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Maundy Thursday

Wednesday, April 4, 2012 15:41

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ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF HIS ALL-HOLINESS THE PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE ON THE BLESSING OF CHRISM

THE LAST SUPPER AND THE MASS

by Dom David Bird mon. ben.

Have you noticed that, when the institution narrative remembering the Last Supper is proclaimed by the priest, the words “Take this, all of you, and eat of it, for this is my body which will be given up for you” are not addressed to the people, nor are they an incantation pronounced over the bread and wine; nor do they even refer to the host that the priest holds in his hands. They are addressed to God the Father in a prayer and refer to the bread held by Jesus at the Last Supper. Likewise with the chalice, the priest says,

”In a similar way, when supper was ended, he took this precious chalice into his holy and venerTable hands, and once more giving you thanks, he said the blessing and gave the chalice to his disciples saying,

Take this, all of you, and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my Blood, the Blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.

Do this in memory of me.”

Once again, the words are spoken in a prayer addressed to God the Father, and the chalice concerned is that that was held in the hands of Jesus two thousand years ago, not that in the hands of the priest in the present; though the two chalices are identified by the word “this”.

This is not like any other sacrament. At least in the Latin Rite, the priest says “I baptise you”, “I absolve you”; but the priest in the Mass does not say, “I consecrate this bread/ wine”. Instead, addressing the Father, he recalls an event two thousand years ago, the Last Supper, and identifies what he is doing with that event. He does not say that, because he is commemorating that event, God is doing something now in another event: it is a complete identification. It seems that the priest’s mind and words are wholly occupied with the Last Supper, and that he shows the people the host and the chalice to be adored by them, not because of what he is saying but because of what Jesus said in the Last Supper. It seems that there is only one consecration at all Masses, that which Jesus did in the Upper Room on the night before he died. In fact, this is what St John Chrysostom said:

The priest says, ‘This is my body’, and these words change the nature of the offerings. Thus the word of the Saviour, pronounced once, has sufficed and will suffice to fulfil the most perfect sacrifice on the altar of every church, from the Last Supper of Jesus Christ right up till our time and till his coming again. (John Chrysostom: Homily on the Treachery of Judas 1, 6..PG 49, 380)

Thus, the words of institution are absolutely central to the Roman Canon (Eucharistic Prayer I) as it was to St Ambrose. St Thomas is only giving the mainstream Latin tradition when he calls the words of institution the “form” of the sacrament.

However, this Latin tradition is not universal. In the IVth century, St Cyril of Jerusalem gives a commentary on the Eucharist, including a word for word commentary on the Anaphora (Eucharistic prayer); and there does not seem to have been the narrative of the Last Supper in Jerusalem in his time. To this day, the Assyrian Church of the East, called by the Vatican “a proper local church of orthodox faith”, has the “Anaphora of SS Addai and Mari” without the words of institution; and this liturgy is in Aramaic and goes back to around 200AD. In place of the institution narrative there is a the epiclesis or invocation, asking the Father to send his Spirit on the bread and wine and on the community that the bread and wine be changed into Christ’s body and blood and the community have the grace to benefit from the Eucharist. St Cyril of Jerusalem writes:

The bread and wine of the Eucharist before the holy invocation are ordinary bread and wine; but after the invocation the bread becomes the body of Christ and the wine the blood of Christ. St Cyril of Jerusalem, Mystagogical Catechesis I, 7, (S.C. 126, pg 94)

The Byzantine tradition gives importance to the words of institution but also have an epiclesis after it and, if pushed, would say that the moment of consecration is then and not at the words of institution because it is the coming of the Holy Spirit that fulfils the Word, and gives reality to the words of institution..

How can such a variety of practises exist side by side? Are they differences of doctrine or different liturgical expressions of the same basic faith? I believe it to be a general theological principle that when there are differences between fully Catholic rites from different cultures and histories, then we must find the common basis for these differences, because there we will find an answer to the problem. Thus we are exploring, together with the Orthodox, the position of the papacy in the first millennium in order to find a common Christian solution and way of interpreting our present opposed positions. It assumes that the Holy Spirit is fully active in both our Eucharists and thus guides our traditions, and that there is thus a way of integrating them, however opposed they may seem: all is required is our humble obedience and the work of the Holy Spirit, and patience to wait on God.

