An Instructive Eucharist*

After the Processional.

The procession has entered now. The stage, so to speak, is set and full. And we begin our work by blessing God. The ordinary world around us does not bless God. The every-day world largely ignores God. But in this other world, this extra-ordinary and essential world of the Liturgy, God is indeed blessed. This sets the tone. “Blessed be God,” we say, “And blessed be His Kingdom.” We then pray to God to prepare us for what is to come. We ask Him to send His Holy Spirit into our hearts - to make our intentions pure and to enable us to praise and love Him with all our being. Afterwards we acclaim and praise Him - merciful and glorious, glorious in His mercy and love for man. Depending on the season, one or the other of two very ancient hymns - dating from the fourth century - follow immediately. The Kyrie eleison (from the Greek for “Lord have mercy”) or the Gloria in excelsis (from the Latin for “Glory to God in the Highest”). Both of these come from the East and have been a part of the Church’s worship from earliest times. The Kyrie was originally a shout of praise directed towards God or even an earthly ruler. Perhaps we should see it as the joyful cry “The Lord is merciful!” rather than a plea for mercy. It is like the word “Alleluia” or “Hosanna.” The Gloria which often comes next is basically the same thing - an ecstatic hymn of praise to God acclaiming His splendor and His majesty in Christ. Its tone is one of jubilant celebration, so much so that during the more somber seasons of Advent and Lent we leave it out of the Liturgy - to return on the great feasts of Christmas and Easter.

The Kyrie and Gloria ended, the celebrant calls us to prayer and prays on our behalf the collect for the day. This is a short prayer which refers to the feastday we may be observing or to the lessons which will next be read. It collects together or summarizes the themes which will be the focus of the liturgy.

After The Epistle. Prayer Book: Rite I, pp. 325 - 326; Rite II, pp. 357-358

The action of the Eucharist consists of Word and Sacrament. Both are fundamental parts of the life and faith of every Christian. At this point we are engaged in the Service of the Word. We have just heard a reading from the Old Testament - those books which look forward to Christ - and from the Epistles - letters of instruction written to members of the early Church. This first part of the Service, together with the sermon, has its origin in the worship of the ancient Jewish Synagogue. Like that it is primarily a service of teaching and instruction.

In most Churches lay people who are members of the congregation read the lessons. Theirs is an important function in the Liturgy. One particular reading, however, has by an early tradition always been reserved to the clergy - the solemn reading of the Gospel. Doubtless you’ve noticed that we read it in a manner very different from the lessons. For instance, the singing of a hymn and a procession precedes this reading. Much more solemnity, more ceremony is involved in the proclamation of the Gospel. Why is this? Again, because the structure of our Christian faith is two-fold, Word and Sacrament. This doesn’t simply describe what Christianity is from the outside, but from the inside: how it works as a religion. It means something important and profound: that we seek and find Christ’s presence in the Word and in the Sacrament. At the reading of the Gospel Christ makes Himself present to us in his Word just as surely as he was present with his disciples two thousand years ago. For this reason before and after the proclamation of the Gospel we hail and acknowledge not the reading, but Christ himself, the Word of God, who is mystically present in these words of Scripture. We stand at the reading of the Gospel and face the Book in order to be addressed and encountered by the One who comes to us in His Word. “Glory to You, Lord Christ,” we say. Because the reading or singing of the Gospel is such a special act, it is reserved for members of the ordained ministry - a priest, a bishop, or a deacon. The Gospel Book, itself a symbol of Christ, is brought in the procession to the midst of the Church to symbolize the coming of the good news of Christ to His people.

At a Solemn Eucharist, the book is censed. The use of incense is deeply rooted in the Scriptures and in the traditional practice of the Church. At this point in the service it is derived from the ancient Roman practice in which incense was carried before important personages as a mark of their rank. Before the reading of the Gospel we greet our Lord, our King, with incense - a mark of the respect and homage which He deserves.

After the Gospel. Prayer Book: Rite I, pp. 358-359; Rite II, pp. 358 - 359

The lessons have been read; the Gospel proclaimed. At this point in a normal service the sermon would be preached. Afterwards we respond to God’s Word to us in Scripture and sermon by declaring our common faith in the words of the Nicene Creed. This is an outline of belief which the Church adopted some 1600 years ago in a council at Nicea, a town in present-day Turkey. It was chosen then to be and probably still is the best statement of what Christians believe - a summary of the meaning and hope of the Faith. In the Creed we affirm our belief in the mighty acts of God for our salvation - acts of power and love - the reason we are here today.

