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BREAD
OF LIFE AND NEW PRIESTHOOD
The
"Bread of Life" is God, the Creator Himself; eating this
Bread is introducing God within us and living
within Him. How can we be nourished by such a Meal?
Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, revealed it:
 "
'I am the Bread of Life. Whoever comes to me will
never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never
thirst…I am the living Bread which comes down
from Heaven. Whoever eats this Bread will live for
ever; and the Bread that I shall give is my flesh for
the life of the world'. Then the Jews started arguing
among themselves: 'How can this man give us his flesh
to eat?' Jesus replied to them: 'In all truth I tell
you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of man and
drink his blood, you have no Life in you. Whoever eats
my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal Life, and I
shall raise him up on the last day…Whoever eats
my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live
in him…'. After hearing this, many of his
followers said :'This language is intolerable!…'
Jesus told them: 'Does this offend you? What if you
should see the Son of man ascend to where he was
before? It is the spirit that gives Life, the flesh
has nothing to offer. The words I have spoken to you
are spirit and they are Life. But there are some of
you who do not believe...'. After this, many of his
disciples went away and accompanied him no more" (John
6,35-66).
The
withdrawal of these unfaithful disciples did not
discourage Jesus; He went on with his plan and, during
the last Easter Supper He had with his apostles, He
answered to the question the Jews had asked: "How can
this man give us his flesh to eat?" In fact, He took some
bread, then a cup of wine and gave them to his
apostles:
"As
they were eating, He took bread, and after He had said
the blessing He broke it and said to them: 'Take it,
this is my body'. Then He took a cup, and after
He had given thanks, He handed it to them, and all
drank from it, and He said to them: 'This is my
blood, the blood of the New Covenant poured out
for many for the forgiveness of sins…Do this in
my memory…" (Marc 14,22-25 / Matthew 26,26-29 /
Luke 22,15-20 / 1 Corinthians 11,23-25).
This
new Easter Meal was instituted by Jesus the eve of his
crucifixion by the Bread and Wine incarnating his Body
and Blood, and consequently his Soul and divine Spirit as
well. This Meal, because of its simplicity, deceived a
great number of Jews who expected the messianic Meal to
be glorious, victorious and outstanding, matching the
ambitions of a Zionist earthly kingdom. This
disappointment had been predicted by the prophet
Hosea:
"The
threshing-floor and wine-press will not
feed them, the new wine will disappoint them"
(Hosea 9,2).
The
threshing-floor, where the grain was separated from the
rest of the corn, is the symbol of the Bread of Life. The
wine-press, where the grapes ferment into wine, is the
symbol of the Wine of Life. Those who turn away from
Jesus, do not nourish themselves from the heavenly
products of the threshing-floor and the wine-press. They
thus deprive themselves voluntarily from eternal Life.
This is Jesus' divine Message to the world; this Message
is still valid actually and will remain so until the end
of the world.
The
Quran also invites the believers at this heavenly
Table:
-"The
Disciples, said: "O Jesus, son of Mary! can your Lord
send down to us a Table set from Heaven?" Jesus
said: "Fear Allah, if you have faith!" They said: "We
only wish to eat thereof and satisfy our hearts, and
to know that you have indeed told us the truth; and
that we ourselves may be witnesses to the miracle."
Jesus the son of Mary said: "O Allah our Lord! Send us
from heaven a Table set, that there may be for us -
for the first and the last of us - a solemn festival
and a sign from You; and provide for our sustenance,
for You are the best Sustainer (of our needs)." Allah
said: "I will send it down unto you: But if any of you
after that resists faith, I will punish him with a
penalty such as I have not inflicted on any one among
all the peoples." (Quran V ; The Table Spread,
112-115)
-"Truly
the Righteous will be in Bliss: On raised couches will
they command a sight (of all things). You will
recognize in their faces the beaming brightness of
Bliss. Their thirst will be slaked with pure
Wine sealed: The seal thereof will be Musk: and
for this let those aspire, who have aspirations: With
it will be (given) a mixture of Tasním: A
spring, from (the waters) whereof drink those
Nearest to Allah. Those in sin used to laugh at
those who believed" (Quran LXXXIII; Dealing in Fraud,
22-29).