The basis of a solution about different practises of consecration is indicated in the words, “Do this in memory of me”. Jesus did not say, “Say this in memory of me”. He is referring to the action of “taking, blessing and giving thanks,breaking and giving to his disciples”, what the Anglican Benedictine Gregory Dix called “The Shape of the Liturgy”. Taking bread and wine is the offertory; blessing and giving thanks is the anaphora or eucharistic prayer; the breaking of bread is the equivalent in the Latin Rite to the Agnus Dei; and giving to his disciples is communion. “Do this in memory of me” is Jesus’ command: the celebration of Mass is the Church’s humble obedience.

To see the significance of this we must look at the Lucan Annunciation narrative which shows us how the Christian reality works. The Archangel Gabriel tells Our Lady that the Holy Spirit shall come upon her. She replies, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” The Holy Spirit acts together (synergy) with her humble obedience; and thus she truly becomes Mother of God, something she could never have done on her own. In the same way, the humble obedience of the Church in celebrating the Mass is an anamnesis because it is done in memory of Christ, and it is an epiclesis because it calls down the Holy Spirit who makes Christ present, empowering the Church to celebrate the Eucharist, something it could never do on its own.

Note that the Eucharist is anamnesis and epiclesis as an act of humble obedience before any set of words have been laid down. The words of the anaphora could have been Christianised table prayers of Jewish origin as in the Didache, a work that may well be contemporary with the writing of the Gospels. Nevertheless, it was normal that, very soon, the prayers came to reflect the reality that was being celebrated; but it also explains the variety of ways that the Christian Mystery was expressed.

If the Mass is simply the Spirit-enabled extension in time and place of the Last Supper, we can learn much about the Mass by learning from the Last Supper.

For instance, when did Jesus become present at the Last Supper? Clearly, he was there from the very beginning with his disciples. Without the presence of Jesus, there would have been no Last Supper. So it is for the Mass. For the Early Church, Christ’s presence was always dynamic, never static: he was always approaching, challenging Christians to open their hearts to him, never simply in their pocket. There were moments in the Mass when he was coming very explicitly, using signs that indicated his new entrance into their lives. The entrance of the Celebrant was met with great joy by the congregation because he came in persona Christi, not just legally but, more important, sacramentally, standing in for Christ who is present by the power of the Holy Spirit. The celebrant’s entrance was combined with that of Jesus entering for the Liturgy of the Word, his presence symbolised by the Gospel book which was received with great reverence as an icon of Christ’s presence. This corresponds to the Little Entrance in the Byzantine Rite. Christ enters once more to celebrate the Eucharist at the Offertory, at what is called “the Great Entrance”, this new dimension of his Coming is symbolised by the bread and wine that is brought to the altar. The wonderful hymns of the Eastern rites at the Offertory, like the Cherubikon and “Let all mortal flesh keep silent”, bear witness to the reality of Christ’s coming at the Offertory. (It is well worth listening to Metropolitan Kallistos Ware in the video below). The climax of Christ’s Coming in the Mass is the consecration and communion which is our participation in what has happened at the consecration. This in no way calls to question the reality of the other comings and presences of Christ in the Mass. It is a great pity that our awareness of transubstantiation has made us unaware of the other ways that Christ is present; and real presences appear to us as real absences. It is important to bear in mind that, as in the Last Supper, Christ is present and is approaching us from the very beginning of the Mass.

What was Jesus doing when he took bread, blessed and gave thanks, broke it and gave it to his disciples sating, “This is my body”; and what did he. took a chalice at the end of the meal and said, “This is the chalice of my blood….”? We must remember that there was nothing about the execution that took place the next day to make people intimate that it was a sacrifice. Visibly, it was merely a Roman execution, a political act of legalised murder. It was only because of the Last Supper that the disciples knew the true nature of the crucifixion. The disciples heard Jesus offer his death up to the Father, his broken body and poured out blood, as a new covenant and as a sacrifice for sin. It was only a true offering because of what was going to happen on Good Friday, and it revealed the true nature of what was about to happen. The disciples would have recognised that it was not only a revelation of Jesus’ intentions at the Last Supper that turned his coming death into a sacrifice; it was also a prophetic act by which the Father, through the use of these signs, was declaring Christ’s offering in loving obedience to death was the sacrifice that brought about the new covenant.

