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Do you (really) know what the “Last Supper” is?

2023-04-06T05:13:57.103Z


In the Christian religion, the word designates the last meal taken by Christ. Do you know its origin? As well as the different meanings it takes on?


First day of the Easter Triduum, which celebrates the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, Holy Thursday commemorates the last meal taken by Christ with the twelve apostles on the eve of his crucifixion.

This episode, which occurred before Passover and through which the Eucharist was instituted, is called the “Supper”.

To discover

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“While they were eating

, says the Gospel according to Saint Matthew (26.26-28),

Jesus took bread;

and, having given thanks, he broke it, and gave it to the disciples, saying, Take, eat, this is my body.

He then took a cup;

and after having given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink of it, all of you;

for this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”

From this act was born the sacrament by which believers give thanks to God, through his Son, for the gift he has made of his life.

From supper to communion

The word "supper" is attached to the Indo-European root "kert" ("to shell", "bark") by a development analogous to that of "caro" ("piece", hence "flesh") and the Greek "daïs". " ("feast").

As can be read in

Alain Rey's Historical Dictionary (Le Robert), the term is borrowed, at the end of the 10th century, from the Latin "cena", not in the classic sense of "dinner, supper",

but

in the Christian sense of "meal at which the Lord gave himself as food to his disciples on the eve of his death" and of "communion".

Read alsoFive (surprising) words that come from Christian Latin

As it is written in the

Trésor de la langue française

, the "supper", by extension, also designates the ceremony of Maundy Thursday during which the pope washes the feet of twelve poor people in memory of what Jesus did the day before his death.

The Gospel of John (3.4-5) says:

“He got up from the table during dinner, put down his clothes and took a linen napkin which he tied around his waist.

Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the feet of his disciples, then to wipe them with the towel he had tied around his waist.

And this, as a sign of humility, as he would have taught his disciples.

“Jesus washing the feet of his disciples” (1898), Albert Edelfelt.

www.bridgemanimages.com/Bridgeman Images

Used in the Middle Ages as an instrument in the fight against heresies rejecting the Eucharist, the Last Supper did not become a major iconographic theme until the Renaissance.

The mural in the Dominican convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, in Milan, painted by Leonardo da Vinci from 1495 to 1498 is probably the most famous representation of this episode in the life of Christ.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2023-04-06

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