Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist Part 1

Shannon: Well, welcome because, we're gonna transition now. If you will, don't mind posting reposting the space. We're transitioning from the rosary to our very first Catholic book club, and we've chosen a book called Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist. But before we get into that, you know, there have been a lot of historical figures. You know, Jesus is one of the most famous, of course.

He's fully a man as well as God. A lot of historical figures have changed the world with their teachings. But before we sort of dig into the Eucharist, you know, through Jesus himself, I wanna start with this clip from doctor Peter Craig, who compares Jesus to some of the other great men in history.

Dr. Peter Kreeft: Socrates and Plato and Aristotle and Buddha and Confucius and Lao Tzu all gave us their minds. Christ gave us his body.

Shannon: Christ gave us his body. I I love the way he says that. And all the others gave us their minds, right, their philosophies. But Christ gave us his body. He gave us his whole heart.

Right? We're celebrating Sacred Heart Month. We've seen the gospel of Matthew that verse that thou shalt love the lord thy god with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind. And he showed us the way. Right?

Because he thought about us. He thought us into existence. Loved us so much with his whole heart, his sacred heart, that it moved him to make the ultimate sacrifice. So he gave us his heart, mind, and body. He calls us to do the same.

So this book we're reading is about, basically, Jesus. Right? It's a book about the Eucharist and coming to understand it in a new way. The Eucharist is a very divisive thing. Go to a cocktail party and start talking about the Eucharist.

You know, people are gonna be spilling their drinks to to get away from you unless they're Catholic. The Eucharist is a very divisive thing. Here's what Peter Kreef says.

Dr. Peter Kreeft: The Eucharist is either everything or nothing. Either it is to be worshiped as God as the extension of the incarnation or it is to be denounced as the most blasphemous and divisive, merely a holy symbol or ceremony.

Shannon: There's no middle ground with the Eucharist, all in or all out. And some of the Jewish contemporaries of Jesus had a hard time. We're gonna we're gonna tell you why. But before, I wanna say hello to people on the panel, those of you who prayed the rosary, you're welcome to stay and talk about this. If but don't feel like you have to.

I don't wanna put anybody in the spot. Eric The Just, I know that you read chapter one tonight. We're gonna talk about, the introduction in in chapter one. But let me just start by asking why did you want to to read this book other than me asking me asking you to?

Eric the Just: Well, that's a great question, actually. I actually wanted to read this book because somebody from my parish gave it to me and, had some conversations with my my priest about it as well, who's actually good friends with, Brian, Brent Petrie. And, they get into some theological, conversations, especially in regards to the Eucharist as well. And this is a phenomenal book, and it's easy read for anyone who is, you know, looking to dive into more understanding of the whole Eucharist itself, body, blood, soul, and divinity of our lord and savior Jesus Christ, and potentially grow your devotion to it.

Shannon: Kelly, what made you want to read this book?

Kelly: Actually, I have never heard of the book until I started on your page. And I being a Catholic my whole life, I honestly realized I've never delved really deep into the Eucharist other than, obviously I know it's the body, blood, and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, but where it came from and obviously getting to the roots of it. So for me, this will be a learning experience along with everyone else. It's not an altar I've read. And so I'm excited to learn about it.

Shannon: How about you, Alfredo?

Alfredo: Hi. Good evening, everybody. I guess a few months ago, I watched the series, like, collection series on that app called forms, about another book of Brent Petrie, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary, and I really loved it. I haven't read the book, but he has, like, an eight part series, in on the on both books. And then after watching the Mary version, the Mary series, I saw that they had he had an Eucharistic series as well and that the books were there.

And, I actually wanted to I I've been wanting to read it for a while, but I hadn't had the chance yet. So when you started the the book club, you say, okay. This is the the excuse the the last, excuse I needed for for me to finally read it. So, yeah, I'm excited about it. I'm quite fascinated by this whole, like, typology kind of arguments.

It's always a little bit mind boggling to me. And, yeah, I wanna go really deep in this this mystery as well with you guys and learn a lot from it.

Shannon: And we're just reading a chapter a week. So, you know, it's not like we have to to read a hundred pages a night. It's just one chapter a week. I think chapter one was, like, 30 pages. I don't even remember.

