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CORPUS CHRISTI: THE MICROCOSM IS THE MACROCOSM

Wednesday, June 18, 2014 14:46

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Yes, the microcosm is the macrocosm. Let me explain.

Today, Thursday 19 June, many Christian churches around the world are celebrating the Feast of Corpus Christi(otherwise called the Thanksgiving for the Holy Communion). This important Feast, traditionally kept on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, celebrates the belief of Christ’s ongoing presence (‘Real Presence’) in the form of the Eucharist which was instituted by Jesus at the Last Supper on the first Maundy Thursday. In contrast to the sombre atmosphere of Holy Week, Corpus Christi is a joyful celebration of the sacrament of Communion.

Now, I cannot accept any literal interpretation of the doctrine of Transubstantiation—the idea that the bread and the wine used in the sacrament of the Eucharist become, not merely as by a symbol, sign or figure, but also in reality the body and blood of Christ. Yes, that is too much for me to believe. However, the idea of Transubstantiation does mean something very real and wonderful to me. You see, the whole mystery—and that is what it is, a mystery drama. Never forget this—the Christian Church is first and foremost a mystical church, despite the efforts of many misguided people who strive to make it otherwise.

The mystery drama of the Eucharist illustrates and dramatizes the essential oneness, wholeness, unity, indivisibility and ultimate indestructibility of all life. Yes, the essential oneness of all life is symbolically represented by, and fully but microcosmically concentrated in, the Sacred Host, Itself a living symbol of the All-ness of Life in the very real sense that allof life and all of time and space can be said to be present within the confines of this otherwise very little wafer of bread. Yes, the sacred Host is a miniature of the ‘Eternal Now.’ In that regard, I am reminded of those wonderful, oft-quoted words of William Blake(from his poem ‘Auguries of Innocence’):

To see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour.

The circular shape of the wafer is itself illuminating. In the ancient occult tradition metaphysics was often spoken of as sacred geometryor simply geometry. Each geometrical shape had a certain metaphysical and esoteric (’inner’) meaning or significance. You could teach the whole of metaphysics by simply teaching geometry. ‘God geometrizes,’ so the saying goes. Now, the circle, a most ancient and universal symbol, represents, among other things, life that has no beginning and no end (cf the Gnostic concept of a ‘world serpent’, in the form of a circle, eating its own tail), eternity, infinity, Heaven, the universe, the cosmos, perfection, purity, God, Spirit (or Force), Ultimate Oneness, the cycle of existence (human and otherwise) and associated notions of karma and reincarnation. More relevantly, especially in the context of the Holy Eucharist (cf the circular shape of the Sacred Host), the circle, being unbroken in nature, also represents a ‘sacred place.’

Sacred, indeed. If, like me, you accept the idea that all of life is sacred, holy, or divine, then you should have no difficulty at all in accepting the idea that the Host of the Eucharist is sacred, holy, and divine. ‘Spiritually and materially,’ wrote priest and author Geoffrey Hodson, ‘every Host is as a microcosm of the Macrocosm. Blessed indeed is every recipient.’ Microcosmically, each of us is a miniature copy of the universe, and the Eucharist is a sacred mystery drama and pictorial representation of the human soul, which comes forth from God, and which labours and struggles in time and space, in exile from its eternal home, in its pilgrimage and on its way to its ultimate re-union with the divine source from which it came. The Eucharist re-enacts the descent from Spirit into matter and its eventual re-ascent from matter into Spirit again, the idea being that we all come from God (the ‘ground of all being,’ the ‘Source’), we all belong to God, we are all part of God’s Self-Expression, and we are all on our way back to God. God is—we are.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear. (Richard Nixon used to say those words, heaven forbid.) The bread and the wine on the altar or Communion table are not mere symbols. There is no such thing as a ‘mere symbol.’ By its very nature a symbol can’t be ‘merely’ anything. A symbol—any symbol—if it be a symbol at all, is always a form or representation (’re-presentation’) of what H P Blavatskyreferred to as ‘concretized truth.’ A symbol is a way of discerning and describing some aspect of Truth (Life). More than that, a ‘true’ symbol is a way of helping to bring into the fullness of objective reality the truth of which it is a symbol. Yes, a symbol not only ‘symbolizes’, ‘represents’ or ‘stands for’ something else (the ‘inner reality’), it actually is instrumental in bringing about that reality and, in very truth, is that reality. So, when it comes to the Sacrament of the Altar, the sublimest myth known to humanity, we have powerful archetypal symbols that not only commemorate in symbol the metaphysical and spiritual ideas to which I have made reference, they enable all who participate in the ceremony with sincerity and purpose to actually take part in that sacred mystery drama that is going on all the time wherever there is life.

I still have a lot of problems with many aspects of Christianity. Indeed, conventional Christians would regard almost all that I’ve written in this post as clear and unambiguous evidence of that fact. So be it. I am a freethinker or I am nothing. I will, however, say this much: the Divine presence I encounter mystically in the consecrated Host is not only the Jesus of both my childhood and my adulthood mediated by means of the creative power of the Spirit of Life, revealed knowledge as well as imaginative mystic reflection, but also the Cosmic Christ, that is, that aspect (for want of a better word) of God which created all things, is in all things as all things, pervades all created things, and whose very Real Presence in and to me is nearer to me than hands and feet, for it dwells in my very own heart. In other words, the Christ who ‘fills the universe in all its parts’ (Eph 1:23).

You see, in the consecrated wafer is all of life—past, present and future—and that includes the man who once walked this earth known as Jesus of Nazareth as well as the indwelling Presence and ‘substance’ of all persons and all created things. In and by means of the Eucharist, I feel an intuitive connectedness, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually, with all of life. To this wonderful, mysterious Self-revelation and experience of Life itself, I can only say, with deep humility and thankfulness, ‘My Lord and my God’ (Jn 20:28).

Yes, the microcosm is the macrocosm. The One and the many are one. And so it is.

Source: http://ianellis-jones.blogspot.com/2014/06/corpus-christi-microcosm-is-macrocosm.html

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