The roots of Eucharist – Hindu Sacrifice

Sacrifice and Reincarnation: Ancient Hindu roots to Catholic Eucharist

By Hugh O’Donnell April 28, 2009

Four millenniums ago our fathers in India brought forth on this earth a religion dedicated to sacrifice and permeated with a belief in reincarnation. In fact, the main purpose of Hindu sacrifice was reincarnation. Today’s most advanced, organized and evolved religion, Catholicism, also has sacrifice as a central tenant of its main liturgy, the Eucharist. This is not a coincidence.

Although Catholic theology is silent on reincarnation, concepts of rebirth grow in importance, particularly in regard to Eucharistic sacrifice. Even if reincarnation to a future life could be proved by science, guaranteeing a future life will never be possible. Hence Catholics rightfully concentrate on our current life, which, as we will see, can and should involve both sacrifice and reincarnation.

The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast Hinduism with Catholicism from the viewpoint of sacrifice and reincarnation. The concepts of sacrifice and reincarnation have evolved over 5000 years from their roots in ancient Hindu religious practices, through Jewish religious practices of 3500 years ago, through Buddhist practices of 2500 years ago, through Christian practices of 2000 years ago, and now to the Catholic practices of today’s Eucharistic liturgy.

One of the earliest world religions is Hinduism. A principal element of the Hindu religion is the sacrifice of objects/oblations, to a deity, on an altar, by a male priest. The Catholic liturgy of Eucharist is a sacrifice of a deity, on an altar, by a male priest, however little else connects the practice and purpose of these two religions separated by thousands of years of vastly different cultural development.

Early in the 20^th century, archaeologists uncovered evidence of an ancient civilization along the Indus River, which today runs through northwest India and Pakistan. The so-called Indus valley civilization is thought to have originated as early as 7000 BCE and is believed to have reached a peak around 2000 BCE. The origins of Hinduism can be traced to rituals that took place in the Indus valley. The Hindu practice of sacrifice is believed to date back as far as 3000 BCE.

Hinduism is a collective term applied to a variety of religious traditions that appeared in India over 7000 years ago when humans and other objects were sacrificed on fires of wood. Although Hindu rituals have evolved, many of these ancient rituals continue today, mainly in India. Over 80% of the one billion people who live in India today call themselves Hindus. The term Hinduism was invented by Europeans to denote the religion of India. On the other hand, Catholicism began in Europe 2000 years ago when Jesus was sacrificed on a wooden cross. In Catholic Eucharistic liturgies today, Jesus is ceremonially sacrificed and offered to a deity before eaten by devotees. The sacrificial motifs of Eucharistic liturgies are strikingly similar to Hindu rituals.

Sacrifice holds a central position in both religions. Catholics sacrifice to one God whereas Hindus sacrifice to many gods. Some Hindus are devoted followers of Shiva or Vishnu, whom they regard as the only true God. Other Hindus have no god but look inward to the divine Self or atman. Many Hindus sacrifice to both major and minor deities. Most all Hindus recognize the existence of a unifying principle and Supreme Reality behind all existence, called Brahman, which is apart from any deity. Catholic beliefs are far more standardized than Hindu beliefs. Catholics have one unifying worship ritual called the liturgy of the Eucharist.

Many Indian Hindus describe their religion as eternal order where dharma governs everything. Hans Kung[i] describes dharma as an all-encompassing cosmic order that governs life and must be observed by all human beings. Unlike the Catholic religion, Hinduism is not governed by doctrines, dogma or magisterium. For Hindus, religion is about right action and the responsibilities of humans toward family, society, God and the gods. Because Hinduism has no centralized organizing institution like the Catholic Church, its practices and rituals have became almost as diverse as the number of people who claim to be Hindu.

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For most Hindus, the purpose of life is to realize that we are part of God so that we can leave this plane of existence and rejoin with God. For Hindus, the world is part of God. For western religions like Catholicism, the world is a creature of God. For Christians, God is personal in the form of Jesus. For Hindus, God is not a person but a force or energy or a principle. The different gods and goddesses of Hinduism represent various functions or aspects or attributes of this One Supreme Divinity. Various forms of the Hindu religion have claimed as many as 330 million gods and goddesses[ii].

