Where’s Melchizedek?

Listening closely to the Old Testament reading this Sunday (Gen 14:18-20) our ears prick up at the story about Melchizedek. We hear about him elsewhere, in Psalms and in Paul’s Letter to Hebrews, but who is this guy and how is he tangled up with our Mass? And particularly in the Eucharistic Prayer, where the priest prays after the consecration, “Look with favour on these offerings and accept them as once you accepted the gifts of your servant Abel, the sacrifice of Abraham, our father in faith, and the bread and wine offered by your priest Melchizedek.” The first, archetypal, “priest”, Melchizedek’s bread and wine remains only that, but, with echoes of Melchizedek, Jesus the ultimate priest, offers himself totally to God in the form of bread and wine telling his disciples to 'do this in remembrance of me.' (Luke 22:19-20).

Today’s Psalm (Ps 109 (110)) is sung at the ordination of every Catholic priest: “You are a priest forever, in the line of Melchizedek”. Regardless of the worthiness of the individual, the priest is enrolled under Jesus in that Order of Melchizedek, empowering him to consecrate, acting in the personhood of Christ, the bread and wine as Christ’s body and blood.

In the feeding of the multitudes, today’s gospel (Luke 9:11-17), Jesus takes and breaks the bread in a ritual prefiguring the celebration of the Eucharist and sends the apostles to feed the people. It is this total offering of self to which Jesus refers in his instruction to 'do this in remembrance of Me.'

Following Jesus instruction, as the priest elevates the chalice containing Christ’s blood, he is faithfully doing so in remembrance of Jesus’ directive and reminding himself and all of us of Jesus’ instruction to address the needs of the people. That total self-offering is spiritual food for us. Eucharist regularly nourishes us in order that we might give of self for others as Christ Jesus does.

Deacon Mark Kelly