CCC 439 Many Jews and even certain Gentiles who shared their hope recognized in Jesus the fundamental attributes of the messianic “Son of David”, promised by God to Israel.1 Jesus accepted his rightful title of Messiah, though with some reserve because it was understood by some of his contemporaries in too human a sense, as essentially political.2
CCC 549 By freeing some individuals from the earthly evils of hunger, injustice, illness and death,3 Jesus performed messianic signs. Nevertheless he did not come to abolish all evils here below,4 but to free men from the gravest slavery, sin, which thwarts them in their vocation as God’s sons and causes all forms of human bondage.5
CCC 559 How will Jerusalem welcome her Messiah? Although Jesus had always refused popular attempts to make him king, he chooses the time and prepares the details for his messianic entry into the city of “his father David”.6 Acclaimed as son of David, as the one who brings salvation (Hosanna means “Save!” or “Give salvation!”), the “King of glory” enters his City “riding on an ass”.7 Jesus conquers the Daughter of Zion, a figure of his Church, neither by ruse nor by violence, but by the humility that bears witness to the truth.8 And so the subjects of his kingdom on that day are children and God’s poor, who acclaim him as had the angels when they announced him to the shepherds.9 Their acclamation, “Blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord”,10 is taken up by the Church in the “Sanctus” of the Eucharistic liturgy that introduces the memorial of the Lord’s Passover.
CCC 1338 The three synoptic Gospels and St. Paul have handed on to us the account of the institution of the Eucharist; St. John, for his part, reports the words of Jesus in the synagogue of Capernaum that prepare for the institution of the Eucharist: Christ calls himself the bread of life, come down from heaven.11
1 Cf Mt 2:2; 9:27; 12:23; 15:22; 20:30; 21:9.15.
2 Cf. Jn 4:25-26; 6:15; 11:27; Mt 22:41-46; Lk 24:21.
3 Cf. Jn 6:5-15; Lk 19:8; Mt 11:5.
4 Cf. Lk 12 13-14; Jn 18:36.
5 Cf. Jn 8:34-36.
6 Lk 1:32; cf. Mt 21:1-11; Jn 6:15.
7 Ps 24:7-10; Zech 9:9.
8 Cf. Jn 18:37.
9 Cf. Mt 21:15-16; cf. Ps 8:3; Lk 19:38; 2:14.
10 Cf. Ps 118:26.
11 Cf. Jn 6.