The Passover Seder and Unleavened Bread

There was another RCIA event this past weekend. It is not a standard event for people in the program, just something the team wanted to do to teach the people. In preparation for becoming Catholic, they prepared a Jewish Passover Seder. It is the ritual meal Jews eat every year to commemorate their liberation from Egypt.

While I have been to Catholic explanations of the Seder before, this was much more detailed and authentic. I directly participated in drinking the four cups of wine, washing of the hands, breaking one of the three matzo on the plate, eating a Hillel sandwich, dipping an herb into salt water, spilling ten drops of wine for the plagues, eating charoset (mixture of apples and nuts), and singing Dayeinu (about being grateful to God) among other things.

To get into the spirit earlier in the day, I made my own matza. Everyone got the recipe at the Sunday teaching earlier in the week, but I was one of the few who actually made it. The recipe is reproduced below.

Unleavened Bread

1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp Crisco
1/2 cup very hot water

Mix flour, salt, and Crisco together - Put in a Tupperware type container and shake until it is the consistency of pie dough - crumbly.

Add water.

Shake about 3 minutes, or until dough forms a small ball. Then, take the ball and THROW it (not knead it) on your counter for about 15 minutes. (You may need to take an "arm rest")!

Divide into 3 parts - put on ungreased cookie sheet and flatten before baking to about 1/4 inch.

Bake at 350 degrees about 25 minutes.

NOTE: "Throwing" it on the counter is VERY IMPORTANT and for at least 15 minutes - if you don't, the bread will be tough.

In addition to this given recipe, I took a meat tenderizer and attacked the dough every few minutes to help soften it up. I also used the tenderizer to imprint a design on two of the pieces.

Back to the Meal
There is a lot of symbolism and meaning in the Seder. It focuses on how God brought the Jewish people out of slavery in Egypt. The teaching on Sunday explained some of the background. I wanted to know more, so I stared my own online research. I have been focusing on Jewish sources to explain the Seder. I want to learn about everything in its original context, not from sources or people who cherry pick only the most helpful information for their interpretation. There are some Christian sources that ignore much of the Seder and there are some Jewish people who celebrate the Seder and say the messiah has come in Yeshua (Jesus). I will not attempt a summary, but the Unnamed Geniuses are here to help explain the Passover Seder.

All of this stuff is important to Christianity because Jesus and his apostles were Jews. The Last Supper was a Seder that was prepared and eaten in accordance with Jewish custom and law. However, Jesus does not finish it in the proscribed way. Four cups of wine must be drunk in the meal, but Jesus stands up and walks out before he would have offered the fourth cup.

A few points were brought up in what I heard and read:

• The third cup of wine is for God's redemption of Israel. After this cup Jesus suspends drinking the fourth cup until He accomplishes His redemptive work.


• Jesus is the new paschal sacrifice. Like the lamb offered in the Passover Seder, He is without blemish.


• At dinner, Jesus says He will not drink wine again until He is in His Father's kingdom. He rejects wine offered to Him until His death.

There is a lot of information out there and I do not have a clear understanding of everything that is happening. I hope this will push you to read up on it or offer your own insights.

The Third Scrutiny
The Third and final Scrutiny for the Elect happened two Sundays ago. All the readings are online. The Gospel for the day was the raising of Lazarus in John 11:1-45. Refer to my post on the First Scrutiny for links explaining the Scrutiny since they are all very similar.

Next for RCIA will be the Holy Thursday mass, followed by a bunch of things on Holy Saturday before the Easter Vigil (which is another big bunch of things, three sacraments, and lots of grace).