(Refer
to our text: "A Look of Faith at the Quran", chapter IV,
article 3: "The Heavenly Table").
The
lord Jesus attached such a great importance to this Bread
of Life that He appeared Himself to Paul in order to
reveal to him personally the institution and the Content
of It. In fact, it was not by the apostles that Paul was
informed about this vitally important fact, but by the
Lord Himself as he declared it to the
Corinthians:
"For
I have received of the Lord that which also I
delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night
in which he was betrayed took bread and, when he had
given thanks, he broke it, and said: 'Take, eat: this
is my body, which is broken for you: do this in
remembrance of me'. After the same manner also he took
the cup, when he had supped, saying: 'This cup is the
New Testament in my blood; whenever you drink it, do
this as in remembrance of me'. For as often as you eat
this bread, and drink this cup, you proclaim the
Lord's death till he comes. Therefore whosoever shall
eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord,
unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of
the Lord. Everyone is to examine himself, and only
then may eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For
he who eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks
damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body"
(1 Corinthians 11, 23-29).
This
heavenly Bread and this heavenly Wine initiated a new
priesthood that produced a new generation of priests. In
fact, under the Torah, the priests used to slain animals
which they then offered to God. They were, so to say,
"sacred butchers" of a religious cult that had often and
explicitly denounced by the prophets as being
disagreeable to God and rejected by Him:
-"Sacrifice
gives You no pleasure, burnt offering You do not
desire. A sacrifice to God is a broken spirit, a
broken contrite heart You never scorn" (Psalm
51,16-17).
-"For
I spoke not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in
the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt,
concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices" (Jeremiah
7,22).
-"With
what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself
before the high God? shall I come before Him with
burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the
Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten
thousands of rivers of oil?… You have already
been told, O man, what is right and what Yahweh wants
of you: only this: to do what is right, to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah
6,6-8).
-"For
I desire mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge
of God rather than burnt offerings" (Hosea
6,6).
-"Provide
yourself with words (of repentance) and come back to
Yahweh. Say to Him: 'Take all guilt away and give us
what is good. Instead of bulls we will dedicate to You
our lips" (Hosea 14,3).
-"I
hate, I despise your feast days, and I take no
pleasure in your solemn assemblies. Though you offer
me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not
accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings
of your fat beasts…But let judgment run down as
waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream" (Amos
5,21-24).
The
Quran also confirms the uselessness of the sacrificed
animals and requires instead the prayer and the
submission to God:
"It
is not their meat nor their blood, that reaches
Allah, it is your piety that reaches Him" (Quran
XXII; The Pilgrimage,37).
Jesus,
by offering his own body as a sacrifice, instituted a new
generation of priests edified on the offering of his
person on the cross. In order to belong to his
priesthood, one must stop slaying and sacrificing
animals, but one's own vices by scourging selfishness and
materialism: "Jesus said to his disciples: 'If anyone
wants to be a follower of mine, let him deny himself, and
take up his cross, and follow me' " (Matthew 16,24), "Go
and learn the meaning of the word: mercy is what pleases
Me, not sacrifice" (Matthew 9,13).
Thus,
as we have already seen, it was during the last Easter
Supper that Jesus instituted his new priesthood, the one
of the New Covenant announced previously by the
prophets, and particularly by Jeremiah:
"Behold,
the days come, says the Lord, that I will make a
New Covenant with the house of Israel, and with
the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that
I made with their fathers…Within them I
shall plant my Law, writing it in their hearts"
(Jeremiah 31,31-34).
This
messianic Meal had already and prophetically been
symbolized, two thousand years before the Messiah's
Advent, by the bread and wine offered to our Patriarch
Abraham by Melchizedek. This latter was a "king and also
priest of God Most High", although he did not belong to
Abraham's family (Genesis 14,17-20). This is the reason
for which King David, under divine inspiration,
announced, one thousand years before Jesus, that the
Messiah will be altogether a king and "a priest forever",
but a priest "according to the order of Melchizedek"
(Psalm 110,1-7), and no more according to the Jewish
order of Aaron, the brother of Moses.
St
Paul, in his letter to the Hebrews (chapters 5-7),
explains this revolution in the Jewish priesthood; he
summarizes it saying: "The priesthood being changed (by
Jesus), necessarily means a change also of the Torah (the
Jewish religious Law)" (Hebrews 7,12).
