LOVE the Word®

Christ on the cross is the Christian East. When He says, “This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood that is poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins,” He uses the same word for the pouring out of sacrificial blood in the tabernacle and covenant sacrifices. To eat and drink the blood of those sacrifices would have been to drink unto death, so God enacted a protective prohibition against such.

But when Jesus came, He came to give us life (Joh 10:10); He is LIFE (Joh 11:25). Jesus made eating His flesh and drinking His blood the whole point of the New Covenant, because His sacrificial, resurrected, eternal life is literally and uniquely present there. “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life” (Joh 6:54).

Welcome Jennifer R, Bethany, and Roland, Bible Study Evangelista’s newest friends of the show! Thank you for loving and lifting me :)

LOVE the Word™ is a Bible study method based on Mary’s own practice: lectio without the Latin.

L – Listen (Receive the Word.)

O – Observe (Choose one or more of the following personality approaches to connect the passage to your life and recent events.)

F | Franciscan – Cradle a crucifix in your hand; touch His five wounds; pray a thanksgiving prayer on each one.

I | Ignatian – Imagine you are offering an animal sacrifice at the tabernacle. What can you see around you as you lead your goat to the priest at the altar? As you lay your hand on its head and confess your sins over it, what else can you hear? What do you smell? How do you feel just before you cut its throat with your knife and bleed its blood into the pan? What are your thoughts as the priest pours the blood out around the base of the altar?

A | Augustinian – How does this week’s show make you understand and appreciate the Eucharist more? How is Jesus’ gift of His Body and Blood meant to help you be more broken and spilled out for others?

T | Thomistic – Make a list of anything new you learned about Old Testament sacrifices, and see if you can connect them to Jesus’ sacrifice.

V – Verbalize (Pray about your thoughts and emotions.)

Remembering that He loves you and that you are in His presence, talk to God about the particulars of your O – Observe step. You may want to write your reflections in your LOVE the Word journal. Or get a free journal page and guide in the right-hand margin.

E – Entrust (May it be done to me according to your word!)

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*LOVE the Word™ exercises are offered according to FIAT: the four personalities, or “prayer forms,” explored in Prayer and Temperament, by Chester Michael and Marie Norrisey: Franciscan, Ignatian, Augustinian, and Thomistic: FIAT! These prayer forms correspond to the Myers-Briggs personality types.

Notes and References

“For it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul by reason of the life” (Lev. 17:11).

Directly inside the tabernacle courtyard gate was the first facility, a gigantic BBQ-grill-like structure.

Exodus 27:1-8, God’s instructions regarding the altar are that it should be made of wood overlaid with bronze.

Leviticus 1, The altar was the place where the bloody and burnt animal sacrifices were offered, where judgment and atonement for sin could be made. The blood of the sacrifices was poured out around the base of the altar.

Exodus 29:38-42, Every day, morning and evening, a lamb, bread, and wine were to be offered on the bronze altar.

John 1:29, Jesus is called “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

1 Corinthians 5:7 & 11:23-29, St. Paul says the real Body and Blood of Christ is sacrificed in a Catholic Mass.

Hebrews 9:24, Not the Old Testament tabernacle, but in the sanctuary of heaven itself, Jesus is eternally presenting His pure offering to God, the only pure offering ever made to Him. He is not, however, continually re-sacrificed in a bloody manner, “for then He would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world” (Heb 9:26). Instead He eternally presents His once-for-all sacrifice sacramentally, through the Eucharistic Body and Blood of the spotless Lamb.

Revelation 5:6, St. John’s vision of heaven’s throne room in Revelation in which John see in the midst of the throne, the creatures, and elders in a Lamb as though it were slain with seven horns.

Malachi 1:11, The prophets predicted both a future non-Jewish sacrifice and a future non-Jewish priesthood that would offer it.

1 Corinthians 10:16-17, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? 17 Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.”

1 Corinthians 3:11, 14, “For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ… If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.”

1 Samuel 15:22-23, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.”

Psalm 51:17, “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit and contrite heart.”

Luke 6:38, “Give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”

“The only perfect sacrifice is the one that Christ offered on the cross as a total offering to the Father’s love and for our salvation. By uniting ourselves with his sacrifice we can make our lives a sacrifice to God” (CCC 2100).

Episode Resources

Fulfilled, Uncovering the Biblical Foundations of Catholicism, Chapter 5, Sacrificial Love

Ignite, Chapters 6 & 7, The How of the Bible

Come join the chatter on the Facebook community. What’s the most sacrificial thing you’ve ever offered God? Tell me your #LOVEtheWordtakeaway for this week’s show.  

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