Malachi’s prophecy of the Eucharist

In the reading for Morning Prayer in the Divine Office today we are given the prophecy from Malachi regarding pure worship. 

In the prophet Malachi 1:11 the Church Fathers (Didache, St Justin Martyr, St Irenaeus, St Augustine) interpreted this as a prophecy of the Eucharist. The Eucharist truly is the “pure offering” that is accepted by God and proclaimed among the nations. This is the worship in “Spirit & in truth” that Jesus told us he would give us in John 4:23-24

The words of this prophecy are also alluded to in Eucharistic Prayer III: 

You are indeed Holy, O Lord,
and all you have created rightly gives you praise,
for through your Son our Lord Jesus Christ,
by the power and working of the Holy Spirit,
you give life to all things and make them holy,
and you never cease to gather a people to yourself,
so that from the rising of the sun to its setting
a pure sacrifice may be offered to your name.

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is not just a memorial or a sacred meal, it is the True Pure Sacrifice given to us by Jesus himself to worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth. It is the sacrifice that all peoples can offer to God and be reconciled to him in Christ Jesus. 

There is beautiful poetic typology in the Mass that references the sacrifices of the Old Testament and how they are fulfilled in the New Testament. All the sacrifices from the Bible find their fulfilment in the Eucharistic Sacrifice given to us by Jesus. This is beautifully explored by St Thomas Aquinas in his hymn “Lauda Sion” 

Lauda Sion

Sion, lift up thy voice and sing:
Praise thy Savior and thy King,
Praise with hymns thy shepherd true.

All thou canst, do thou endeavor:
Yet thy praise can equal never
Such as merits thy great King.

See today before us laid
The living and life-giving Bread,
Theme for praise and joy profound.

The same which at the sacred board
Was, by our incarnate Lord,
Giv’n to His Apostles round.

Let the praise be loud and high:
Sweet and tranquil be the joy
Felt today in every breast.

On this festival divine
Which records the origin
Of the glorious Eucharist.

On this table of the King,
Our new Paschal offering
Brings to end the olden rite.

Here, for empty shadows fled,
Is reality instead,
Here, instead of darkness, light.

His own act, at supper seated
Christ ordain’d to be repeated
In His memory divine;

Wherefore now, with adoration,
We, the host of our salvation,
Consecrate from bread and wine.

Hear, what holy Church maintaineth,
That the bread its substance changeth
Into Flesh, the wine to Blood.

Doth it pass thy comprehending?
Faith, the law of sight transcending
Leaps to things not understood.

Here beneath these signs are hidden
Priceless things, to sense forbidden,
Signs, not things, are all we see.

Flesh from bread, and Blood from wine,
Yet is Christ in either sign,
All entire, confessed to be.

They, who of Him here partake,
Sever not, nor rend, nor break:
But, entire, their Lord receive.

Whether one or thousands eat:
All receive the self-same meat:
Nor the less for others leave.

Both the wicked and the good
Eat of this celestial Food:
But with ends how opposite!

Here ’tis life: and there ’tis death:
The same, yet issuing to each
In a difference infinite.

Nor a single doubt retain,
When they break the Host in twain,
But that in each part remains
What was in the whole before.

Since the simple sign alone
Suffers change in state or form:
The signified remaining one
And the same for evermore.

Behold the Bread of Angels,
For us pilgrims food, and token
Of the promise by Christ spoken,
Children’s meat, to dogs denied.

Shewn in Isaac’s dedication,
In the manna’s preparation:
In the Paschal immolation,
In old types pre-signified.

Jesu, shepherd of the sheep:
Thou thy flock in safety keep,
Living bread, thy life supply:
Strengthen us, or else we die,
Fill us with celestial grace.

Thou, who feedest us below:
Source of all we have or know:
Grant that with Thy Saints above,
Sitting at the feast of love,
We may see Thee face to face.
Amen. Alleluia.