What is the Catholic view of the bread of the presence and its relation to the Eucharist?

What is the Catholic view of the bread of the presence and its relation to the Eucharist?

Unfortunately, this subject matter is not greatly treated within Catholic thought. The best I ascertain is that Catholic websites unanimously say that the ”bread of the presence”* foreshadowed the Eucharist.

The following is simply one example:

IV The Bread of the Presence

Exodus 25 called for the creation of a special Table in front of the Ark of the Covenant in which to place what’s commonly called the “Showbread.” A more literal translation is “Bread of the Presence,” so the NASB translation of Ex. 25:30 reads, “You shall set the bread of the Presence on the table before Me at all times.” It was apparently called this because it was placed in front of the Presence of God, so anyone who saw this bread saw something which was perpetually before Him. Four times a year, on special Jewish holidays, the priests would bring it out to show the people, as a reminder of God’s love for them.

There are two features which make the Bread of the Presence significant. First, despite the Sabbath prohibition against any work, the Bread of the Presence was offered up every Sabbath by the priest (1 Chronicles 9:32). Second, it was at the heart of a fascinating account in 1 Samuel 21. David’s troops are hungry and go to the Temple for bread. The priest replies, “There is no ordinary bread on hand, but there is consecrated bread; if only the young men have kept themselves from women.” (1 Sam. 21:4). In other words, David’s men could partake of the Bread of the Presence, provided that they had been celibate from women over a specific timeperiod. That’s because the bread was to be consumed only by the priests (Leviticus 24:9), who were required to be celibate during Temple service. So David and his troops are being treated as priests.

In the New Testament, we see Christ creating a New Priesthood through the image of the Bread of the Presence. Specifically, in Matthew 12, the disciples were eating grain they’d plucked while they walked. The Pharisees rebuked Jesus for letting His Disciples “work” on the Sabbath. Mt. 12:3-8 then relays Jesus’ response:

He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

Interestingly, the first two examples both involve the Bread of the Presence. The first is the example I just mentioned, from 1 Samuel 21. The second example is that the Bread of the Presence is offered on the Sabbath. Together, we see Christ treating His Disciples as priests, able to partake of the Bread of Presence on the Sabbath, with the Lord of the Sabbath Himself. Because the Eucharist is tied so fundamentally with the notion of the Priesthood, it’s striking that Jesus draws that connection through the Bread of the Presence here.

Of course, more fundamentally, the whole notion of a Bread of the Presence at all is intensely Eucharistic. Catholics refer to the Eucharist as the Real Presence of Christ. That is, instead of bread that perpetually sits before the Presence of God, as under the old Covenant, it’s bread that is miraculously turned into the Presence of God.