And, we do it together because how many times have we all started a book and not finished it? I think I might have finished maybe 10% of the of the books that I've started to read. You know how it is? You get distracted or sometimes you get bored. So by doing it together, we will sort of keep each other accountable and learn something on the way.

If you'd like to request the microphone, please do. We'll be very respectful of not talking over each other. You can raise your hand if you wanna make a comment or ask a question, not just to me, but anybody on the panel. Susan.

Susan: Hi. I don't remember who recommended Brent Petrie's books to me, but all of his Jewish roots books have been on my Amazon wish list for longer than I care to admit. So when you suggest when you mentioned that you were doing this and this was the book, I was so excited. I was like, yep. Like Alfredo, this is the reason I needed to buy the book and read it.

And the funny thing is I had actually recommended it to the women's group at my parish as something we should look into doing as a group. So it's very good timing that you brought this up, and so it's been one that's been on my list, and I'm very excited about it.

Shannon: Good. You'll be able to lead the book study at church. Great. Leona.

Leona: Hello. Hey. So, yeah, I actually so I got the book when you, when you started this club here. And, because it is actually very interesting because of of I mean it's like ancient, you know, it's, the, connection and I it's very, like, mysterious and and stuff. And I have the, Catechism of the Catholic Church.

I'm I don't know how many people have that, but there are some, like, paragraphs that that talk about it. It's just kinda just just explaining it kind of about, like, the cup of blessing and, about the breaking of the bread. Did you want me to read that now or or later? Or I don't know.

Shannon: Well, let's just let's finish. No. Thank you so much for that. We'll we'll come back to that. I wanna check-in with anybody else who wants to say anything.

Dave, are you doing the book with us? Are you just still up here on the stage from from the rosary? Either answer is fine, by the way. Well, no No wrong answer.

Dave: Yeah. Well, it's kinda two things. I'm still on the stage, but my lovely wife who's here was the one that's actually read the first chapter, and she's listening in. So I I'm, I'm the kid that didn't get his homework done, so I'm kinda listening to see. So, but I'm very interested in it.

Shannon: Wonderful. Well, send your regards to your lovely wife. We appreciate her listening, reading, the first the first chapter. I thought before we kinda get into it, I just you know, all of this really kinda revolves around this bread of life discourse. Eric, you wanna read this?

I sent you a note. I just thought we'd read this right right from the gospel of John before we sort of dive into what this book looks like. Because it's really just foundational for, you know, really the entire book, entire faith, right, the entire belief in the Eucharist.

Alfredo: Do you

Shannon: have that handy, Eric? Or I I can do it if you don't.

Eric the Just: Yes. I sure do. Reading from the gospel of Saint John chapter six verses 32 through 56. Then Jesus said to them, amen, amen, I say to you, Moses gave you not the bread from heaven, but my father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which cometh down from heaven and giveth life to the world.

They said therefore unto him, Lord, give us always this bread. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall not hunger, and he that believeth in me shall never thirst. But I said unto you that you have seen me, and you have and you believe not. All that the father giveth to me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me, I will not cast out.

Because I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. Now this is the will of the father who sent me, that all of all that he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again in the last day. And this is the will of my father that sent me, that everyone who hath seeth the Son and believeth in him may have life everlasting, and I will raise him up in the last day. The Jews therefore murmured at him because he had said, I am the living bread which come down from heaven. And they said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?

How then saith he, I come down from heaven? Jesus therefore answered and said to them, murmur not amongst yourselves. No man can come to me except the father who hath sent me. Draw him, and I will raise him up in the last day. It is written in the prophets, and they shall be they shall all be taught of God.

Everyone that hath heard of the father and hath learned cometh to me. Not that any man hath seen the father, but he who is of god, he hath seen the father. Amen. Amen. I say unto you, he that believeth in me hath everlasting life.

I am the bread of life. Your fathers did eat the manna in the desert and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that if any man eat of it, he may not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever.

And the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove amongst themselves saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said to them, amen. Amen. I say unto you, except you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you shall have not have life in you.

He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath life have a last have a lasting life, and I will raise him up in the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. Praise to you, lord Jesus Christ.

Shannon: Thank you, Eric. And the forward to this book, which is written by doctor Scott Hahn, he needs no introduction. Right? He's a famous convert. He converted back in 1986, a biblical scholar, written many, many wonderful Catholic books.