This
change in the priesthood appears concretely in the Bread
and Wine offered by Jesus at his mystic Table. The first
Christians ardently recurred to this holy Food with
simplicity, avoiding all conspicuous cult, armed with
solid knowledge of the biblical prophecies concerning the
Messiah's Advent, deep faith in Jesus, and brotherly
genuine love. They shared this heavenly Meal around
Jesus' spiritual Table in the intimacy of their
respective homes:
"They
continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and
fellowship, and in breaking of Bread,
and in prayers… and breaking Bread from house
to house, they shared their food with joy and
simplicity of heart" (Acts 2,42-46).
In
our actual apocalyptic era - in which we were introduced
since the Antichrist appeared - this messianic
priesthood, which has been disfigured by the traditional
churches during the past centuries, is restored to its
initial purity, by being liberated from all the
pagano-folkloric rites and cults imposed on it. Thus
appears the beating Heart of the Christian faith, namely
the Body and Blood of the Messiah present in the Bread
and Wine, this "reality which is the Body of the Messiah"
(Colossians 2,17).
The
Book of Revelation urges us to restore the priesthood as
it had been practiced by the first Christians, with
simplicity and warmth, in family. Jesus Himself invites
us to do so:
-"Behold,
I stand at the door, and knock: if anyone hears my
voice, and opens the door, I will come in to him, and
will sup with him, and he with Me. (Revelation
3,20)
-"He
(Jesus) loves us and has washed away our sins with his
Blood and made us kings and priests to serve his God
and Father" (Revelation 1,6)… You (Jesus) bought
people for God of every race, language, people and
nation, and made them kings and priests for God to
rule the world" (Revelation 5,9-10).
The
Book of Revelation incites us, therefore, to restore the
priesthood of Jesus. Thus, the apocalyptic priests are
also according to the order of Melchizedek and,
consequently, they are completely independent and
separated from the traditional churches, as Melchizedek
was independent from the Jewish community. This is the
spirit of freedom and independence to which Jesus invites
us in John's apocalyptic Book. The practice of this
apocalyptic priesthood had already been revealed by Jesus
in the Gospel as a sign of his Return:
"Be
like people waiting for their Master to return
from the wedding feast, ready to open the door as
soon as He comes and knocks…In truth I tell you,
He will do up his belt, sit them down at
Table and wait on them" (Luke 12,35-40).
This
"Table" is the "tree of Life set in God's Paradise" and
the mystical "hidden Manna" Jesus promises to offer to
his disciples in the Book of Revelation (2,7 and 3,17).
In order to benefit of this holy Manna, one must
imperatively believe in the interpretation given by Jesus
Himself in 1970 about the Book of John's Revelation (See
our text: "The
Key of the Apocalypse").
The
invitation to the restored priesthood is addressed to men
as well as to women, whether married or bachelors, young
or old. In the Kingdom of God, inaugurated by the Lord
Jesus, all are equally children of God, all are equally
invited to be priests of Christ without any
discrimination, whether sexual, racial or other. Those
who prevent married men from being priests, and priests
from getting married, are hypocrites condemned by God
Himself. This prevention reveals the necessity of a
restoration and is one of the obvious signs of the
end of times. In fact, Paul revealed that The Holy Spirit
condemns firmly those "hypocrites" who, at the end of
times, will forbid marriage:
"The
Spirit says explicitly that, in the end of
times, some will abandon faith; they will obey
deceitful spirits and follow teachings inspired by
devils; they are seduced by hypocrites and
liars whose consciences are dead, as if burnt with
a red-hot iron: they forbid marriage…" (1
Timothy 4,1-5).
Four
items are to be underlined in this highly inspired and
important text:
It
is the Holy Spirit, not Paul, who revealed this
abandon of faith; and He revealed it
explicitly.
This
abandon of faith occurs at the end of times. It is an
important sign which confirms what Jesus had already
predicted about this unfortunate period of the end of
times (see Matthew 24,3-25). In fact, in the beginning of
Christianity, priests and even bishops could get
married. Paul said: "A bishop should be blameless, the
husband of one wife…" (1 Timothy 3,2 / Titus
1,5-6).