Catholics have a formal bound sacred scripture called the bible that describes who God is and how the sacrifice of Jesus is the source of all human redemption. Hindu scriptures are unbound, unorganized and composed of the insights of Hindu sages and seers. Hindu scriptures serve primarily as a guidebook to redemption through reincarnation. For Hindus, sacrifice is mainly about improving on a person’s next reincarnation. For Catholics, the Eucharistic sacrifice is about resurrection and rebirth.

Although various Hindu traditions and sects rely on their own individual set of scriptures, they all revere the ancient Veda scriptures, which were brought to India by Aryan invaders after 1200 BCE. The early portions of the Veda scriptures describe a number of deities who for the most part are personifications of natural phenomena, such as storms and fire. Prayers and sacrifices were offered to these gods.

The later portions of the Veda scriptures are called the Upanishads. Many of the Upanishads, instead of speaking of a multitude of gods, refer to an ultimate reality beyond our comprehension called Brahman. Though Brahman is impersonal in nature, Brahman is sometimes referred to in personal terms by the name Isvara. These scriptures explore the search for knowledge that allows humans to escape the cycle of human suffering by way of reincarnation.

In India today, religion permeates every aspect of the individual’s personal and social life, using one of the world’s most ritualistic systems of religion. Hindu worship is primarily done at home. They have beautiful temples but these are not for weekly congregational Eucharistic services like Catholics have in their churches. Hindus attend public services a couple of times a year reminding the people that the gods live and are to be served. Catholics attend the Eucharist liturgy at least weekly and some attend daily.

The sacrifice rituals of Hindu India have evolved from those of the early Indus valley rituals. The sacred writings of Hinduism describe ritual sacrifice dating back to about 1200 BCE. Human sacrifice was apart of pre Vedic times in connection with worship of Shakti, the concept of divine female creative power. The practice of human sacrifice is very rare today. Scholars dispute whether human sacrifice was a part of the Vedic practices. Catholics celebrate the sacrifice of one human being who died 2000 years ago.

Sacrifice was, and is today, the heart of Hindu religious rituals. Yajña is the term given ritual sacrifice in Vedic times. Originally, Yajña was performed to please the gods or to obtain favors from the gods. The greatest favor a sacrifice could obtain was reincarnation to a better life. An essential element of early Yajña was sacrificial fire. Fire was personified in the form of the god Agni. In the Vedas, Agni was the first and oldest priest. Oblations, items of sacrifice, were poured into the fire and were thought to reach up to the gods via the priest Agni.

A Vedic (shrauta) yajña is typically performed by an adhvaryu priest, with a number of additional priests playing a support role plus a dozen helpers who recite or sing Sanskrit verses. Usually, there were one or three fires in the center of the offering ground where items were offered into the fire. The items offered as oblations in the yajña include large quantities of milk, grains, cakes, or drink called soma. The duration of a yajña could last a few minutes, hours or days and some even lasted for years, with priests continuously offering to the gods accompanied with recitation of sacred verses. The sacred verses were recited in the language of Sanskrit, a language that is not the vernacular in India. This was similar to the way Catholic rituals in America, before 1973, were always said in Latin. Some yajñas were performed privately while others were performed with a large number of people in attendance.

Today, a Puja is a form of Hindu religious ritual sacrifice. Like yajñas, the Puja is a way of relating humans to the domain and actions of the divine, and can be performed for anything considered divine, from Vishnu to a holy tree. In January of 2009, Father Noel Sheth, an Indian Jesuit priest, took our Theology class to a Hindu Puja worship service in Puna, India. The ritual lasted two hours and was chanted in Sanskrit by a half dozen Hindu females in decorative outfits.