He mentions in his very brief introduction that, you know, we're two thousand years removed, and it just very natural for us to kinda just look back and we have all the benefit of the history in the church, for us to sort of look at the crucifixion of Jesus as a sacrifice. We get this from the tradition. Right? We get this we grew up learning about this, but a first century Jew standing there on the day Jesus was crucified would not have seen that as a sacrifice. Right?

There's nothing there that that is anything about a Jewish sacrifice. There's no priest. There's no altar. They're not in the temple. Right?

So there's a funny story, but let's see about this. Yeah. I'll I'll just tell you the story. So so from the introduction, we had the foreword by Scott Hahn, but the the author, Brian Petrie, writes in the introduction that challenges to our faith are often our greatest growth opportunities. And the whole reason he's a biblical scholar, the whole reason he wrote this book and many others, the whole reason we're in this space right now is he fell in love with a girl and she was Baptist and he was Catholic and they were gonna have this sort of try to do it all ecumenical.

So they were gonna get married in her church, that's where the ceremony would be, and then they would have the reception, you know, the Catholic church or whatever. And they didn't expect any problems because her grandfather had been the founding pastor of this Baptist church. So they had a little twenty minute meeting set up with the pastor to to go get permission. And it didn't go the way they thought it would. How many times does it not go the way we think it's gonna go?

He could have cared less that her grandfather was the founding pastor. He didn't know the guy. He didn't even know her. And he just went in on on Brad, the author of this book, asking him all these questions. Brad writes in the in the, intro that it was a three hour theological wrestling match.

How can you Catholics teach that the bread and wine actually become the body of Jesus? Do you really believe that? It's ridiculous. And the pastor said, don't you understand that that if that's really Jesus' body and blood, then you would be eating Jesus? That's cannibalism.

Don't you realize if you were able to eat Jesus, you would become Jesus? And and the author says he had absolutely no idea how to answer this, how to defend this. He was a lifelong Catholic. He just sort of grew up here in this stuff. And he's a smart guy.

He he held his own for, like, three hours with the stuff about Mary and the saints and the pope. But when this sort of ridiculing of the Eucharist by this Baptist pastor, he did just didn't know how to respond. Even though he'd read the Bible, he he knew what he believed. He he knew it was true, but it's not like he he just didn't know what to do. So he decided he actually, I think, cried about it later.

He decided he was gonna find out, one way or another, was what he grew up believing, true or not. And what he did was he got up and he pulled out the bible, he turned on the light in the middle of the night, went to the bookshelf. And he really talks about in the book that he felt very desperate about this. And he opened the Bible, and he didn't go looking for a book, a particular book or chapter. He didn't search for any passage.

He just opened up the Bible, which, as you know, is thousands and thousands of words and all these, you know, 66 books or however many it is. And guess what passage he just flipped open to? Amen. Amen. I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. So there was Jesus himself saying it. And he actually said that he'd never quite even though he believed in the Eucharist and all this, it was more of a, you know, kind of the family tradition, kinda, you know, culturally Catholic. And he was really Catholic, really loved God.

But he never, like, just absorbed this this direct quote from Jesus. And he says that he wanted to pick up the phone in the middle of the night and call the pastor. Say, hey, have you not read this? But but he didn't do it. In fact, he never I don't think he ever spoke to him again.

But he decided to change his primary studies. He was a young guy at the time. He was studying English lit and he decided to study religion. And that's where we are. That's why he became very interested in this, in learning about, understanding, not just as as we would read it, but trying to get into the mind of of what Jewish people would have experienced.

To try to see it through their eyes, not our eyes looking with the benefit of history. Right? We have the bible, as I said. We have the the church. In a speech on YouTube, the author talks about this this great riddle because, in Leviticus 17 verse 14, it says, the life of every creature is its blood.

That is why I have said to the Israelites, you must not eat the blood of any creature because the life of every creature is its blood. Anyone who eats it must be cut off. And in absolute direct contradiction, Jesus said, you must eat my flesh and drink my blood. Absolutely contradicting Leviticus. What was a Jewish person to do?

