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Office Of Readings | Eastertide Week 2, Thursday | A Reading From A Treatise Of Saint Gaudentius Of Brescia | Jesus Our Bequest Of The New Testament
‘Jesus Christ is our bequest of the new testament.’
Commentary on ‘The Inheritance of the New Covenant’ by Saint Gaudentius of Brescia
Saint Gaudentius, a 4th–5th century bishop and contemporary of Saint Ambrose, offers in this homily a profound reflection on the Eucharist as the enduring inheritance Christ has left his Church. Rooted deeply in the language and symbolism of Scripture and the early Church, his words provide a moving theology of presence, sacrifice, and transformation that remains strikingly relevant to Christian thought today.
The Eucharist As Covenant And Legacy
At the heart of Gaudentius’s sermon is the idea of the Eucharist as the gracious legacy of Christ—a living testament of the New Covenant. Just as in human affairs a legacy is a final, often solemn gift left by someone departing, so here Christ, on the night before his Passion, gives his very self to his Church in the sacrament of his Body and Blood. This aligns closely with the institution narratives found in the Synoptic Gospels and in 1 Corinthians 11, where Jesus says: ‘Do this in memory of me.’
But this memorial is not a mere recollection; it is a re-presentation of the once-for-all sacrifice. Drawing on the biblical understanding of anamnesis—a memory that makes present—Gaudentius insists that the Eucharist is not a symbolic reminder of a past event but the enduring presence of Christ’s saving action. Christ, who ascended bodily into heaven, nevertheless abides sacramentally in his Church. This gift sustains us on our journey through life, much as manna sustained Israel in the desert.
The Eucharist As Necessary For Life
Gaudentius references Jesus’ own teaching in John 6: ‘Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.’ This stark and mystical claim expresses the necessity of the Eucharist for eternal life. The early Church Fathers did not spiritualize or metaphorize these words—they took them with utmost seriousness. In receiving Christ’s Body and Blood, the faithful are nourished not only spiritually, but are joined more intimately to the life of the Risen Lord.
This Eucharistic realism—shared by Fathers like Ignatius of Antioch, Irenaeus, Ambrose, and Augustine—emphasizes that Christ’s sacrifice is not just remembered but received, and through it, believers are transformed. The grace of the cross becomes present and active in every celebration of the Mass.
Priestly Continuity And The Everlasting Memorial
Gaudentius affirms that the apostles were instituted by Christ as the first priests and commanded to continue this mystery ‘until Christ comes again from heaven’. This clear expression of apostolic succession reflects early ecclesiology: that the Eucharist is not a private devotional act but the act of the Church, led by ordained ministers. Across time and space, through the hands of countless priests, the single sacrifice of Calvary is made present.
This universality links all the faithful—priests and people alike—in one common act of worship. The Eucharist is, therefore, both profoundly personal and essentially communal. Gaudentius urges us to participate in it not as passive observers but as living members of Christ’s body.
Eucharistic Symbols: Bread And Wine
A beautiful element of this sermon is its use of natural metaphors to explain the Eucharistic signs:
- Bread is made from ‘many grains’ ground into flour, mixed with water, and baked by fire. This symbolizes the unity of the Church—many members formed into one body and consecrated by the Holy Spirit. As Saint Augustine similarly says, ‘Be what you see; receive what you are—the Body of Christ.’
- Wine, made from many grapes pressed in the wine-press, evokes both suffering and transformation. Gaudentius’s mention of the wine-press of the cross recalls Isaiah 63 and Revelation 14, where divine justice and love meet. This wine, when received in faith, ferments within the believer—an image of interior transformation, filled with both vitality and mystery.
In using such homely, earthy images, Gaudentius connects divine grace to the ordinary stuff of creation, reminding us that God’s glory is revealed not only in heaven, but in wheat, water, grapes, and fire.
Baptism And The New Exodus
Gaudentius also draws a subtle parallel between Israel’s Exodus and the Christian’s deliverance from sin. Egypt and Pharaoh symbolize sin and the devil. Just as Israel was saved by the blood of the lamb and passed through the Red Sea, so Christians are saved by the blood of Christ and pass through the waters of baptism. The Eucharist becomes the Paschal meal of this New Exodus, completing what baptism begins and sustaining us until we reach the promised land of eternal life.
This is why early Christians saw in the liturgical year—and especially the Paschal feast—a spiritual journey mirroring salvation history. The Eucharist is thus the Passover of the Church, the sign that we have been brought from death to life.