Puja takes many forms, the simplest of which is darsan, gazing upon an image. The image is not believed to be divine itself; rather, it embodies the divine energy of the deity and provides a connection to the god or goddess. Puja also usually includes providing an offering to the object of Puja, such as flowers or food, and possibly lighting a candle or incense.

The ritual may be observed in silence or accompanied by prayers. Hindu priests chant prayers in Sanskrit while performing Puja. The ritual of Puja may be performed by an individual worshipper or in gatherings. Sometimes a Puja is done for the benefit of certain people, for whom priests or relatives ask blessings.

While attending the January 2009, Puja, I was immediately reminded of the Catholic Eucharist liturgies I attend in America. Food, like the bread and wine of the Catholic Eucharist, is brought to the altar at the beginning of the ritual. The food, flowers and drink are then offered up to an icon. In the January 2009, Puja ritual I participated in, the icon was of the major god, Rama.

Father Noel Sheth, in his 2003 article, Hindu Sacrifice and the Christian Eucharist[iii], describes how Hindu Sacrifice has evolved from early Vedic rituals. The early sacrifices were mainly communal, involved active destruction of the items sacrificed by fire, and was always offered to obtain favors.

With the emergence of the Bhagavad-gita around 500 BCE, sacrifice was evolving into a personal ritual often performed in private for the benefit of others rather than for selfish reasons. The Gita was a middle course between ancient Hindu physical/yoga type rituals and later Vedic and Buddhist renunciation of physical action practices that were more mental and meditative. In a similar way, active type ancient yoga practices, like Hatha yoga, evolved into the more mental and meditative style of yoga called Kundaini yoga.

Around the fifth century CE, Hindu sacrifice was overshadowed by a wave of Buddhism. Meditation became the principal form of sacrifice where individuals not only denunciated all action, they gave up all desire and self wants. The sacrifice oblation was no longer a physical object but a mental oblation such as the sacrifice of ones desire for worldly pleasures. Devotees of Buddhism renounced their egos in search of a higher form of existence or in search of enlightenment or buddhahood. The sacrifice of desire was to escape the suffering of this world and the endless cycles of reincarnation.

Father Noel Sheth greatly helped me understand ancient Hindu ritual sacrifice along with its corresponding connection to reincarnation. Father Noel’s article, Hindu Sacrifice and the Christian Eucharist, outlines the differences and similarities of Hindu sacrifice and the Catholic Eucharist. Both are intermediary rituals meant to close the separation between humans and the realm of the divine. Both are offered for a variety of purposes. Both involve the idea of self-giving. Both have words of institution that are highly developed and performed by a male priest on an altar. Both require purification before proceeding with the ritual.

Father Noel does not speculate on how Hindu sacrifice might have evolved or led to similar sacrificial motifs we now see in the Eucharist, however I think their common evolution and connection can be seen in light of the Jewish religion, which evolved alongside Hinduism and Buddhism in the second century before the birth of Christ.

Early Hindu rites of burnt sacrifice mirror Jewish rites of burnt offerings described in the Old Testament. Buddhist rites of self-sacrifice and letting go of ego during the first millennium CE mirror Christian rites of meditative prayer that developed in Europe during the same period. The sacrifice of a Jewish lamb, with a wooden fire, on the altar of Jerusalem’s Mount Moriah, by a male prophet, in 1500 BCE, has clearly evolved into the Christian ritual sacrifice of “The Lamb” on Catholic altars today.

For both Jews and Hindus, sacrifices were either bloody or unbloody. Jewish and Hindu bloody sacrifices were holocausts in which the whole animal was burnt or in which part of the animal was burnt and part left for the priest and the people to eat. For both Hindus and Jews, sacrifices were only a part of serving the gods or God. Both religions also had to be accompanied by inner morality and goodness.

After the destruction of the Jewish Second Temple in 70 CE, ritual animal sacrifice ceased for the Jews. Prayer replaced animal sacrifice. The writings of post second temple authors, like those of Maimonides in the 12^th century, began to rationalize that God always held sacrifice inferior to prayer and philosophical meditation. In Maimonides' view, it was only natural the Israelites would believe sacrifice was a necessary part of the relationship between God, however he goes on to conclude that God's decision to allow sacrifice was a concession to human psychological limitations. Maimonides believed that it would have been too much to expect the Israelites to leap from pagan animal sacrifice worship to prayer and meditation in one step.

