Of central importance is the notion that theosis, the process of attaining union with God, is greatly facilitated by frequent reception of the eucharistic bread and wine. The following quote comes from The Life in Christ, pp 122-123.
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Since it was not possible for us to ascend to Him and participate in that which is His, He came down to us and partook of that which is ours. So perfectly has He coalesced with that which He has taken that He imparts Himself to us by giving us what He has assumed from us. As we partake of His human Body and Blood we receive God Himself into our souls. It is thus God's Body and Blood which we receive, His soul, mind, and will, no less than those of His humanity.
It was necessary that the remedy for my weakness be God and become man, for were He God only He would not be united to us, for how could He become our feast? On the other hand, if Christ were no more than what we are, his feast would have been ineffectual. Now, however, since He is both at once, He is united to those who have the same nature as Himself and coalesces with us men. By His divinity He is able to exalt and transcend our human nature and to transform it into Himself. For when the greater powers are brought to bear upon the lesser they do not permit them to retain their own characteristics: when iron comes together with fire it retains nothing of the property of iron, when earth and water are thrown on fire they exchange their properties with those of fire. If, then, of those which have similar powers the stronger thus affect the weaker, what must we think of His wonderfully great power?
It is clear, then, that Christ infuses Himself into us and mingles Himself with us. He changes and transforms us into Himself, as a small drop of water is changed by being poured into an immense sea of ointment. This ointment can do such great things to those who fall into it, that it not only makes us to be sweet-smelling and redolent thereof, but our whole state becomes the sweet-smelling savour of the perfume which was poured out for us, as it says, "for we are the sweet savour of Christ" (2 Cor 2:15).
For today's commemoration of Bishop Andrewes we have a passage from a 1605 Christmas sermon preached before King James I. It well illustrates Andrewes as a theologian with very deep catholic and patristic roots. It can be found, along with much other useful information on Andrewes, on the Anglican Eucharistic Theology website, accessible under the "Anglicans" section of the outer sidebar.
For "the Word" He is, and in the word he is received by us. But that is not the proper of this day, unless there be another joined unto it. This day Verbum caro factum est, and so must be "apprehended" in both. But specially in His flesh as this day giveth it, as this day would have us. Now "the bread which we break, is it not the partaking of the body, of the flesh, of Jesus Christ?" It is, surely, and by it and by nothing more are we made patakers of this blessed union. A little before He said, because the children were partakers of flesh and blood, He also would take part with them--may we not say the same? Because he hath so done, taken ours of us, we also ensuing His steps will participate with Him and with His flesh which He hath taken of us. It is most kindly to take part with Him in that which He took part in with us, and that, to no other end, but that He might make the receiving of it by us a means whereby He might "dwell in us and we in Him".
The excerpt is found on pp 115-116.
Two types of confession characterize the Eucharistic life. The first type is associated with the recitation of the Nicene Creed, and the second type is associated with the confession of sins...One type of confession is the act of adhering to a statement or set of beliefs preceding the confessors. There are statements of belief, truth, and meaning that one recites as a way of submitting to them. Confession is not a sharing of opinion, and the corporate act of confession is not an aggregate of opinion. In fact, agreement with content is not the essence of the confession; it is not an expression of what we think. It is to submit to the boundaries of belief so that one might learn to live in this new territory. The content becomes the subject of thought; we are to wrestle with what is said. The Creed, and whole Eucharist, is the way that we are incorporated into the mind of Christ, which exists as the ecclesial Body of Christ. The development of Creeds began in a Christian regula fidei, a rule or a way to regulate the faith. Faith as that which is believed, in contrast to faith by which one believes, is not an amorphous entity requiring our agreement to keep it afloat. Faith is a regulation of Christian life; it keeps us heading the right way. The recitation of the Nicene Creed in the Eucharist is directed forward and is not a bit of nostalgia for the old days of certainty. The Creed is our way to communion...
The common faith recited and received in the Eucharist requires commitment but not consensus. A theme present in each dimension of the Eucharistic life is that communion is received by the offering self, the offering assembly, and is not an achievement of proper order and thought. We do not achieve, possess, or produce communion, but we do submit faithfully to its life and demands. Confessing a common faith is a visible manifestation of a gathering of persons for the purpose of sharing a life given to them. These gathered, confessing, persons will keep meeting each other within this faithful act, a place to encounter confessors from previous ages and other Eucharistic celebrations within this common faith.
A worthy effort in this direction is Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist by Roman Catholic scholar Brant Pitre (Doubleday 2011). Pitre documents parallels between the Eucharist and a number of Jewish concepts such as messianism, Exodus, manna, the Bread of the Presence, and the paschal lamb. What Jesus and his followers did was not to discard the seder but to reinterpret it in a radically new way. Examples are found on pp 70-74.
