Eucharist

Note: This is only a sketchy outline needing to be fleshed out. I certainly do not represent this as anything at all complete. It is simply an aid to be used in exploring more deeply the subjects and ideas put forth. Hopefully it will provide the user with a contextual framework from in which to develop further the ideas I have set forth here for discussion.

• 1. sacrificial gifts brings us into the realization that all of our material goods are, after all, God's in the first place!
  2. We then enter into one of the four Eucharistic Prayers, each one beginning with a preface. Each of the Eucharistic Prayers opens with the Anamnesis, the re-membering, the re-presenting of God's saving deeds in human history. The most important part is, of course, the entering again into Christ's act of changing the bread and wine into His Body and Blood, THE greatest entrance of God into our humanity.
  3. The re-presenting of the Lord's Supper once again is immediately followed by the Epiklesis, namely the invocation of the Holy Spirit by whose power of transformation the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ. Each Mass is another miracle of God acting by His Spirit in Christ in order to transform our existence.
  1. Theological Note: This invocation of the Holy Spirit's transforming power is called down upon all of humanity, upon all that is common to our humanity, in order that our humanity might be transformed by God, the Holy Spirit, into the Real Presence of the Kairos. All things, St. Paul tells us, are to be transformed and reconstituted into Christ!! God's re-creating and transforming power is at work amongst us reconstituting our bodies as well as our souls, the material order as well as the spiritual order of the entire world. God is at work in our own psycho/spiritual nature as well as in Nature itself. All things are to be reconstituted in Christ. Scriptural sources: Colossians 1:15-29; Ephesians 1:3-23.
• THE SACRIFICE OF JESUS CHRIST:
  1. In Latin the words sacra (holy) and facere (to make) form the basis for the English contraction into the word sacrifice, a word that denotes "to make holy" more than it denotes destruction or annihilation. So, the irrevocable dedication of His risen and Spirit-filled Humanity (and we are composite, organic elements of that Humanity through our Baptism and Confirmation) to the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit is the Holy Sacrifice (the making us holy) of Jesus Christ. It is this that we call the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
  2. It is the Spirit (Love) Who assembles and unites us; he unites us into the assembly, the Ecclesia, crying out within us: "Abba, Father", and melding us into that common/whole communion that is the Holy Communion of Christ. Thus the Sacrifice of Christ that we call the Mass is the atonement (at-one-ment) which makes us whole again with God the Father. Thus the Mass is called the Holy Sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and in it we give thanks (eucharist) and humbly submit ourselves to God's Word and God's Spirit in order to be transformed, in order that Christ's inner attitude might become our attitude. ( See Philippians 2:1-18).
  3. The obedience of worship consists in this: whereas Adam said "No" to God, Christ the New Adam says "Yes". The fruit of the tree in the Garden of Eden is transformed by the Holy Spirit in Christ into the fruit of the tree of the Cross planted in the Garden of the Resurrection. The fruit of the first tree affected our consciousness of good and evil; the fruit of the second tree heals our power to choose between good and evil, a power that was wounded and weakened by the sin of Adam and Eve. The power that Christ restores in us is the power to freely choose what is good, decent, right and true.
  4. The effect of Christ's Sacrifice is that He gives us, by joining ourselves into His Humanity, the power to overcome all that alienates and estranges us from each other, and from God. Separated, segregated, fractured and divided we stand in desperate need of a Savior in order to pass-over our spiritual death into the Life of His Spirit. Sin brings with it death; Christ in His Sacrifice brings us the chance and the power to restore us to Life, His risen Life.
  5. All of this Christ freely chose (as well as the consequences!). He freely chose to become humanity victimized. He then "hands over His Spirit" from the Cross. In making that human choice, God our Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit, causes His Christ to become the Kyrios in the Resurrection.
  6. All of this is "what happens" in the Mass. Likewise it is Mystery that we enter into when we receive Christ's Holy Communion. For in swallowing the Host we enter into the entire "Something", the inner reality, that is the Mass. While it is true to say that we "receive" Christ in Holy Communion, it is more true to acknowledge that He receives us into His risen life and Spirit-filled Humanity in Holy Communion. Theological Note: Christ is present to a place more than He is present in a place. The resurrected body of Jesus Christ is free from the spatial boundaries of location. This is not to say, however, that Christ cannot be located. Quite the contrary! The Life of His Spirit is incarnated into His Mystical Body and He is made present to us and to our world there in His Sacraments. The act of genuflection is our humble act of recognizing that this Reality is among us in the Presence. We genuflect to nothing other than (or less than) the Divine Presence of God in Christ located in the Hosts that convey to us His Presence. The Church is the privileged locus of the on-going sacrificial act of Jesus Christ. It is the place where the Last Supper (the Transitus Christi and the transforming action of Christ) is celebrated. All that Jesus does is still happening in the Church. The celebration constitutes the Church and the Church constitutes the celebration, for she is the Bride who offers herself to her Bridegroom that He might sweep us up and into her and return us back home to our Father. All of this is what we celebrate in the one, single Sacrifice of Christ that is the Last Supper and is called "Last" because it still goes on! It is still happening. So it is also called "Last" because there isn't room, or time, for another. For each celebration of Mass isn't another or a "new" sacrifice of Christ. No! Each celebration of Mass is our entering once again into the one, continual saving act of Christ returning all of creation back to the Father. For it is through Him, and with Him, and in Him, that all glory and honor are yours, Almighty Father, forever and ever. Amen!