Even if you, as some people do, think think this is a symbolic sort of symbolism here, Even that would have been repulsive to a Jewish person at the time because of just how they viewed consuming blood, so negatively. It would have made them my Red Run account, it would have, like, made them wanna, like, throw up just thinking about it, just visualizing it. So we had this conundrum. How did all these people, Saint Paul, Saint Peter, all the apostles, the Virgin Mary, how did they become so easily accept this teaching that the Eucharist is the body and blood of Jesus Christ because they're good, faithful Jewish people. And Leviticus is pretty clear.

You're out. You you consume blood, you're out. You're out of the club. You're excommunicated. And and yet they do.

And so this is what we read when we, sort of dig into the opening of this book. I wanted to, stop and see if there's any questions or comments from this illustrious panel we have here.

Susan: Susan. It's funny that you to me that you brought up that reference to Leviticus. Because when I was reading the chapter, I was making my notes and I wrote, at this point, it's the difference between recognition of who Christ is and his true identity. He is showing by to me, what struck me was he's showing this contradiction between Leviticus, thou shalt not drink blood, and what he he is calling us to do, which is to eat his body and drink his blood. He's showing the fulfillment of the prophecy and the old covenant and contrasting it with his creation of the new covenant to which we are bound.

So I I find it I I like that you brought that Leviticus reference up because that one was one of the big points that really struck me in this chapter.

Shannon: Any comments from everybody else, Eric?

Eric the Just: I also appreciated the the, the inclusion of the the point from the Jewish scholar, Jezeb Ramirez in the chapter where they he he discusses the imagery of eating a man's body and especially drinking his blood even after allowance is made from metaphorical language strikes a total foreign note in a Palestinian Jewish cultural setting. But the profound rooted blood taboo, Jesus's listeners would have been overcome with nausea at hearing such words. Now as we I see in, you know, one Corinthians ten sixteen, it's it's it's clear from the apostle Paul, but it's it's it's very interesting looking at both sides of the coin, I suppose, he would say.

Shannon: Yeah. I believe that was one of the author's Jewish professors, wasn't it? He he was able to study under several, Jewish, professors. And this this desire he had to really dig into Jewish history and and, the cultural mindset, he quoted Pope Benedict who writes, it must be said that the message of Jesus is completely misunderstood if it if it is separated from the context of the faith and the hope of the chosen people, like John the Baptist, his direct precursor. Jesus, above all, addresses Israel in order to gather it together.

So this is part of that, hypostatic union. Right? We all know Jesus is God, but but he's fully man too. He's he's Jewish, and he's living in this time. And this riddle of how did these Jews become believers in the Eucharist and and and, that way, I played a couple of clips from from the speech Peter Kreeft did at the beginning.

It's a speech you can find on YouTube called the truth about the Eucharist. And he talks about that the early Christians were accused by the enemies of Christendom that they were cannibals. And he said, of course, that was false, but it's also true. If you think about it, you are consuming the body and blood of Jesus. It's a very hard teaching.

Even today, it's a divisive teaching. It's a hard teaching. But but the author posits that this tradition that the Jews had, their practices, this lays the foundation for how they will so easily come to believe in a phrase you've heard a lot in modern times in the in the from the catechism, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Right? The Eucharist is the source and the summit of the Catholic faith.

But the book is going to, as we go through it over the next few weeks, is really highlights three, three things you should be familiar with. I it was certainly certainly Passover. Right? That is, what we see that Jesus institutes a new Passover. Also the manna from heaven.

Right? Bread from heaven is what the Eucharist is. It's a new manna from heaven. But also something a lot of people are less familiar with, and I had never ever heard about this until I just happened to be, in a book study with this book a couple years ago at work. I work for a Catholic organization, so we have Catholic book studies.

And that's something called the bread of the presence or the bread of the face. Sometimes it's called the showbread. I had never I'm like, what? What are you talking about? I don't know what you're talking about.

This is bread that the Jews kept in the tabernacle of Moses, and later in the temple of Solomon, the presence of almighty god, and a menorah beside it with light. And that's very, very it's typology for what we see in every Catholic church today, which is the red sanctuary lamp burns next to the tabernacle inside the Eucharist where the presence of Christ is. So it's very, very fascinating how all this ties together, the precursors we see in the Old Testament, the typology. And, again, he's helping us well, as Catholics, we we believe what the church teaches. Right?