Presence Of Christ And The Power Of Faith
Central to this homily is the assertion that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist—not as a memory or symbol only, but as a reality, encountered by faith. This is not a philosophical abstraction but a lived truth: ‘we hold it in our hands, we receive it in our mouths, and we accept it in our hearts.’ It is a tactile and intimate union.
This presence is transformative. Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, we recognize Christ in the breaking of the bread. The Eucharist shapes not only individual piety but the very identity of the Church as Christ’s Body.
Contemporary Resonance
Though written over fifteen centuries ago, Gaudentius’s theology speaks powerfully to the contemporary Church. In an age where the Eucharist is sometimes reduced to mere ritual or misunderstood as purely symbolic, his words are a needed reminder of the profound mystery at the heart of Christian life.
His focus on unity, sacrificial love, and spiritual renewal speaks to the mission of the Church today: to be the Body of Christ in the world, nourished by the Body of Christ in the sacrament. As Sacrosanctum Concilium would affirm many centuries later, the Eucharist is truly ‘the source and summit of the Christian life.’
A Reading From A Treatise Of Saint Gaudentius Of Brescia
The heavenly sacrifice, instituted by Christ, is the most gracious legacy of his new covenant. On the night he was delivered up to be crucified he left us this gift as a pledge of his abiding presence.
This sacrifice is our sustenance on life’s journey; by it we are nourished and supported along the road of life until we depart from this world and make our way to the Lord. For this reason he addressed these words to us: Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will not have life in you.
It was the Lord’s will that his gifts should remain with us, and that we who have been redeemed by his precious blood should constantly be sanctified according to the pattern of his own passion. And so he commanded those faithful disciples of his whom he made the first priests of his Church to enact these mysteries of eternal life continuously. All priests throughout the churches of the world must celebrate these mysteries until Christ comes again from heaven. Therefore let us all, priests and people alike, be faithful to this everlasting memorial of our redemption. Daily it is before our eyes as a representation of the passion of Christ. We hold it in our hands, we receive it in our mouths, and we accept it in our hearts.
It is appropriate that we should receive the body of Christ in the form of bread, because, as there are many grains of wheat in the flour from which bread is made by mixing it with water and baking it with fire, so also we know that many members make up the one body of Christ which is brought to maturity by the fire of the Holy Spirit. Christ was born of the Holy Spirit, and since it was fitting that he should fulfil all justice, he entered into the waters of baptism to sanctify them. When he left the Jordan he was filled with the Holy Spirit who had descended upon him in the form of a dove. As the evangelist tells us: Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan.
Similarly, the wine of Christ’s blood, drawn from the many grapes of the vineyard that he had planted, is extracted in the wine-press of the cross. When men receive it with believing hearts, like capacious wineskins, it ferments within them by its own power.
And so, now that you have escaped from the power of Egypt and of Pharaoh, who is the devil, join with us, all of you, in receiving this sacrifice of the saving passover with the eagerness of dedicated hearts. Then in our inmost being we shall be wholly sanctified by the very Lord Jesus Christ whom we believe to be present in his sacraments, and whose boundless power abides for ever.
Reading Mark’s Gospel, we have a wonderful sense of just how active and mobile Jesus’ ministry around Galilee was. The words ‘immediately’ and ‘straightway’ recur again and again. There is joy and purpose in these words. There is the sense of astonishment people experienced listening to Jesus. And there is the touch of danger, the revolutionary energy of Jesus, and the plots of his enemies [ … ]
The people who have been fed through the miracle of the loaves and the fishes now seek Jesus and are mystified that he should not be near. They have seen that there was only one boat and that the disciples of Jesus have gone alone into the boat to pass across the Sea of Galilee. The events that have taken place overnight, as Jesus walked across the water, would have been completely beyond their comprehension [ … ]
Much of Christ’s early ministry takes place around the Sea of Galilee, also known as the Sea of Tiberius or the lake of Gennesaret. There were a number of towns around the shore of the lake, and the shore was often the setting for Christ’s preaching. John only tells us specifically of seven of Christ’s miracles, chosen to suit his purpose. He does tell us, in verse 2 of today’s reading and at the end of his Gospel, that Christ performed many miracles, which John calls signs. As he tells us of the miracle of the loaves and the fishes, John clearly connects this with Jesus’ presentation of himself as the bread of life, which follows shortly in this chapter of the Bible [ … ]