"But the custom which was in those days general among men, and the general mode of worship in which the Israelites were brought up consisted in sacrificing animals... It was in accordance with the wisdom and plan of God...that God did not command us to give up and to discontinue all these manners of service. For to obey such a commandment would have been contrary to the nature of man, who generally cleaves to that to which he is used to; it would in those days have made the same impression as a prophet would make at present if he called us to the service of God and told us in His name, that we should not pray to God nor fast, nor seek His help in time of trouble; that we should serve Him in thought, and not by any action." [iv]

It is interesting to note how Christianity diverged from both Judaism and Hinduism with respect to sacrifice rituals once the Second Temple was destroyed and Jesus replaced the need for a sacrificial temple. Jews gave up hope of building a third temple while claiming humans could no longer make adequate atonement for sin with animal sacrifice. After destruction of the Second Temple, Jews began to see humanity's offences toward God as infinite and well beyond any possible animal sacrifice or other sacrificial oblation. Jews now look forward to a messiah from heaven that will be the ultimate source of redemption, returning their believers to unity with God like existed in the Garden of Eden. Hinduism continued unchanged. But for Christians, the solution was God sending his only Son to become the sacrifice of the everlasting covenant. This new sacrifice would replace animal and all other non-bloody forms of sacrifice that never could be sufficient. Now Jesus, the Lamb of God, a human incarnation of God, would replace the sacrifice of lambs in a temple. For Jews this solution was unthinkable. The thought that an incarnated god, in the form of a human, could be sacrificed for atonement sufficiency was inconceivable for Jews. Hindus, who already believed gods were reincarnated to human bodies, might have been more able to understand what Jesus represented to Christians. Perhaps, had the crucifixion happened in India, rather than Jerusalem, the Hindu concept of sacrifice might not have been supplanted by the non-physical sacrificial ideas that gave rise to Buddhism among Hindu believers.

In any case, Christians, moving toward Hinduism, no longer believed God was a deity beyond the realm of human existence as the Jews steadfastly maintained. Now Jesus Christ became for Christians a God incarnated in a human body like the Hindu gods Rama and Krishna except, unlike the Hindu avatars, who were divine but not fully human, Jesus was fully human and fully divine. For Jews, that God would incarnate as any form of human was beyond consideration. Judaism easily rejected Christian teachings that Jesus was The Paschal Lamb of God, an incarnated God, sacrificed as a human on a wooden cross. With great contrast to Hinduism, both Jews and Christians, from the first century onward, began to reject any form of next life reincarnation whereas for Hindu and Buddhists, next life reincarnation increased in importance. The great irony for the Jews was that Jewish Christians now believed three persons could exist in one God. Christians began to believe the greatest heresy a Jew could hold, a belief in more than one God.

Soon after Jesus died on the cross around 31 CE, a prominent Jewish Pharisee rabbi by the name of Paul or Saul became a convert to Christianity. Paul was the first authoritative Christian to realize Judaism and Christianity were incompatible. In fact, Saint Paul was the first to give Christians their current understanding of the Eucharist in his first letter to the Corinthians in 56 CE. The beliefs of Saint Paul, as expressed in his many epistles that make up a large portion of the Bible, provided Roman Catholics with an understanding of the Eucharist that would become so differently interpreted by other Christians in the two millennia to come[v].

The development of the Roman Catholic idea of the Eucharist has been continuous and contentious since Saint Paul died in Rome around 66 CE leaving in its path as many different Christian sects as there are Hindu sects. The issue of Eucharist as sacrifice and rebirth are at the roots of this contentiousness. The first split in Eucharistic understanding occurred 1000 years after Jesus died with the birth of the Orthodox Catholic faith. Numerous other splits occurred six hundred years later with the start of the Protestant reformation.