If if we if we think one thing and the church says another, the church is right, we're wrong. So but he's helping us to sort of, there's that that phrase, well, it's an encyclical from pope John Paul the second, Fides et Ratio, which is faith and reason. These things go together like two wings on a bird. Faith and reason are not opposed to each other. Whereas the, you know, with the Protestant Revolution and the enlightenment and all of this, they they they they wanted to certainly with the enlightenment, you know, the humanistic, as people in history, they wanted to play down faith and criticize faith, the superstition, and they and they had this cult of reason.

It's only what we can prove or what we can see with science, and they wanted to deny this. And, of course, John Paul the second talks about these things go together. Faith and reason go together. Saint Augustine talks about this. Thomas Aquinas talks about this.

And so I I sort of see a similarity here is that he's helping us see we have the teaching from the church, but but Brandt is helping us see through the eyes of the Jewish people that time. See where does this come from? How did this become you know, had it not been accepted by Saint Peter and Saint Paul, it would not be the teaching of the Catholic church. Right? It would not have made it into the Bible.

So how do these people come to this? And, over the next few weeks, we're gonna we're gonna be discovering this. We're not discovering all this tonight. This is just more or less less an overview. And I'm gonna try to keep these sessions fairly short and not go on and on and on for an hour or two, but we'll try to just keep these rather short thirty minutes, maybe forty minutes or so depending on on if people wanna ask questions and talk.

And just, you know, spend our spend our time reading, and, this will be the first of of many books that we do. Leona, did you want to I know you had a a sort of a reference there from the catechism. Did you wanna share that now?

Leona: Yes. Thank you. And I actually had, lots of other, like, understandings as you were talking earlier.

Shannon: Give them to us.

Anne: When

Shannon: Hit us.

Leona: I I was I got the bible open, the cat the catechism open, notes, yeah, the bible. So when you were saying that, at the time, it did not look like a sacrifice. You said, you know, Jesus is on the cross. You know, you don't see the altar. You don't see, you know, all of that, but the altar is the cross.

I thought that. Like, right? That's the altars the cross? Jesus kissed the cross, and the priest kisses the altar. I I noticed that.

So that was just like a little similarity to me right there. And Jesus is wait. The Eucharist is Jesus and Jesus is the Eucharist. It was like in my mind I was like literally seeing them both at the same time, like simultaneously. When you were saying, when Jesus was telling them, I don't have the bible verse right here, but when he was basically telling them look I, you know, you have to eat my flesh and drink my blood, right, and they went away because it was a hard hearing, right, and then he turns to Peter and he's like because you were saying, Wow that must have been even hard for them, right, because and Peter, you know, he says, Lord where are we gonna go?

You have the words of eternal life. So So they're sticking with them because they love him, right? They're, they're just gonna, they're just gonna go with it. So I had that thought and he is the life and you were saying that the blood is the life and Jesus says he is the life. Like, I also saw another similarity right there.

Shannon: Yeah. He is that quote I think is I'm the way, the truth, and the life. Yeah.

Leona: Yeah. Like, I I just thought that. And then it was oh, I don't remember what you were saying, but when we don't no. No. No.

The introduction where the, where he says that he just opened up the bible and it was just right there what he needed to see, which is divine, what's that? Divine intervent

Shannon: Providence.

Leona: The yes. That's the word. Thank you. That happens, like, to me, like, you'll read a a bible verse, like, over and over and over and over, and then, like, five, six, seven years later, you know, this has happened to me, and I can't find it in my notes because it's too much too much. But, all of a sudden, like, something I would get it, you know, like I'd read I would read something so many times and then then something would make sense at the opportune time, at the time that it would be the most, you know, if something was going on or whatever.

So that's interesting with his experience. Okay. And then so I'm gonna go to the Catechism and just basically it's paragraph thirteen thirty four, talking about the Eucharist. In the old covenant, bread and wine were offered in sacrifice among the first fruits of the earth as a sign of grateful acknowledge acknowledgment to the creator, but they also received a new significance in the context of the of of the exodus. The unleavened bread that Israel eats every year at Passover commemorates the haste of the departure that liberated them from Egypt, and the remembrance of the manna in the desert will always recall to Israel that it lives by the bread of the word of God.

