The Eucharist in Genesis' Story of the Fall

Tonight at Mass something caught my ear.  I am sure that I have heard the words before; but their significance had not registered. It was the preface to the Eucharistic Prayer (Preface of Sundays in Ordinary Time III):

"For we know it belongs to your boundless glory,

that you came to the aid of mortal beings with your divinity

and even fashioned for us a remedy out of mortality itself,

that the cause of our downfall

might become the means of our salvation,

through Christ our Lord."

Now, I am constantly amazed at the interrelation of the Old Testament and the New, the way that God inspired writers living hundreds, sometimes a thousand, years before Jesus' birth in their recording of history and use of imagery.  Take the first chapters of Genesis for instance:  It relates the Creation and Fall of humanity in language accessible to anyone - real historical events recorded in imagery that even a child can enter into.  But look at how the imagery employed by the author lines up with events in Jesus' life.  (This is what is called a typological reading of Scripture):

Type	Antitype
Garden of Eden	Garden of Gethsemane / Garden Tomb
Adam & Eve chose own will	Christ prayed, “Father, Thy will be done”
Tree of Life Tree of Knowledge	Tree of the Cross
Adam put into a deep sleep, and Eve built up from rib taken from Adam’s side	Christ in the sleep of death, as water (Baptism) and blood (Eucharist) flow from His pierced side, giving birth to the Church

But look back at today's preface to the Eucharistic Prayer - look at what I had missed all these years!

Spiritual and physical death because they ate the forbidden fruit.

Spiritual and (ultimately) physical life because we eat the Body and drink the Blood of Jesus (Jn 6:53-58)

Mind blown.  The Father's means for continually filling us with His Son's divine and human life explains why the author of Genesis was inspired to use the image of eating a forbidden food in the story of the Fall!

Eve and Mary (the New Eve)

"The knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. What the virgin Eve had bound in unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosed through faith."

                  - Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons
                    Against Heresies, Book III (180-199 A.D.)

I have meant to write this post since the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (Dec.8th).  The readings at Mass that day contrasted humanity's disobedience in the Garden of Eden with Mary's obedience at the Annunciation.  

In both stories an angel spoke to a woman, a sinless woman fresh from the hands of God.  In the first, it is a fallen angel speaking in his own name, but in the second an archangel speaking in God's.

In the first, Eve gave her husband fruit to eat from the forbidden tree.  Mary offers us fruit as well, the fruit of her womb, Jesus (Lk.2:42), given to us as "real food" in the Eucharist (Jn.6:55).  But we must join her at the tree of the Cross to receive Him.

Eve did not believe God's word, that the fruit of the tree would bring death.  She did not trust in His love for her or her spouse, and was willing to believe that He was keeping them from true fulfillment.  She wished to put herself in the place of God.

In the sharpest contrast imaginable, Mary took God completely at His word - believing that even a virgin could conceive a child.  And Mary placed herself completely at God's service, "I am the handmaid [literally "slave girl"] of the Lord; let it be to me, according to your word.  

Both women became Mothers of the Human Race but in different ways.  Eve became mother of the fallen human race, but Mary the mother of the redeemed human race (Rev.12:17), redeemed by its union with her Son . 

Mary, "blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus!"