If you don't want to send the full modal structure you can replicate the old behaviour doing something like this:
// this is just an example, remember to adapt the selectors to your code!
$('.modal-link').click(function(e) {
var modal = $('#modal'), modalBody = $('#modal .modal-body');
modal
.on('show.bs.modal', function () {
modalBody.load(e.currentTarget.href)
})
.modal();
e.preventDefault();
});