Jesus, however, would have us remember what He had said at the start of His public ministry: "I have not come to destroy the Law and the Prophets; I have come to fulfill them."  Jesus was speaking primarily about Old Testament sacrifices and the commandments.  The idea of offering sacrifices was not God's; it came from man.  Abel and Cain are reported in the Bible to have been the first to offer sacrifices to God.  The book of Leviticus was written, therefore, to regulate sacrifices that the Israelites were to offer, by giving them spiritual depth and meaning.

Three basic ideas were to govern their offering of sacrifices: representation, mediation, and communion.  Since mankind belonged to a fallen race, no one seemed worthy enough to approach God directly.  Therefore the Israelites had to find animals, upon whom their livelihood depended, to represent them.  They had to kill these animals themselves, letting their blood flow out freely.  This sort of killing indicated the willingness on the part of the Israelites to surrender their lives to God, because life was believed to be in the blood.  Then the priest carried the blood, as a mediator, to pour it on the altar and to sprinkle it on the offers of sacrifices in atonement to God.  The Israelites finally would sit down to eat the sacrificed meat, in communion, to seek blessings and favors from the Lord.

In offering His redemptive sacrifice on Calvary, Christ fulfilled all these requirements of Old Testament sacrifices.  On Good Friday, Jesus died at our hands, shedding His own blood to the last drop.  He rose from the dead and carried His blood and the marks of nails on His body to heaven, acting as our eternal high priest.  Jesus afterward sent the Holy Spirit to recreate mankind in a new love relationship with His Father.  But before all this happened, in order to perpetuate all the glorious events of His life, Jesus had, on the night of His dying, instituted the sacrifice of the New Law and the sacrament of His body and blood as the pledge of our eternal life.  We had walked out of the Garden of Eden burdened with guilty consciences.  The fear of death always accompanied us.  With Jesus as our food, companion and guide on our pilgrim way, that fear is now gone and peace is restored to us.  The mass is our celebration of that victory  with the Blessed Trinity.

Offering sacrifice to God alone is not enough; we also have to live worthy of our calling as God's people.  God chose Israel in place of our first parents.  He appeared on Md. Sinai as King, established His kingdom in the promised land with Israel as his subjects, and gave them the ten commandments to obey as their constitution.  By obedience to these commandments, they would worship God and manifest His justice to the world.  Worship God, they did.  However, they failed to keep His commandments and, therefore, lost the kingdom.

Jesus' dying wish was that we love one another as He had loved us.  Jesus loved us with the affection of a truly big brother.  He called God of the Old Testament His Father, and told us to call Him our Father as well.  It meant that the ten commandments His Father had given to the Israelites as their rule of life were to be translated in terms of family love - so had we been created, as one big family in the fatherhood of God, and so are we to remain as one.  Jesus said that His life was to be the pattern of our new love in the spirit.  Jesus and His Father are two distinct persons, and not a fusion of two illusions.  But they are one God because They are so intimately bonded together in love that what the Father thinks, the Son thinks; what the Father loves, the Son loves as well.  "My Father and I are one . . . He who sees me sees my Father."  Now, by pouring Their love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, we are also drawn into Their family relationship.  Our task is to imitate Jesus as perfectly as we can.  The closer we get to the Son by loving God and one another, the closer we get to the Father.  Merely coming to church is therefore not enough; we must also remain in love to be saved.

For Jesus is the "Word of life" and the "Bread of life," given to us in the mass as our food and drink for eternal life.