Devotion for today: the Bread of Life foreshadowed in the Old Testament

Today we move into our study of the most solemn part of the Mass: the Consecration. Before we examine it as part of the Mass, let us take a few minutes to find just a few of the many Old Testament foreshadowings of the use of bread as food from God. It is important to remember that bread was the main diet of people in the Old Testament. A good harvest, fields of grain, meant continued life.

Genesis 14:18: And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of God Most High.

Exodus 12:7-8: Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that same night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

Exodus 16:4: Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether or not they will walk in My instruction.

Exodus: 25:30: You shall set the bread of the Presence on the table before Me at all times.

Numbers 4:7: Over the table of the bread of the Presence they shall also spread a cloth of blue and put on it the dishes and the pans and the sacrificial bowls and the jars for the drink offering, and the continual bread shall be on it.

1 Samuel 21:6: So the priest gave him consecrated bread; for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence which was removed from before the Lord

1 Kings 19:5-8: Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.

All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.”  He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.
The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” ⁸ So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.

2 Kings 4: 42-44: A man came from Baal Shalishah, bringing the man of God twenty loaves of barley bread baked from the first ripe grain, along with some heads of new grain. “Give it to the people to eat,” Elisha said. “How can I set this before a hundred men?” his servant asked. But Elisha answered, “Give it to the people to eat. For this is what the Lord says: ‘They will eat and have some left over.” Then he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the Lord.

Catechism of the Catholic Church on The Old Testament

121 The Old Testament is an indispensable part of Sacred Scripture. Its books are divinely inspired and retain a permanent value, for the Old Covenant has never been revoked. 122 Indeed, "the economy of the Old Testament was deliberately SO oriented that it should prepare for and declare in prophecy the coming of Christ, redeemer of all men." "Even though they contain matters imperfect and provisional, The books of the Old Testament bear witness to the whole divine pedagogy of God's saving love: these writings "are a storehouse of sublime teaching on God and of sound wisdom on human life, as well as a wonderful treasury of prayers; in them, too, the mystery of our salvation is present in a hidden way."
123 Christians venerate the Old Testament as true Word of God. the Church has always vigorously opposed the idea of rejecting the Old Testament under the pretext that the New has rendered it void (Marcionism).

Prayer: O LORD Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, Who by the will of the Father and with the cooperation of the Holy Spirit have by Thy death given life unto the world: deliver me by this, Thy most sacred Body and Blood, from all my sins and from every evil. Make me always cling to Thy commandments and never permit me to be separated from Thee. Amen.