Today I heard someone say of the Eucharist: ‘It will be wonderful to receive the wine again’. They were commenting on the way the chalice has been withheld since the pandemic began and is only being offered again in some churches.
Whilst I understand her desire for this intimate encounter, I am also sad that the comment suggests there is something ‘missing’ when we cannot receive from the chalice. The words caused me to sense how easy it is to understand the sacrament we share in as a ritual, cultic meal or – at another extreme – what would amount to a cannibalistic feast. Both mislead us as to what we share in when the Eucharist is celebrated. As I wrote in The Mystery of Faith:
‘The Holy Spirit invoked on the gifts of bread and wine animates the ‘yeast’ of Christ in the unleavened bread and wine of the Kingdom. Christ will not depart from the Sacrament, coming to us in either the Host or Precious Blood. So if you can’t receive from the Chalice (receiving from the same cup as your sister or brother in the Body is an important sign of our common-unity) don’t dip the Host into the Chalice! The fullness of grace comes through both.’
Surely, what matters is not that we ‘drink the wine’, anymore than that we should ‘eat the bread’ but that we should partake of Him who said: ‘This is my body … my blood’. St John recorded Jesus as saying: “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever” (John 6.53f). Those words shocked some to the extent they stopped following Him (John 6.66f) – I doubt whether inviting people to ‘share a sip of wine in memory of me’ would have quite such an effect!
The reason why I’m sad is that
some have, clearly, never had their eyes opened to the heart of this
Mystery. Christ is not divided between
Chalice and Host; rather, we receive the fullness of grace through either the
Bread of Life or the Chalice of Salvation, the precious Body and Blood of
Christ. We say ‘Amen’ to what we receive
– that we may become more fully that on which we feed. Isn’t that the reason we share in this Sacred
Banquet?
No comments:
Post a Comment