The Last Supper,
also called Lord’s Supper,
in the New Testament, the final meal shared by
Jesus and his disciples in an upper room in Jerusalem,
the occasion of the institution of the Eucharist.
The story of the Last Supper on the night before Christ’s crucifixion is reported in four books of the New Testament
(Matthew 26:17–29; Mark 14:12–25; Luke 22:7–38; and I Corinthians11:23–25).
The letters of the St. Paul the Apostle
and the Acts of the Apostles
demonstrate that early Christians believed that this institution included a mandate to continue the celebration
as an anticipation in this life
of the joys of the banquet that was to come
in the kingdom of God.
The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke)
and the early traditions of the church affirm that the
Last Supper occurred on Passover.
According to the biblical account, Jesus sent two of his disciples to prepare for the meal and met with all the disciples in the upper room.
He told them that one of them would betray him.
After blessing bread and wine and giving it to
them to eat and drink,
Jesus told them that it was
his body and his blood of the Covenant.
Although the account of the Crucifixion in the
Gospel According to John
indicates that the Last Supper could not have been a Passover meal,
many interpreters accept the account given in the Synoptic Gospels.
The Last Supper
Leonardo da Vinci: Last Supper
Two aspects of the Last Supper have been
traditionally
depicted in Christian Art
Christ’s revelation to his Apostles
that one of them will betray him and their reaction to this announcement, and the institution of the sacrament of the Eucharist
with the communion of the Apostles.
Early Christian art
(c.2nd–c. 6th century)
stressed neither aspect of the Last Supper to the exclusion of the other,
but thereafter the
East generally favoured compositions
emphasizing the
symbolic aspects of the event, and the
West favored
those emphasizing the narrative.
Matthew 5:17
People tell many stories about the woman
in the Bible called Mary Magdalene.
Who she really was has been a
bit of a mystery
The Bible talks about Mary from Magdala
who was healed by Jesus of seven demons.
People also thought she was Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus,
and they thought she was the sinful woman who
washed Jesus' feet with her tears and dried them with her hair.
Today many Bible scholars agree that each of these women
is a different person.
So, who was Mary Magdalene really?
Let's find out together by following these clues.
Clue 1: Names were very important to Biblical people.
They were carefully chosen and might
tell a lot about a person's character.
Women and men didn't have family names as we do.
They had a first name followed by the name of their father
(or husband, or brother in the case of women).
Or their first name could be followed by the name of the village or city they lived in. Mary Magdalene is also called
"Mary of Magdala" because she originally lived in Magdala.
This made her different from the other Marys.
As far as we know,
Jesus never visited Magdala.
So, how did she get to know Jesus?
Clue 2: Mary Magdalene is mentioned 12 times in the Gospels.
The Gospel writers Mark and Luke both list Mary first among the women who followed Jesus
(see Mark 15:40, 41; Luke 8:1–3).
These women joined Jesus and his disciples as he brought the
"good news of the kingdom of God"(Luke 8:1) to villages and cities in Galilee.
Clue 3: Some of them had been cured of diseases. This includes "Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out" (Luke 8:2). The "demons" were some kind of diseases that were healed. Whatever Mary's difficulties were, she was completely healed—that's what "seven" means here.
Clue 4: Luke also says that Mary and the other women
used their own "resources" to provide
for Jesus and his disciples
(see Luke 8:3).
MagdalaMagdala means "tower." Magdala was a city on
the Sea of Galilee, but is not mentioned in the Bible.
It had about 40,000 citizens with its own
Roman hippodrome, or stadium, and a
large fishing industry, which exported salted fish.
The Greeks called it Magdala-Taricheae, which means
"tower of (salted) fish"
After the city of Tiberias was founded, Magdala lost its importance,
and we might not remember it today if it
wasn't part of Mary Magdalene's name.
These clues tell us a lot about Mary Magdalene:
• She came from Magdala.
• She was an important disciple because her name usually
is first in the list when women are named.
• Jesus had healed her; that's probably how she met him.
• She had enough resources to help provide
food and clothes for
Jesus and his disciples.
But there is more.
The other places where Mary Magdalene
is mentioned in the New Testament
tell us something even more important.
Mary Magdalene was an eyewitness
to all that happened to Jesus
after he was arrested in the
garden of Gethsemane.
The male disciples ran away. They were afraid. Because they had followed Jesus, they might be crucified as he was.
Mary and two other women were courageous and stayed.
They wanted to know where Jesus' body was placed
so that they could prepare it properly for burial
when the Sabbath was over.
after Jesus' resurrection and ascension,
the disciples shared the
GOOD NEWS of Jesus Christ
and what he taught them by telling it to others.
As yet, there was no
-New- Testament.
None of the stories about Jesus were written.
Besides,
most people couldn't read.
As the disciples taught in villages and towns,
small groups of people who believed what
the disciples taught came together
and eventually became churches!
Some groups began
to write about Jesus and the disciples.
And that's how we got the "four" Gospels and the New Testament. Archaeologists have found other
"gospels" about Jesus and the disciples,
which aren't in the Bible.
At least four of these gospels mention
Mary Magdalene,
and two of them present her as an especially
enlightened disciple
A fifth gospel is the Gospel of Mary
It's not complete and is about a conversation
between
Jesus and Mary Magdalene.
It's the only gospel about a woman disciple, which shows us
that Mary Magdalene and other women
were very important leaders in the
early Christian church.
What a surprise
Mary got when she returned to the tomb
the next morning with her spices and ointments!
The stone was rolled away and Jesus wasn't there.
She ran and told Peter and another disciple, and they came and saw the empty tomb but went home again. Mary stayed.
She was crying, and asked a man-who she thought was the gardener what he -had done-
with Jesus?
The man said, "Mary!" Mary said, "Rabbouni!" which means,
"My dear teacher!"
Just as sheep recognize their shepherd's voice,
Mary recognized Jesus' voice.
Jesus wasn't dead,
and she was the
first to witness the RISEN SAVIOR.
What JOY!
Jesus told Mary not to "HOLD ON to" him,
but to go and tell his disciples that he was
ascending to his Father,
and to their Father,
to his God and to their God
(see John 20:17).
Mary went and said,
"I have seen the Lord!"
A woman's witness in those days
was not to be believed. But they Believed!
Mary was the first to preach that Jesus had risen.
Because of this, she is known as
"the Apostle to the Apostles."
Mary was a faithful
and a courageous woman and continued to be an
important disciple in the early Christian church
I was in Dollar Tree -last- night,
And there was a lady and two kids behind me in the LONG line.
One was a big kid, and the other one was a toddler.
The bigger one had a pack of glow sticks, and the toddler
was screaming for them.
The Mom opened the pack and gave him one which
stopped his tears. He walked around with it smiling;
but then the bigger boy took it,
and the toddler started screaming again.
Just as the Mom was about to fuss, the older child
bent the glow stick and handed it back to the toddler.
As we walked outside at the same time,
the toddler noticed that the stick was now glowing;
and his brother said,
"I had to break it so that you could
get the full effect from it."
I almost ran, because l could hear God saying to me,
I HAD to break you to SHOW YOU why I created YOU
You had to go through it so YOU could
fulfill YOUR PURPOSE
That precious child was happy just swinging that
"unbroken" glow stick around
in the air, because he didn't understand what it
was created to do - which was GLOW
There are some people who will be
content just "being,"
but some of us are chosen... we have to be "broken."
In those moments of desperation,
We were broken But... when the breaking
is Finished,
then we will be able to see the reason
for which we were created
Anew Light