Grail?

September 7th, 2024| Topic: RaMbLeS | 0

CNN recently reported on the Holy Grail—the cup that was supposed to have been used by the Lord Jesus at the Last Supper (“grail,” from the Old French graal/greal, “cup”). It first showed up in written history more than millennium after its actual use, in Perceval, the Story of the Grail, a romance written around 1190. But now it’s part of pop culture:

Dan Brown made millions off his interpretation of the Holy Grail in the “Da Vinci Code,” in which he posited that the grail was not in fact an object, but a secret—that Jesus Christ had fathered children with Mary Magdalen. And who can forget Harrison Ford reaching out for the ‘cup of a carpenter’ in ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’?”

But does the real thing exist? Apparently, in Europe alone, there are around 200 of these Holy Grails! Take your pick— Valencia, Glastonbury, Léon, Montserrat, …. Believers flock to all of them.

Joanne Pierce, professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, and a Catholic, confesses:

I honestly do not think that the actual cup from the Last Supper still exists. Jesus certainly used a cup at the Last Supper, but if you look at some Gospel accounts, the room was already prepared by someone else before they arrived. So it may not have been his cup.”

The iteration in Valencia is in a chapel within a cathedral; the website of the latter confidently asserts:

Tradition reveals that it is the same cup that the Lord used at the Last Supper for the institution of the Eucharist.”

St. Peter, they say, took it to Rome, from where it was sent to Spain in the third century.

Anything handled or touched by Jesus or his apostles or innumerable saints are considered holy by many. Pierce again:

Objects they might have handled were considered to have that same grace—a connection with the holy.”

Mathew Schmalz, founding editor of the Journal of Global Catholicism, also a professor at Holy Cross, likewise admits:

Over the centuries, collecting relics hasn’t purely been about getting closer to God. There were various economic interests related to pilgrimage. You have a variety of places becoming pilgrimage sites which was a very lucrative business for those who had the relics.”

He notes wryly that one could construct a whole city with the wood claimed to be from the true cross.

I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout no Grail. But the Psalmist had a few things to say about the cup that Yahweh doles out—symbolic of judgment, whether reward …

Yahweh is the portion of my share and my cup. …
I have set Yahweh before me continually;
because [He is] at my right hand, I will not be shaken. …
You will make known to me the path of life;
fullness of joy [is with] Your presence;
pleasures in Your right hand perpetually.
Psalm 16:5, 8, 11

… or punishment.

Yahweh—He tries the righteous one and the wicked,
and the one who loves violence His soul hates.
Upon the wicked may He rain fire and brimstone,
and [may] a raging wind [be] the portion of their cup.
Psalm 11:5–6

But one thing is for sure for the people of God:

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
You refreshed my head with oil;
my cup is overflowing.
Surely goodness and lovingkindness
will pursue me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell
in the house of Yahweh for long days.
Psalm 23:5–6

SOURCE: CNN