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...the Last Supper was also different--radically different--from an ordinary Passover meal. Any ancient Jew, including the apostles, could easily have seen this. For one thing, most Passovers were celebrated within families, with the father leading and acting as head. At the Last Supper, by contrast, Jesus acted as host and leader of the Twelve, even though he was not the father of any of the disciples. Even more, at an ordinary Passover, the focus was on God's covenant with Abraham, the exodus from Egypt, and the entry into the promised land of Canaan. Yet Jesus spoke instead of the "new covenant", prophesied by Jeremiah to be fulfilled in the age of salvation...Perhaps most significant, at an ordinary Jewish Passover, the entire liturgy revolved around the body and blood of the sacrificial Passover lamb. First, the lamb would be slaughtered, and the priests in the Temple would pour out the blood of the lamb on the altar. Then the Jews would bring the body of the lamb from the Temple to the Passover meal, and the father would explain its meaning at the meal. Yet at the Last Supper, Jesus did something entirely different. With his words of explanation, he shifted the focus away from the body and blood of the Passover lamb (of which there is no mention), and turned it toward his own body and blood.
... Along the same lines, before the Temple was destroyed, the climax of the Passover sacrifice was the pouring out of the Lamb's blood by the priests in the temple...[Jesus calls the Passover wine "my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many".]...When we compare Jesus' actions to these ancient Jewis traditions, it doesn't take much imagination to figure out his point. By means of his words over the bread and wine of the Last Supper, Jesus is saying in no uncertain terms, "I am the new Passover lamb of the new exodus. This is the Passover of the Messiah, and I am the new sacrifice".
Olivier Clement (1921-2009) was a French Orthodox lay theologian. He was born in Aniane, an ancient town in the Languedoc that was a center of Cathar activity during the Middle Ages. Long before that it was the home of Benedict of Aniane, a monk who helped reform western monasticism during the reign of Charlemagne. Given these roots, it was perhaps inevitable that his life would turn towards spirituality despite the religious indifference of his parents. After taking a degree in comparative religion from the University of Montpellier, he moved to Paris where he obtained a position in a secondary school. There he came into contact with the Eastern Orthodox community, many of whom were White Russian refugees. He underwent Orthodox baptism at the age of 30 and eventually wrote approximately 30 books, as well as teaching part-time at the Institute St Serge, an Orthodox theological school. Click here for more information on his life.
One of his books, The Roots of Christian Mysticism (New City Press 1993) is a gold mine of information on the subject. Excerpts from the Fathers on a wide variety of topics are interspersed with his own incisive commentary. His remarks on the Eucharist quoted below are found on pp 107-109.
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The Fathers never ceased repeating these stupendous assertions of Jesus--Jesus is the "bread of heaven", the "bread of life"--the Risen One gives himself fully to us in the Eucharist which is thus resurrection food. Jesus is bread because his body is composed of the whole life of the cosmos kneaded together by human labor. He is also "living bread", life-giving bread, because in him the divine life permeates the earth and the human race. The Eucharist is therefore a real power of resurrection, the "leaven of immortality" as Ignatius of Antioch says. Certainly, it needs to be received in faith, and there needs to be an encounter within which the transmission of divine energy may take place, but its power is "objective", and independent of our attitude towards it. Our attitude can only encourage (or restrict) the spread of the eucharistic fire through our soul and body...
The eucharistic body is that of the historical Jesus as well as that of the risen Christ. It is the body of the Child of the crib, the body that endured the suffering on the cross--for the bread is "broken", the blood "poured out"--the body that is risen and glorified. The term "body' covers the whole human nature. For God's human nature since the resurrection and the ascension encompasses the world and secretly transfigures it. However, Jesus' historical body, while allowing itself in the foolishness of love to be contained in a point of space and a brief moment of time, in reality already contained space and time in itself. For it was not the body of a fallen individual, crushing human nature in order to take possession of it. It was the body of a divine Person assuming that nature, with the whole universe, in order to offer them up. Incarnate, the Logos remained the subject of the logoi, the spiritual essences, of all created beings.
At the same time God-made-man had to accept into himself all our finiteness, our whole condition of separation and death, in order to fill it all with his light.
It is this deified humanity, this deified creation, this transfigured bread and wine, this body bathed in glory yet bearing forever the wounds of the Passion, that the Eucharist communicates to us.
The ongoing nuclear disaster in Japan provokes, among other things, reflection on the relationship between Christian theology and ecological concerns. Is the material world a kind of metaphysical waiting room we inhabit until it's time to go to heaven, or is there a deeper connection between heaven and earth? A decisive no to this question is provided by Denis Edwards, an Australian Roman Catholic theologian, in Ecology at the Heart of Faith (Orbis Books 2006). Edwards engages with environmental issues from a standpoint of firm creedal orthodoxy. On pp 103-104 he integrates the material cosmos with that most distinctive mark of Christian identity, the celebration of the Eucharist.