In the Mass, the Church obeys Christ and does what he did, and through this humble obedience, the Holy Spirit brings about what the Church could not do on its own: Christ’s offering of his own death to the Father becomes the Church’s offering and we become one body with Christ in his sacrifice, and thus we share in his life.

Alone among the sacraments, the Eucharist is brought about, not by the celebrant saying what he is doing, but by him saying what Jesus said, did and commanded two thousand years ago. We saw that, for St John Chrysostom, Jesus consecrated the bread and wine at all subsequent celebrations of the Mass by what he said at the Last Supper. Now I am going to seemingly contradict all I have said about the identity between the Last Supper and the Mass by stating that there is an enormous difference between the Last Supper celebrated before Christ’s death and the Mass celebrated after Christ’s death-resurrection-ascension. This difference does not arise from what we do but from the totally different context in which Christ operates; and this alters the context in which we celebrate.

In the words of the Letter to the Hebrews,

When Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God…For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. (10, 11 – 14)

Jesus, risen and ascended, is sitting on the throne of mercy, making intercession for us and all people. When he pleads his loving obedience unto death, it has become a past event and a present reality because it is a dimension of his own identity. He is no longer in the Upper Room but in the Holy of Holies in the celestial Jerusalem; and, as we approach him we remember that

You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. (Heb. 12, 22-24)

Thus , by obeying the command of Our Lord, “Do this in memory of me”, we share in his death, but in the new context of the heavenly liturgy, with the angels and saints. No anaphora illustrates this with such clarity and beauty as the Roman Canon. The very centre of the prayer is the institution narrative. There is no emphasis in the prayer on God coming to us, no explicit petition for the Holy Spirit to come down, no mention of the Second Coming. Instead, there is an emphasis on an upward movement. Consecration is seen as bringing our offerings to the heavenly altar by the hands of an angel so that they become one with the heavenly offering, the body and blood of Christ We too are entering into communion with the saints, sharing their liturgy and praise. If pride comes before a fall, humble obedience lifts us up into heaven.

I can recommend the videos offered at the end of this post. All are good, but that of Metropolitan Kallistos Ware and that of Dr Scott Hahn are especially good and complement what I have written, and all complement each other.

LIFE POURED OUT by A Monk Of The Eastern Church

source: megafunk

The breaking of bread is the central act of Christianity.

At the Last Supper Jesus breaks bread and distributes it. He pours wine and distributes it. It is not enough to say that Jesus gives Himself. He gives Himself as a piece of broken bread and as poured –out wine; He gives His broken body and His shed blood. The Lamb of God is immolated for the life and salvation of the world.

O Jesus, grant me union with You in Your immolation. In Your hands make of my life a libation poured out to God and to men.

Pour me into Your cup as spilt wine. Make me a piece of bread broken by Your very own hands, held in Your hands, distributed by Your hands.

I am willing to be broken by You. Drown my sins and my person in Your blood. Grant that I may die to myself in order to be born to You, to Your brethren! Since I am a member of Your body, offer me to God, and give me to others with Your own body and blood.

Only when the Master broke bread were the eyes of the disciples of Emmaus opened and they recognized Jesus. The presence of Jesus and the breaking of bread are inseparable. Wherever the bread is broken Jesus is there.

The Gospel does not specify what the breaking of bread at Emmaus was. Was it a renewal of the mystery of the Last Supper or simply an act of love?

Whatever this broken bread may be – whether it be the mystery of the body and blood of Christ communicated to men, or the help brought to those who are hungry, or that friendly sharing of life which a meal symbolises – this broken bread is the sign by which the Saviour’s disciples are recognised.

It is a profound and complex sign in its very indetermination. By the breaking of bread performed in the Saviour’s spirit, the Saviour’s presence is made known.

Jesus is the “bread which cometh down from heaven.” The Gospel also calls it the “bread of life.” There is much more in the notion “bread of life” than in that of “living bread.”

To speak of a living bread is to say that life is a quality belonging to this bread. To speak of the bread of life is to state that this quality can be communicated. The bread of life is a food which gives and engenders life.

Life poured out

by Monk of the Eastern Church

September 12, 2010 8:31pm

Filed under:

Meditations

pour
ed out

Jesus A Dialogue with the Saviour

Chapter XXXIV

LINKS

Maundy Thursday Homily by Abbot Paul

The Mass and the Apocalypse 1 & 2

The Inner meaning of the Divine Liturgy

Our Participation in the Heavenly Liturgy

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