After the Creed. Prayer Book: Rite I, pp. 359-360,; Rite II, pp. 383-395

The Liturgy continues with prayer. Prayer, for the Church and for every Christian, is like the bloodstream and the blood. It joins everything together and it brings life. Without it the Body dies. Without prayer our faith becomes boring, sterile, and dead. In the intercessions we present to God in prayer our own needs and necessities, and the particular needs of those close to us, family or friends, who may be sick or troubled, and the needs of the Church and the world. Then in prayer we confess our sins - those acts in our lives which have denied and stifled Christ’s working in us and have taken us away from Him. Christ promised to the Church the power to bind and to lose, that is, the power to forgive sins in his name. The celebrant, then, on behalf of the Church pronounces over us the Absolution, a formal declaration of the forgiveness of our sins which Christ promises and gives to every Christian. And then, assured of Christ’s forgiveness, we greet one another in His name. It is sin that separates us one from another. It is sin that destroys the peace between us. In Christ our peace is restored.

Before the Offertory.

In the early years of the Church’s life, if you had not yet been baptized, at this point in the Mass you would be made to leave the building. The Liturgy of the Sacrament, the second part of the Eucharist, was considered too sacred for the eyes of those who had not been initiated into the mystery of Christ’s Redemption. The unbaptized were expelled and in some places the doors to the Church were locked. It was with great seriousness and even awe that the early Christians regarded the miracle of the Mass.

The action of the Liturgy now moves from the pulpit and the lectern - the place of the Word - to the Altar - the locus of Christ’s sacramental presence.

We are accustomed to think of the Offertory as the Collection - the collection of our offerings of money which we return to God as stewards, in thanksgiving, for the support of His Church. In the beginning, this was not the case. In the ancient Church money played no part in the Offertory. Rather it consisted of the gathering together and bringing to the Altar of bread and wine - bread and wine which often each person brought individually to the Church. Bread and wine and the Offertory itself are powerful symbols. In the first place, bread and wine represent in microcosm the whole life of humanity - the life and work of men and women in the Creation, which God has entrusted to man’s care. The bread is not merely grain; the wine is not merely the juice of the grape. They are more than that. They go beyond simple nature. Rather, they are grain and grapes which have been transformed by human life and work. In the second place, we may see the Offertory as a symbol of the Christian life itself - these elements, like the life of the Christians, are given to up God to be received back infused and alive with the presence, and life, and grace of Christ. Members of the congregation - representatives of us all - bring forward the gifts which we shall receive back changed and transformed.

 At a Solemn Eucharist incense is used at this point. Here the symbolism is very Biblical and Jewish, with its origin in the practice of the ancient temple in Jerusalem. The incense represents prayer ascending to heaven. The gifts of bread and wine, those serving at the altar, and the congregation are censed to signify that all of us together are being swept up into that movement of prayer and offering which is the Eucharist.

After the Offertory. Prayer Book: Rite I, pp. 333 - 338: Rite II, pp. 361-376

This last part of the Liturgy - its climax and conclusion - stems from the last supper of Jesus with his disciples. Strangely enough, we don’t know a great deal about the particulars of this meal, which has so often been repeated. The Gospels don’t tell us much. What we can say for certain is that Jesus commanded the Church to “Do this in remembrance of Me” and that Christians have remembered his command and repeated this meal over and over throughout the centuries. Their experience has always been this: that He was present with them when they obeyed His command.

This part of the Eucharist - the Liturgy of the Sacrament - begins with the celebrant’s exhortation to “Lift up your hearts.” “Be joyful,” the priest tells us, “Sursum corda!” “Lift up your hearts.” The key to the meaning of the Prayers to follow lies in what the celebrant says next: “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God,” for the Eucharistic Prayer is primarily a giving thanks to God for His acts of power in creation and redemption. This is, after all, just what Jesus did at that Last Supper: “He took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it . . . he took the cup of wine; and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them.” This same action - the giving of thanks - is the celebrant’s and also our action in the consecration of the gifts of bread and wine. For this reason we call the consecratory prayer “The Great Thanksgiving.” In fact, this strange Greek word “Eucharist” which we’ve been using means exactly that - to give thanks.