In today’s Roman Catholic understanding of the Eucharist, bread and wine are brought to the altar. A male priest speaks sacred words of institution over the bread and wine and then offers the sacrifice of Jesus to God much like the Prasada of a Hindu Puja. In the Hindu Puja ritual I participated in during January 2009, apples and rice, among many other various oblations, were brought to an altar, prayed over by a Hindu priest, offered to the icon of the god Rama, and then redistributed back to us as Prasada. In ancient Hindu times, the leftovers of a Vedic sacrifice were treated with great care because these remnants of sacrifice possessed great power. Today, the leftovers from a Puja are called Prasada. Hindus consider Prasada holy as in Vedic times. The Prasada is believed to communicate the power and qualities of the deity to those who partake of it. However, unlike the Eucharist, the deity does not indwell in the Prasada food [vi]

In the Catholic Eucharist, the Eucharistic Anaphora, the Eucharistic words of the priest, cause Jesus to be reborn or made present in the oblation gifts of bread and wine. Just like a Puja, after the bread and wine of the Eucharistic gifts have been brought to the altar and blessed by the priest, they are then distributed to the people who believe they are eating the actual Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

For Catholics, the Eucharist replaces Hindu Puja. The ancient sacrifice of a lamb by the Jewish prophet Abraham, a lamb meant to take the place of Abraham’s only son, Isaac, on the altar of Mount Morriah, has now become the Eucharistic sacrifice of God’s only begotten son, Jesus, in non-bloody form. The ancient Passover rite of the Israelites, performed by Moses during the Exodus, has now become the Eucharistic sacrifice of the Paschal Lamb.

The Israelites needed to eat the Passover Lamb for the Exodus to proceed. Catholics eat the Eucharist to receive the Body and Blood of Jesus to allow their redemption to proceed. Like Hinduism’s Vedic and Puja sacrifices, the Eucharistic sacrifice for Catholics represents the reconciliation of God and humanity. But what now is dramatically new for Catholics compared with past world religion sacrifices is the reincarnation of God’s son in the oblation of bread and wine.

Jesus, who was made absent at the crucifixion, is made present in the Eucharist. By eating the Eucharist, Jesus is reborn in us to the degree we allow our egos to be sacrificed in return. Jesus, who was the perfect example of a human being obedient to the will of the Father, the perfect example of a human completely sacrificing ones self to his own free will desires, becomes the love of God, becomes the perfect example of giving up ones life for others. Jesus becomes the seed crystal, if you will, by which all of humanity can now overcome cosmic disobedience. By “putting on” the example of Christ, by embodying His magnetic example, we now can overcome the gravity of sin; we can overcome the cosmic inertia of the fall that separated us from God. As Saint Paul would say, we become the “Body of Christ” when we partake of the Eucharist.

So in a sense, by eating the Paschal Lamb, we escape the bonds of sin, just as the Israelites escaped the slavery of Egypt by eating the Exodus lamb[vii]. We also escape the endless cycles of reincarnation. We, however, no longer seek to escape the suffering of this life the way Hindus believe, we now embrace the suffering of others as Jesus did so as to eliminate sin from life bringing about a return to the Garden of Eden. By eating the Paschal Lamb, we are reincarnated, reborn, resurrected to new life in Christ. This reincarnation need not wait for a new body in the next life because this rebirth can occur while still in our existing bodies and then last long after our physical bodies disappear. This is a dramatic theological evolution on the concept of sacrifice and reincarnation from past world religions.

The best part of this new understanding of sacrifice is that it not only involves sacrifice of the ego, as Buddhist believed was necessary, but it leads to a life of self sacrifice overcoming the suffering of this world. We are not reincarnated out of existence in the physical world, but are reincarnated, by the self-sacrificing love of Jesus, to a restored life as it was in the Garden of Eden before and after time began, before and after our physical bodies disappear.