So the word. Their daily bread is the fruit of the promised land, the pledge of God's faithfulness to his to his promises. And then it just cited, Genesis fourteen eighteen. So Genesis fourteen eighteen. I'm gonna go back a little bit farther.

So chapter 14 verse 17. And the king of Sodom went out to meet him and after he returned from the slaughter of Kor Cordarlo. I I can't say that. Kor Cordarlo more. And of the kings that were with him in the Valley Of Sabe, which is the king's valley.

But Melchizedek, the king of Salem, bringing forth bread and wine, for he was the priest of the most high God. And this is Genesis. So,

Shannon: Yeah. Melchizedek is a such an interesting character, such an interesting mysterious, person who was that. Let's check-in with Susan. Susan's got her hand up.

Susan: I just wanted to ask, Leona, what was that catechism reference? What was that paragraph?

Leona: Thirteen thirty four on page three thirty six. Thank you. Yep.

Shannon: Just a reminder, we're praying the rosary tomorrow at 07:55AM. I posted that space in the comments. So this space, if you'd like to set a reminder. Dave, did you have your hand up, or was that missus Dave?

Anne: Hi. This is Anne. Hey. I was looking at the thing that stuck out to me the most is the page right before the introduction where there are two passages from the Talmud. And the one says, the priest in the temple used to lift up the golden table and exhibit the bread of the presence on it to those who came up for the festival saying to them, behold God's love for you.

And I think that behold God's love for you just really sticks out to me. It's kind of a good summary of the whole thing.

Shannon: Yeah. The Talmud is one of the many works that, that Brandt, you know, sort of studied in in coming to understand all this stuff. And some of them were after the time of Jesus, but they were written to sort of describe previous generations, which would include when Jesus was around. So the Dead Sea Scrolls is something that he studied, the Mishnah, which is a collection of oral traditions of Jewish rabbis that live from fifty years before Jesus to about a hundred and fifty years after he was on the earth. The works of Josephus, he was a, a Jewish historian.

Josephus is actually one of the external Christian sources that we have that Jesus was a real person. He was crucified. This was a Jew. This was, not somebody sympathetic to, promoting promoting Jesus. The Midrashim, which is various commentaries, ancient Jewish commentaries, These are all listed in the, I think in the introduction, or in the first chapter of the book.

So just sorta because he'll mention them throughout the book. It's just kinda good to just have a one or two sentence description in your head. What what does that mean? What is that? What's he talking about?

Alfredo, any thoughts? I like how I put people on the spot. First of all, let me say, Anne, that was wonderful to hear your voice. We've spoken to Dave many times in our five minute spaces, so now we now we know the other.

Anne: Thank you.

Shannon: Kelly.

Kelly: Yeah. I'm just you know, I'm sitting here and I'm reflecting. And being a lifelong Catholic, it's like I've always just accepted that our you know, Jesus is the the new, you know, the the there's no more sacrifices that have to be made. He made the ultimate sacrifice. And I guess I've never really, you know, delved as deep as we're gonna go with this book in it.

And so it kinda made me pause and reflect on, you know, exactly just how important mass is and how important that we that Jesus calls us to mass and and we go to mass Because we honestly cannot survive without the the bread from heaven that Jesus gave us, and no more human sacrifices and all that. It's just it's so deep, and it's so profound. And, yeah, it's, it's definitely making me reflect on my faith and everything.

Shannon: So thank you. Doctor Peter Kreeft calls the Eucharist a time machine because when we partake in the mass, we are partaking in that sacrifice. Right? It's it's outside of time. It's happening then.

It's it's happening. And then it's hard for us to wrap our minds around it. From our perspective, it's happened and it's over. And, yes, that's a % true. But god is also eternal and outside of time.

It's how we partake in it. I I like something else Peter Kreeft. I love him, if you can't tell. I should have, like, a Peter Kreeft poster on my wall, if they make such a thing. He talks about the Eucharist as a time machine, but he also talks about it that the Eucharist is an extension of the incarnation of Christ.

So we we prayed about this where the annunciation and the rosary were where Jesus comes, you know, the fruit of the womb, you know. Jesus comes physically incarnated in in the flesh, first as a baby, but he's incarnated in the flesh at every mass. Every second of the day on this planet, there is a mass somewhere around the world, and so it's always happening. This is this is sort of that language from the mass, behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. This is, doctor Scott Hahn talks about.

