because at the last supper, Jesus used bread.

Also, just to add a 2nd point.

John 6:35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.
Click to expand...
Er… right. I think it was kind of a given that’s why we use bread. The question I think more specifically asks, Why did Jesus decide to use bread?

Josh
 
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PJR:
Bread and wine are offered because Jesus Christ is a priest in the order of Melchizedek. The Eucharist is a Todah sacrifice, offering bread and wine, as Melchizadek offered for Abraham.

I’m sure a big roast lamb was at the last supper, it was Passover. Jesus used the bread and wine to fulfill the OT prophecies and the teaching of the ancient Rabbis that the only sacrifice that would continue after the coming of the Messiah was the Todah.

Todah means thank offering in Hebrew, same as Eucharist in Greek. It was also propitiation for sins and thanks for Mercy given though undeserved, a communal celebration in a meal setting. Wonderful foreshadowing of the Mass.
Click to expand...
PJR,

If you hadn’t mentioned this, I would have.

Now, can you suggest why Melchizadek would have chosen bread and wine? :confused:

God bless,

Anna
 
Dear friends

I apologise because I do not ever memorise chapter numbers and verses, but you will remember the Manna from heaven from the readings today at Mass. The Manna the bread of heaven foreshadows Christ Jesus , the Bread of Life from Heaven. The Paschal Lamb denotes the Sacrifice of the Cross, but forth from this Sacrifice comes the Manna, the Bread of Life, because in God suffering is always a blessing.

The Jews went out trusting in God against everything that signaled common sense to them, they sacrificed a comfort (it is easier to be comfortable in sin than to work against sin) though they were slaves (symbolic of slaves to sin because of the fall of humanity), but to be free they must follow God’s Truth…and they crossed lands and were thirsty and starving and God sent them Manna from heaven (symbolic of the Word of God and the Eucharist) and this fed them and strengthened them and they came to the Promised Land (symbolic of heaven). Some lost care for the Manna, seeing it as tasteless and not good to the palate and it gave them nothing, this is symbolic of lack of faith in the Eucharist and the fulfillment of the Word, the Scriptures, Christ Jesus. So Jesus asks us to trust and risk of ourselves this way, to be led by the Shepherd into strange and sometimes frightening places, but we need not be afraid nor worry for our safe-keeping because the Shepherd goes before us and with us and He is our sustinance in the Eucharist. We have nothing to fear.

In calling the Jews to be faithful to the Sacrifice of the Pascal Lamb He calls us to be faithful to renounce self and to embrace our cross in the Cross of Christ Jesus and in sending the Manna from heaven , He calls us to be faithful to the promises of Christ Jesus and to faith in the Eucharist and the 'Promise Land ’ of Eternal Life in, through and by Christ Jesus.

So many things to type in meditation of this, but it is late here in the UK and I need to go now

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa
 
My thanks to all for your interesting responses. But need Christ have had only ONE, or even two or three reasons? He was, after all, bringing a NEW Covenant, one that would lift us up out of past and more primitive ways, and I can’t help thinking that in His choice he was honoring bread in a rather special way. . . .
:bowdown2:
 
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PJR:
Todah means thank offering in Hebrew, same as Eucharist in Greek. It was also propitiation for sins and thanks for Mercy given though undeserved, a communal celebration in a meal setting. Wonderful foreshadowing of the Mass.
Click to expand...
Many of the psalms, record standard todah prayers (e.g. Psalms 22 & 116). Along with the prayer, the person who had received deliverance was to offer a sacrificial meal of bread and wine, shared with his friends. The Jewish Book, the Talmud, records the rabbinic teaching that, with the coming of Israel’s anointed deliverer, the Messiah, “all sacrifices will cease except the todah sacrifice. This will never cease in all eternity” (quoted in Hahn 1999:33). For some Israelites of Jesus’ day, the bread and wine perpetually offered for praise and thanksgiving were the very image of the awaited kingdom of God on earth. This perpetual sacrifice is continued today in the Catholic Mass!

Notworthy
 
Besides, how messy would it have been when the Hebrews were wandering in the desert for God to send down bits of lamb instead of manna (This being another foreshadowing of the Eucharist).

NotWorthy
 
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