We give thanks to God first by repeating in the Sanctus the hymn which Isaiah the prophet heard sung around the throne of God - “Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of power and might.” We acclaim the one who will soon come to us in the Sacrament of his body and blood - “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord.” And in the prayer of consecration we give thanks to God for His mighty work in Jesus, the Christ. We pray that He will bless the gifts of bread and wine - that they may become the Body and Blood of Christ; that we, being made holy by the Spirit, may find our real food and real drink in His Body and Blood. This is the Christian sacrifice, the holy sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving in which we recall thankfully the sacrifice of God in Christ. Here at The Church of the Advent the tower bell is rung at certain points during this prayer, namely at the Words of Institution: “This is my body. This is my blood.” The bells have their origin in the medieval Church. Their function was then and is now to alert us and focus our attention on the central mystery and miracle of the Liturgy - the coming of Christ to His people. The bells are rung and the celebrant lifts high the host and chalice for all to see.

In the Episcopal Church we believe that something really occurs to the bread and wine when they are consecrated by the priest and the Church. In this we are joined by the great and historic tradition of Christianity - by the Orthodox Churches, the Roman Catholic Church, the Lutheran Churches, and several of the Reformed Churches. Some say that the Liturgy is only a kind of memorial: we eat bread and drink wine and remember Jesus when we do it. Certainly that’s true, but in the Anglican Communion we claim that there is more to it than that. We believe that when we gather together and give thanks over the bred and wine, Jesus Christ - as he promised - will make himself present to us, sacramentally, in the bread and wine. This is the faith of the Church; moreover, this has been the experience of the Church from the very beginning. The bread and wine become sacraments - instruments, signs effective in themselves - by which Christ Himself gives us his presence, and his power, and his life. God in Christ is always working to be near to us - to be close to us, and with us. He is, of course, continually present to us at every time and in every place, but in the Holy Communion He is as near to us as the food we eat and the wine we drink.

After the Communion. Prayer Book; Rite I, pp. 339: Rite II, pp. 365-366

We have received Christ’s Body and Blood. What else is there now to do, but again give thanks? We do so and the Liturgy ends as the celebrant blesses us and we are dismissed. We have celebrated the drama of God’s mighty acts; we have partaken of the Body and Blood of his Son; we have been swept into the extraordinary world of the Liturgy. We are dismissed to go out into the everyday world and take with us what we have received here, to spread abroad the love and power and presence of Christ. And what is our response to this? Once again, “Thanks be to God.”

A Note about the term Transubstantiation.

Many people equate the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist with the theory of Transubstantiation. They are, in fact, not exactly the same thing. The doctrine of the Real Presence asserts what the Church has believed, taught, and experienced since earliest times, i.e. that Christ is really and truly present to his people in the Sacrament of the Altar. Transubstantiation is one theory among the many which seek to explain how Christ is present; to articulate the mechanics, so to speak, of His presence. It was developed in the thirteenth century by St. Thomas Aquinas in order to combat rather crude theories of the Eucharist that gave rise to superstition. St. Thomas’ explanation depended, as did his theology, on the philosophy and metaphysics of Aristotle

By the time of the Reformation an intellectual reaction had taken place against St. Thomas’ thought, which had become the official teaching of the Roman Church, and also against Aristotelianism. Luther and the English Reformers protested that Aquinas’ doctrine of transubstantiation per se can nowhere be found in Scripture or the early teaching of the Church. They were right; it can’t. It was, in their view, an illegitimate development which was a departure. They never, however, denied the doctrine of the Real Presence; indeed, they defended it. It was not until the second generation of the Reformation came along that this fundamental and scripturally-based doctrine was questioned and by some denied.

Even if we regard the doctrine of Transubstantiation as simply one way of explaining the gift of Christ’s Real Presence in the Mass, there is still some value in continuing to use the word. All accounts of how Christ is present - even those which the Continental and English Reformers came up with - attempt to make it clear and undoubted that a miracle is taking place in the bread and the wine. For some in the Anglo-Catholic tradition, Transubstantiation- in a metaphorical rather than metaphysical sense - remains the best term to point to this miracle - the mystery of Jesus’ Real Presence with his people, veiled in bread and wine.

* The Church of the Advent - 2006