This is one of the things. He was a big evangelical, a big, like, revelation and all that kinda, like, prophecy stuff. And he he heard these words from revelation being said about the mass. And this is one of the things that led to his doing a deep dive on Catholicism and and eventually eventually converting. We'll kinda try to wrap things up.

As I said, I don't want these to be long sessions. I don't want these to be, you know, very digestible sessions, especially if you've been here since 08:00, since we we started the rosary. But any final questions or comments, we'll we'll go around the horn. We'll start with the great Eric the Just.

Eric the Just: I also appreciate the, you know, the extra biblical references he is using, Brian p Brian Petrie in this book, specifically some of the ones from the Talmud as well, obviously, that, we as Catholics don't don't have to hold to, but he's using them as a reference for the architecture of this book. And I I find that to be quite, insightful in giving in giving reference, especially some of the ones from, you know, the works of Josephus. So I'm I'm looking forward to where this book takes us and how much, more we can grow our devotion to the most holy sacrifice of the mass.

Shannon: I think by understanding more about, you know, from Jewish eyes, it it helps us to not just understand it, but we go back to that story that the author recounted, when when that Baptist pastor is like, how in the world can you believe this ludicrous you know, like, the end of the day, we want to understand these things better so that we can defend our faith. And there's an old saying that if you lose your temper, you use you lose the argument. And so when people challenge our faith and when they challenge the teaching of the Eucharist and and I we see this on x all the time. Catholics getting mad and, oh, I'm gonna show them. You've already lost.

Like like, the goal is not to put people in their place or tell them how wrong they are. The goal is to convert them. And once we lose our temper and we're not gonna be able to win them over. You win people over when you're in a relationship with them, not when you're saying, let me tell you how wrong you are, Eric. You're really dumb.

That's not gonna get me anywhere. Is it, Eric? No. I don't think so. So we have to be good at understanding our faith to such a level and being secure in it that when somebody says something disparaging about it, we're not threatened.

Right? We have a big God. He's not threatened by anything a person can say. So so we don't have to immediately put somebody in their place, you know. We have to convert people, and we have to understand as much as we can about our faith.

And that's that's the whole purpose of this. But at the end of the day, read that account that that Brandt writes about in the, I think it's the introduction. It might have been first chapter. About how this pastor stumped him, and he he was so upset because he could not even think of a thing to say. He was he was sort of speechless.

So we wanna be able to answer any questions, and that's that's the the source and summit of the faith. Right? So the Eucharist is going to be one of the, biggest targets for for non Catholics when when they say that's ridiculous. You're worshiping bread and da da da da. We wanna understand it very fully and when we can talk about it from from the historical cultural aspects of Jewish history and demonstrate that we're completely calm and you're not upsetting me, let me tell you, it it we have a way of of reaching people when we don't, when we don't attack them, but we have to be smarter.

And that's the whole reason we we read these things is to learn more about our faith. Alfredo, do you have any final thoughts?

Alfredo: Yeah. Can you can you guys hear me well? I'm on the car right now. I had to Sure. Off on a drive.

Yeah. Just just really, glad to be here and learning a lot with you guys. It's what what you're just saying right right now is something that I can really relate to. I'm a cradle Catholic, but I've up until I moved back here to America and had, like, a recent reversion to my faith. I haven't really been confronted about my faith, a lot.

That started happening more recently and more and more, I feel like I need to be more and more prepared to be able to defend our faith. And, of course, the Eucharist is right there on the top of, the well, not very easy, concepts to, put into words sometimes for for our brothers, for our separated brothers, especially. So, yeah, I'm just happy to be in this journey with you guys and and learn a lot from it.

Shannon: We are on the wind down, but I did, want to, grant the mic to Autumn Fox. Did you wanna, make a comment about this book we're studying?

Autumn Fox: Yes. I did. I want to give one more resource. I missed some of the earlier stuff, but there is a eight to 10 part lecture series by Brent Petre on this book, specifically on phone. It's free for people.

You just log in with your parish account. If your parish doesn't have one, feel free to DM me, and I'll help you log in with my one of my parish accounts. They don't care if you listen to it under the account just because

Shannon: Yeah. Thank you. And there there's also there's also talk

Alfredo: I'll just say that if your parish doesn't have an account, just go to your pastor and ask. He he's probably able to sign up and and get access to everyone.

