Todah

 
 

One

The Catholic Mass is way more than just a ritual. 

There are three amazing realities of the Mass. First, in every Mass, the saving event of the suffering death and Resurrection of Christ is made present so that He can continue to save us from our sins. Second, His sacrifice is a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to the Father. So the Mass allows us to enter into the perfect and infinite thanksgiving the Son offers the Father. In fact, Eucharist means “thanksgiving.” Third, the Mass is a sacred meal in which we eat and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus so that we can be united to Him and share in His divine life. 

The whole Jewish ritual with all its sacrifices was a preparation for the Catholic Mass. And once Jesus gives us the Mass, then the time of the Jewish Temple and the Temple sacrifices are over because they have been fulfilled and replaced by Jesus who is the Temple and the Lamb of God and the Sacrifice. All of which is made present in the Mass. 

Two

The Todah sacrifice 

There were all kinds of Jewish sacrifices in the Old Testament: Peace offerings, guilt offerings, sin offerings, etc.… But the most important Old Testament sacrifice was the todah sacrifice and meal (cf. Lev 7:12; 22:29). “Todah” in Hebrew means “thank you.” So, the Todah sacrifice was a sacrifice of thanksgiving.

Cardinal Ratzinger (who became Pope Benedict XVI) in his book The Feast of Faith says, “It is critical to understand the todah sacrifice to understand the Mass.”

The todah or thanksgiving sacrifice presupposed a specific situation. Let’s say a person is saved from death, from fatal illness, or from those who seek his life, so he celebrates being saved by God by offering a sacrifice of thanksgiving.  He gathers his family and friends for a special meal. A lamb would be sacrificed in the Temple. At the same time, bread would be consecrated for the meal. Then the person whose life was saved would take a cup of wine and give thanks, explaining how the Lord saved him and they would eat the meal. 

So, the key elements of a todah sacrifice were: a lamb that was sacrificed, bread and wine would be consecrated, and offered to God in thanks. And Psalms of thanksgiving were read or sung. 

Three

God began to save the Israelites from slavery to the Egyptians through the Exodus. 

However, the Exodus is not technically complete until God gives them rest from all their enemies. This happens once David captures Jerusalem. Then he brings the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem and celebrates a todah sacrifice.  

1 Chronicles 16: 1-7, And they brought the ark of God, and set it inside the tent which David had pitched for it; and they offered sacrifices before God. And when David had finished offering the sacrifices, he blessed the people in the name of the LORD, and distributed to all Israel a loaf of bread, a portion of lamb and flagons of wine. Moreover, he appointed certain of the Levites as ministers before the ark of the LORD, to invoke, to thank, and to praise the LORD, the God of Israel.”

All the key elements of the todah are here: A lamb that was sacrificed, consecrated bread and wine, and Psalms of thanksgiving. But then David does something new. He commands the Levites to offer the todah sacrifice twenty-four hours a day. Thanksgiving becomes the heart of Jewish Worship. 

An Ancient saying of the Rabbis recorded in the Mishnah says, “When the Messiah comes, all sacrifice will cease except for the Todah sacrifice.”

When the Messiah comes, all the Jewish sacrifices will end and only one will remain, the todah sacrifice. And when the Rabbis translated the Hebrew word todah into Greek the word chosen was eucharist. Eucharist means a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God. 

Four

At the Last Supper, Jesus transformed the Jewish sacrifice of todah into the Mass. 

Jesus is the Messiah and when He came He brought to fulfillment and to an end all of the Jewish sacrifices in the Temple and replaced them all with the only necessary sacrifice, the Todah sacrifice, the sacrifice of the Eucharist. When did Jesus do this? At the Last Supper.

Recall that the main elements of a Todah Sacrifice were a lamb that is sacrificed, as well as consecrated bread, wine, and Psalms of thanksgiving were read or sung. 

At the Last Supper, Jesus is the High Priest, and He is the Lamb of God that will be sacrificed on Calvary to take away the sins of the world. Then at the Last Supper, Jesus consecrates Bread and wine, turning them into His own body and blood when He said, “Take this, all of you, and eat of it, for this is my body, which will be given up for you…Take this, all of you, and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.” And they sang the todah psalms. 114-118. 

Jesus takes the Todah sacrifice, the only sacrifice the Rabbis said would remain once the Messiah comes, and then turns the Todah sacrifice into the Catholic Mass. 

Five

The Mass fulfills and then replaces all the Old Testament sacrifices in the Temple. 

When Jesus died on the Cross there was an earthquake that caused the veil of the Temple to be torn in two. The rending of the Temple vail indicates that the time of the Jewish Temple and the Temple sacrifices are over. Because Jesus came to fulfill and then replace the worship of God in the Temple with the worship of God in the Mass. The Jewish Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans. It has never been rebuilt. Because Jesus is the Temple of God and it is His Todah sacrifice of thanksgiving that is made present in every Catholic Mass so that everyone everywhere can take part and offer their praise and thanksgiving to God. 

 
 
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