Today, Christ institutes the Eucharist.

At first, long familiarity may make wine seem like the obvious choice for the sacrament of His blood. Both, after all, are red. Both flow through our veins, warming us from within. Both seem to fill our entire being and carry connotations of warmth, passion, life.

But there is one singular, and startling, difference.

Wine is meant to be poured out.

If it is not poured and consumed, it goes bad and is wasted; while blood, on the other hand, is to be carefully stewarded and not to be “poured out” at any cost. In the blood is the life, we are told in Leviticus (cf. 17:11), and losing blood means death.

In taking the chalice, therefore, and pronouncing those familiar and miraculous words of consecration, Jesus tells us something astonishing:

His life, like wine, was meant to be given.

And so is ours – lest that life go sour within us, and the blood turn to vinegar in our veins. 

This Thursday, this Triduum, this Easter, Lord, draw us ever more fully into Your outpouring.

 “Jesus proclaims that life finds its centre,
its meaning and its fulfilment when it is given up….
We too are called to give our lives for our brothers and sisters,
and thus to realize in the fullness of truth
the meaning and destiny of our existence.”
(John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, n. 51)

“Man…cannot fully find himself
except through a sincere gift of himself.”
(Paul VI, Gaudium et Spes, n. 24)

“Drink it, all of you;
for this is my blood of the covenant,
which is poured out...
for the forgiveness of sins.”
(Matt 26:27-28)

Picture: Detail, Carl Bloch, The Last Supper. Public Domain.