Shannon: Yeah. Thank you for that. And and there's also a number of talks by Brent, the author, on on YouTube as well you can find. Final thoughts, let's see who haven't asked. Leona.

Leona: I just wanted to make, a comment when you were saying that at every second that, there's a mass of trans substantiation happening around the whole world. So it just made me think as a whole, it's like a universal whole, that Jesus is with us literally. Saint Mark, so chapter 28 verse 20, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world. So it just kinda seemed like a like, it it it paralleled to me.

Shannon: Dave's wife, did you have did you have a final comment?

Anne: No. Just happy to be learning from all of you, and I think it's very complex. And it's kind of, humbling to realize that we sometimes think the world revolves around everything that we know in our contemporary time and, you know, the cultural differences and things are good to tap into and learn from.

Shannon: There's a beautiful reading that occurs at the Holy Thursday mass every year. It's from first Corinthians. It says, for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Every person who's not Catholic knows that there's that the the Catholics do this thing with the with the bread and the wine. Right?

They they know what this means. It is actually it's a proclamation of the gospel. It literally says that in Corinthians. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the lord's death. That is actually you're actually preaching by going and faithfully receiving, not being, like, you know, living with 18 people and they see you going up kind of in a scandalous way.

Because later in that same verse, it talks about you drink judgment on yourself if you, are not receiving worthily, which again would make no sense if it was all symbolic. Right? It's because it really is really is Jesus. Alfredo.

Alfredo: Yeah. No. Just wanted to to say to that, if somebody if you if you guys still don't have the book and you wanna buy like the physical copy of the book for to go with along with these next few weeks, if you guys go on catholic.market, which is Augustine Institute's website for which Brent Petrie works for. I think it's going for $5 only this book. So yeah.

Shannon: And I have an extra copy somewhere because I I lost I literally had it on yesterday and then I couldn't find it today. I looked everywhere, so I bought it on Kindle. So now I have an extra copy, so go figure. Alright. Unless I've missed someone, thank you for being here.

We will be back next Monday. We'll host the rosary at eight for Steven next Monday night. We'll have session two, which aligns with chapter two from the book. There's only eight chapters. And some weeks, it might double up a little bit into a couple chapters in a week.

But it's again, it's not like we're reading the Summa Theologica, so it's not, it's not heavy reading. So if we have not missed anybody, without objection from the illustrious panel here, I will yield the floor and leave you in the hands of Eric the Just. He will take us out.

Eric the Just: Wonderful. I wanted to leave us with a little reflection and a quick prayer, the reflection being on the actual words of consecration, something that we should all know, keep in the back of our mind, hopefully memorize, and they go as follows. Who, the day before he suffered, took bread into his holy and venerable hands, and with his eyes lifted up to heaven unto thee, god, his almighty father, giving thanks to thee, he blessed, broke, and gave it to his disciples saying, take all of you and eat of this. For this is my body. In like manner after he suped, taking also this excellent chalice into his holy and venerable hands, also giving thanks to thee, he blessed it and gave it to his disciples saying, take and drink all ye all of this, for this is the chalice of my blood of the new and eternal testament, the mystery of faith, which shall be shed for you and for many onto the remission of sins.

As often as ye shall do these things, ye shall do them in memory of me. Absolutely wonderful. And I'll leave us with a quick prayer, an act of faith. Name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. Amen.

I firmly believe, oh my divine Jesus, that thou art truly present in the blessed sacrament of the altar. I believe that it really and substantially contains thy body and blood, thy soul and divinity. I acknowledge these truths. I believe these wonders. I adore the power that has wrought them.

The same power that said, let there be light, and light was made. Verily, thou art a hidden God, the God of Israel, the savior. Amen. Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Shannon: You've been listening to the first session of the Catholic Frequency Book Club and our look at the book, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist. Be sure to check the Catholic frequency website at catholicfrequency.com to find out when the next session will be held. We hold these sessions live on the X social media platform, and then we turn them into podcast episodes and also into YouTube episodes. So be sure to follow us on YouTube and follow our podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. You can find links to all of those channels on our website, catholicfrequency.com.