Ex 12, 3-7 Every family must procure for itself a lamb

Exodus 12 (chosen pages)

(Ex 12, 3-7) Every family must procure for itself a lamb

[3] Tell the whole community of Israel: On the tenth of this month every one of your families must procure for itself a lamb, one apiece for each household. [4] If a family is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join the nearest household in procuring one and shall share in the lamb in proportion to the number of persons who partake of it. [5] The lamb must be a year-old male and without blemish. You may take it from either the sheep or the goats. [6] You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, and then, with the whole assembly of Israel present, it shall be slaughtered during the evening twilight. [7] They shall take some of its blood and apply it to the two doorposts and the lintel of every house in which they partake of the lamb.

(CCC 1334) In the Old Covenant bread and wine were offered in sacrifice among the first fruits of the earth as a sign of grateful acknowledgment to the Creator. But they also received a new significance in the context of the Exodus: the unleavened bread that Israel eats every year at Passover commemorates the haste of the departure that liberated them from Egypt; the remembrance of the manna in the desert will always recall to Israel that it lives by the bread of the Word of God (Cf. Deut 8:3); their daily bread is the fruit of the promised land, the pledge of God's faithfulness to his promises. The "cup of blessing" (1 Cor 10:16) at the end of the Jewish Passover meal adds to the festive joy of wine an eschatological dimension: the messianic expectation of the rebuilding of Jerusalem. When Jesus instituted the Eucharist, he gave a new and definitive meaning to the blessing of the bread and the cup.