In many ways we Catholics might conclude that Hindu, Buddhist and Jewish sacrifice had it half right after all. Sacrifice does lead to atonement, it does lead to a better incarnation, it does reunite us with all the cosmos- - if we sacrifice our ego the way Jesus made possible when he sacrificed his will to the Father.

As early as the Book of Genesis in the Jewish Bible, in 1500 BCE, Melchizedek took bread and wine into his hands, and being a priest of God most High, he blessed Abraham with these gifts (Gen 14:18). Abraham would go on to be obedient to God by agreeing to sacrifice his only begotten son, Isaac, as described in Chapter 22 of Genesis. If you are a Muslim, Abraham agreed to sacrifice his first-born son, Ishmael, as described in the Koran. In any case, God stopped the practice of human sacrifice and replaced it with a lamb on Mount Moriah. God then replaced the slavery of Egypt with another lamb during Moses’ Exodus. God finally brought all sacrifice to an end with the Eucharist.

During the first millennium after Christ died, the words of institution, the words of Eucharistic prayer, the words that turned bread and wine into Christ’s resurrected body, the words that led to Christ’s resurrected presence in the world, were carefully composed into four Eucharistic prayers that Catholics use today in Mass liturgies. The prayers center around words Jesus used during His last supper when he took bread and wine into His hands and said: "This is my body, which is given up for you," and "This is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed...unto the forgiveness of sins."

For Catholics, the words of Psalm 110:4, “You are a priest forever to the order of Melchizedek” are now used to ordain Catholic priests in the manner of Genesis’ Melchizedek. The Catholic priest, acting as the resurrected Jesus, has the power, through the words of the Eucharistic Prayers, to transform bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. In the Catholic Mass, as on the cross, Christ is both priest and victim. The sacrifice offered is Jesus Himself, though in the Mass, in the former capacity, He works through a solely human priest who is joined to him through the sacrament of Holy Orders and thus shares in Christ's priesthood.

The concept of Eucharistic sacrifice, which was central to early Christianity, began to diverge in different Christian sects. The first split in Eucharistic Church unity occurred in 1054 when the Pope of Rome excommunicated Orthodox Christians. Although the excommunication was more for social and political reasons, the doctrine of the Eucharist began to diverge. The Eastern Orthodox Church began to see the celebration of the Eucharist a bit differently from Roman Catholics. For the Orthodox Church, the Eucharist became a continuation rather than a reenactment of the Last Supper. Like Catholics, but quite unlike later Protestants, the Orthodox see the Eucharistic Liturgy as a bloodless sacrifice, during which the bread and wine we offer to God becomes the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ through the descent and operation of the Holy Spirit, who effects the change.

The subtle difference in Eucharistic doctrine between Catholic Eucharistic liturgy and the Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church is seen in the Orthodox Eucharistic prayer of Saint John Chrysostom. Here the priest says:

"Accept, O God, our supplications, make us to be worthy to offer unto thee supplications and prayers and bloodless sacrifices for all thy people," and "Remembering this saving commandment and all those things which came to pass for us: the cross, the grave, the resurrection on the third day, the ascension into heaven, the sitting down at the right hand, the second and glorious coming again, Thine own of Thine own we offer unto Thee on behalf of all and for all," and "… Thou didst become man and didst take the name of our High Priest, and deliver unto us the priestly rite of this liturgical and bloodless sacrifice…"

The differences between Roman Catholic Eucharist and Orthodox Eucharist are small in comparison to what Protestants came to believe during the Reformation, which began with Martin Luther in 1517. For the Protestant churches of the Reformation, the Eucharist was no longer viewed as a sacrifice. It was no longer viewed as a continuation or additional sacrifice to that of Christ on the cross. For Protestants, Jesus needed only to die once. To have Jesus sacrificed in the Eucharist is a denial of the all-sufficiency of Christ's original sacrifice. So for Protestants, the Eucharist is a re-presentation to God of the "once and for all" sacrifice of Calvary by the now risen Christ, who continues to offer himself, and what he has done on the cross, as an oblation to the Father.