Those
who forbid marriage are those who abandon faith and
follow deceitful spirits who, so very often, lead them to
fall in the traps of various vices and to commit numerous
immoralities which clearly appear today.
A
restoration of the monastic vocation comes as an
unavoidable consequence of what has been said. This
isolating vocation belongs to the past and, though it
produced a number of genuinely holy souls who joined it
in good faith, it is not in line with God's plan: In
fact, Jesus, the eve of his crucifixion, thus spoke to
His Father in front of the apostles:
"Father…I
gave them your message…I do not ask You to
take them out of the world, but to protect
them from the Evil One…I sent them into the
world just as You sent Me into the world…"
(John 17,14-18).
We
are sent into the world, not nearby the world, not
in its suburbs. Life with faith "into the world" is a
challenge we must dare to face. It is among our human
brothers and sisters that we, believers, can be of some
help. "You are the light of the world", Jesus said, "No
one lights a lamp to put it under a tub, but on a
lamp-stand where it shines for everyone in the house"
(Matthew 5,14-16). Those who hide themselves from the
world are similar to the bad servant of the parable, a
coward who hid his one and only talent because he was
afraid to lose it, afraid of his Master. He should have
put his trust in God and make this talent productive. He
was finally rejected by the Master (Matthew
25,14-30).
The
messenger of the Apocalypse, this "powerful Angel
with a rainbow over his head" (Revelation 10,1-2), is
sent with the power to restore the priesthood by
inviting the believers, men and women of all races, at
Jesus' Table without recurring to any ecclesiastical
authorities. This power is accredited to him by God
Himself through the "Small Open Book", the Book of
Revelation which he presents, open, because
clearly explained by Jesus. In fact, the "Rainbow" over
his head is the sign of the Covenant between God and men
(Genesis 9,12-17). This means that this Angel's sacred
mission is to proclaim, on behalf of God, the
restoration of the New Covenant. This restoration has
already begun; it had been prophesied by Peter, it is
actually operated by Jesus Himself who has already
spiritually returned:
"Then
He (God) will send you the Messiah he has predestined,
that is Jesus, Whom Heaven must keep till the
Universal Restoration comes, which God
proclaimed speaking through his holy prophets" (Acts
3,21).
This
restoration is "the New Heaven and New Earth", the "New
Jerusalem" in which John saw no material temple
(Revelation 21,22) since the priesthood evolved to the
interior of the families and since the true notion of the
temple is the believers themselves. Thus, any material
religious building becomes obsolete and useless to the
true believers.
(See
our texts: "Cult
and places of Cult",
"Jesus
Restores the Priesthood",
"The
Universal Restoration").
The
purpose of the various churches is to gather the faithful
around the Body of Jesus, the "Eucharist" as name call
It, this wonderful Bread of Life. Nevertheless, today,
God wishes to introduce this Heavenly Meal within the
familial or personal intimacy. His Holy Will be
done!
The
entire humanity is invited to take part in this restored
priesthood. All those who believe in the Book of
Revelation as explained by Jesus on May 13, 1970 -
men and women of all races, languages and colours
- only have to say "yes" to become Jesus priests.
This consecration to priesthood is undergone in privacy
and spontaneously between Jesus-Christ and the person who
answers positively to His Call. It is thus, very simply,
that one is integrated in this priesthood and answers
favourably to the invitation to Christ's Wedding Supper
(Matthew 22,1-14). Only the unbelievers who deliberately
refuse to respond to the divine call, as well as "those
without a wedding garment", deprive themselves from this
Supper. Thus, one must no more have to pass through a
clerical hierarchy or a rite of laying hands. The
Authority who confers this priesthood is the living
Christ Himself who lays His blessed hands upon His
believers since He Himself "washed us from our sins and
made of us kings and priests to serve his God and
Father " (Revelation 1,6).
For
all those who have reached an adult faith, the one and
unique true cult is embodied today in the Bread of Life
Whom we can freely take into our homes. This is the
Restoration and this is the First Resurrection the
Revelation speaks about. "Blessed and holy are those who
share in the First Resurrection; the second death has no
power over them, but they will be priests of God and of
Christ…" (Revelation 20,6). Paul is quite right in
saying:
"The
reality is the Body of Christ. Let none deprive
you of it" (Colossians 2,17-18).
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