when He said: “This is My Blood of the New Testament.” I institute a new and eternal Covenant, and in confirmation of it I give my own Blood as a sacrifice, to be drunk by you. The blood of victims with which Moses sprinkled the people of Israel could not, of itself, deliver men from sin, and make them pleasing to God, for its whole efficacy lay in its being the type of the Precious Blood of Jesus, which taketh away the sins of the world. That which Moses did, as a visible type, our Lord did in reality. By giving His Precious, Sin-cleansing Blood, He instituted the New Covenant of grace which redeemed man, and by the Sacrament and Sacrifice of His Body and Blood, He gave him a lasting memorial of His love, and an inexhaustible source of grace.
The true Paschal Lamb. Now you can understand why our Lord instituted the Blessed Sacrament immediately after the Paschal feast. The Jewish Paschal lamb was the most perfect type of the Blessed Sacrament. Our Lord first ate the typical Paschal lamb, and by so doing closed the Old Testament: having done so, He instituted the Blessed Sacrament, the true Paschal Feast, and with it instituted the New Testament of grace: thus at the Last Supper we see shadow and substance together, type and antitype. Jesus Christ, in the Blessed Sacrament, is our Paschal Lamb, because He first sacrifices Himself for us, and then gives Himself to us as our Food; and it is for this reason that the words: “Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us”, are said in the Mass just before the priest’s Communion. The Jewish Paschal lamb was sacrificed and eaten first as a means and then as a memorial of the deliverance from the bondage in Egypt: our Paschal Lamb is sacrificed and eaten as a perpetual means and memorial of our deliverance from the slavery of sin and Satan, and in thanksgiving for the grace of Redemption.
Types which find their fulfilment in the Blessed Sacrament as the Food of our souls: i. The Tree of Life in the garden of Paradise; 2. The Paschal lamb; 3. The manna in the wilderness; 4. The wonderful food of Elias. * 5. Our Lord Himself prefigured the Blessed Sacrament by two miracles: when He changed the water into wine, and multiplied the loaves and fishes.
Types which find their fulfilment in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: 1. The sacrifice of Melchisedech; 2. The unbloody sacrifices of the Old Law, especially the meat-offerings.
Prophecies which have been fulfilled by the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: 1. The prophecy spoken by the mouth of David (Ps. 109, 4): “The Lord hath sworn, and He will not repent. Thou art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech.” 2. The prophecy of Malachias (Mai. 1, 11): “In every place there is sacrifice; and there is offered to My name a clean oblation.”
The Feast of Corpus Christi. The Blessed Sacrament being the Church’s most precious treasure, and the centre of all her worship of