Many Protestants strongly reject the idea of the Eucharist as a reenactment of Jesus’ sacrifice, tending instead to view it as merely a holy memorial meal. Still, some Protestants express belief in a “form of the real presence of Christ in the bread and wine,” as the Lutherans do. But even this is vastly different from the Catholic and Orthodox understanding of the Eucharist as a sacrifice that transcends time and is now offered in an unbloody manner.

For Catholic and Orthodox Christians, Christ is the real priest at the Eucharistic liturgy working through a human priest to whom Jesus has conferred the grace of priesthood. Since a Catholic priest is one who offers sacrifice, Protestants call their clergy ministers instead. You will not find an altar in Protestant churches nor will there be Tabernacles to hold the Eucharist.

Evangelical Protestants, like those of the Baptist faith, do not have any form of Eucharist in their church services, instead emphasizing a person’s decision to accept Christ’s sacrifice on the cross as atonement for their sins. The personal relationship with Jesus Christ, not Eucharist, is key to salvation and redemption for Baptists.

In conclusion, Christians, apart from Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians, do not conceive the Eucharist as a “living sacrifice”. The bread and wine at their liturgies are a memorial to what Jesus did the supper before he was crucified. These Protestants would not identify as having anything in common with Hindu rituals today as Catholics might do with Hindu Puja.

Although all Christians today would deny Hindu belief in reincarnation, I think that Catholics, if given more thought to what Saint Paul preached about the Eucharist, would agree that the Eucharist is a reincarnation as well as a sacrifice. If the bread and wine of the Eucharist are means by which Jesus dwells in us, we too undergo reincarnation during the Eucharist.

As Saint Paul said in his epistle to the Romans, “If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, while the spirit lives because of Justice. If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, then he who raised Christ from the dead will bring your mortal bodies to life also, through his spirit dwelling in you.” (Rom 8:10-11). Paul went on to say in Romans, “I beg you through the mercy of God to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice…so that you may judge what is God’s will” (Rom 12:2). In another epistle, Paul said, “Death came through a man; hence resurrection comes through a man” (I Cor 15:21). In Paul’s epistle to the Galatians, he said, “Those who belong to Jesus Christ have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal 5:24.) In Paul ‘s epistle to the Colossians he says, “In Christ the fullness of deity resides in bodily form. Yours is a share of this fullness,” (Col 2:9). Finally, in Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians he said, “ He (Jesus) died for us, that all of us, whether awake or asleep, together might live with him” (I Thess 5:10).

The Buddhist had it half right to seek no desires. Christians now add the other most important half. After we let go of self-desire, we must desire with all our hearts to seek the will of the Father as Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane. We need not meditate ourselves outside of suffering but now are empowered to offer ourselves into the midst of suffering, as Jesus enabled us to do with his example of perfect love, perfect obedience to the Father. The practice of meditation and prayer leads us to know the will of the Father as it did for Jesus.

If we have the chance to let Jesus incarnate our bodies in this life, why would one wait for a second chance that God will provide us another life to choose Christ, a chance that is not guaranteed by any scripture. I believe God gives every person adequate chance to sacrifice his free will over to Christ. Once we have been given that chance, why would one expect endless reincarnations? We must live our current life as if it is the only one we have. If it has taken us more than one life to reach the Eucharist, then our God is indeed a just God and we have no need to think more of reincarnation.

The ultimate sacrifice that reunites us with God, the sacrifice that Buddhists and Hindus have always intuitively sought, is the sacrifice of Jesus. The reincarnation that Hindus and Buddhists have foretold since ancient times has arrived in the form of Jesus’ incarnation to our bodies, long dead from sin. Once we take on the resurrected body of Jesus Christ, we indeed are truly reincarnated to new life in Christ, before and after our physical bodies die. All the great religions of the world have pointed to the day of the Eucharist. The ideas of sacrifice and reincarnation that trace their roots to the source waters of all the great world religions have converged, not on Mount Moriah, but on Eucharistic altars that now flood all the civilized river valleys of the Earth.