2023/11/06

116. Successors of the Apostles Part 11

It is in the Mass liturgy that Christians can concretely express that they have inherited Christ's redemption in its fullness. I have mentioned three essential requirements for the perfection of the Mass liturgy, two of which are probably easier to accept. 

The first is that the ministry of administering the rites of the New Covenant, i.e., the Christ's priesthood, must always be performed by a man. In Genesis, God did not command the woman, who honestly confessed her mistake to him, to do the work of atoning for it (cf. Genesis 3:13). So, women have no historical basis for assuming the priesthood of Christ, who completed the work of redemption for Adam, which God ordained to eat bread 'In the sweat of your face' (cf. blog №110, № 111). 

Second, believers must 'take and eat' the Eucharist, distributed by the priest, with their own hands. Jesus expressed, "Take, eat," because he wanted his disciples to be spontaneous (cf. Matthew 26:26). Believers, unless they have physical disabilities, by 'taking and eating' with their own hands the Holy Communion distributed by the priest, will not only inherit the work of Christ, who redeemed with his Word the acts of the first man and woman in Genesis, who, against God's command, took and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but also will concretely express their voluntary participation in it. 

On the other hand, another requirement, confessing publicly that the Eucharist is the Messiah, the Son of God, may seem irrelevant to inheriting Christ's redemption. That is because the two things cannot be connected as intuitively as the two requirements above. 

The first 'woman' in Genesis, in her interaction with the 'serpent', disobeyed God's command by being deceived by the words of the 'serpent', 'you will not die.' This fault was redeemed by the answer of a woman, Martha, led by Jesus in her conversation with him, "Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world" (John 11:27), which was the response to the following question by Jesus: "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:25-26). 

Jesus, at this moment, by cancelling the information of the 'serpent' and replacing it with the Word, not only redeemed the fault of the 'woman' but, at the same time, corrected the information of 'death' that all humanity had received through her and revealed the truth. That was to lead the believers to eternal life and to make them partake of the first resurrection (cf. Revelation 20:5). The following words of Jesus testify to these facts: "For this is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day" (John 6:40). 

When all believers repeat these words of Martha in the presence of the Eucharist, the real presence of Jesus who said, "I am the resurrection and the life," the Church will demonstrate the words of Jesus, "I will build my Church," on the words of the heavenly Father revealed to Peter, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matthew 16:16). 

To be continued.

Maria K. M.