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The Christ we encounter in the Eucharist is the risen one, the one in whom all things were created and in whom all are reconciled (Col 1: 15-20). God's eternal wisdom and plan for the fullness of time is "to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth" (Eph 1: 10). Even when, in the Eucharist, the focus of the memorial is on Christ's death and resurrection, this is not a memory that takes us away from creation. On the contrary, it involves us directly with creation. It connects us to Earth and all its creatures.
When we remember Christ's death, we remember a creature of our universe, part of the interconnected evolutionary history of our planet, freely handing his whole bodily and personal existence into the mystery of a loving God. When we remember the resurrection, we remember part of our universe and part of our evolutionary history being taken up in the Spirit into
god. This is the beginning of the transformation of the whole creation in Christ. As Rahner [German Jesuit theologian] says, this resurrection of Jesus is not only the promise but the beginning of the glorification and divinization of the whole of reality.
The Eucharist is the symbol and the sacrament of the risen Christ who is the beginning of the transfiguration of all creatures in God. In eating and drinking at this table we participate in the risen Christ (1 Cor 10: 16-17). Bread and wine are the sacraments of the Christ who is at work in creation. According to Christian faith, what is symbolized is wonderfully made present. And what is made present is Christ in the power of resurrection, as not only the promise but also the beginning of the transformation of all things. Every Eucharist is both sign and agent of the transforming work of the risen Christ in the whole of creation.
...Because the Word is made flesh, no part of the physical universe is untouched. All matter is transformed in Christ: "Through your own incarnation, my God, all matter is henceforth incarnate". Because of this, Earth, the solar system, and the whole universe become the place for encounter with the risen Christ: "Now, Lord, through the consecration of the world the luminosity and fragrance which suffuse the universe can take on for me the liniaments of a body and a face--in you" (quoting Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Hymn of the Universe).
The Eucharist is an effective prayer for the transformation of the universe in Christ. It p;oints toward and anticipates the divinization of the universe in Christ. The one we encounter sacramentally in the Eucharist is the one in whom all things were created and in whom all will be transfigured. Human action, which is an expression of love and respect for the living creatures, the atmosphere, the seas, and the land of our planet, can be seen as not only in continuity with, but also in some way part of, the work of the Eucharistic Christ. Willfully contributing to the destruction of species, or to pumping more and more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, must be seen as a denial of Christ. It is a denial of the meaning of all that we celebrate when we gather for the Eucharist.
Many parishes in the Episcopal Church, my own included, allow unbaptized people to receive communion during celebrations of the Eucharist. This practice, commonly known as " Communion without Baptism" (or CWOB for short), is controversial, one reason being that it is forbidden by Episcopal canon law--a law which, however, allows any baptized person regardless of denominational affiliation to receive communion at Episcopal services. This practice is quite lenient compared to the eucharistic discipline of some other bodies. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches restrict communion to their own members only, while the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod notoriously refuses communion even to non-LCMS Lutherans.
Be that as it may, the Episcopal Church canon is too restrictive for many of its members, who see "radical hospitality" as a higher value. Weighing in on the notion that Baptism before communion is not only appropriate but perhaps even crucial is Episcopal priest Matt Gunter. His essay in The living Church should be read in its entirety, because it touches on other important topics besides those excerpted below.
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Do we believe that the divine-human drama centers primarily on the individual, or rather on a community? Are we essentially individuals who associate with other individuals, for one reason or another, or are we persons shaped in community, in which case belonging is essential.
...In an American, post-Enlightenment context, shaped by the ideology of individualism, the difference between real community and an association of individuals can be hard to appreciate. Inviting someone to the Eucharist irrespective of "where they are on their spiritual journey" puts the emphasis on the individual rather than on our being members of one another with responsibility for, and accountability to, the whole. The Church cannot counter the ideology of individualism by reinforcing that ideology in its central communal practice.
...In the sacraments the body of Christ "happens". In Baptism a new member of the body is "made" by incorporation. In the Eucharist the body "happens" in several ways. It is the feast by which we remember the life, death, and resurrection of the one whose historical body was broken for us. It is the feast in which the bread and the wine become for us the body and blood of Christ. And it is the feast by which the body of Christ, the Church, is re-membered and its members fed. "In these holy mysteries we are made one with Christ, and Christ with us; we are made one body in him, and members one of another"(American BCP, p 316). Thus, in the well-known Augustinian exhortation: "Behold what you are. Become what you see: the Body of Christ, beloved of God"...And Augustine adds that when we consume the body of Christ in the bread and wine, we do not so much transform that food into our bodies as we are transformed by it into his body.
Participation in the Eucharist is therefore not simply about experiencing God's consolation. It is that, but it is much more. It is part of our conversion process on the way to what the Eastern Christian tradition calls theosis: our being made capable of being "partakers of the divine nature"(2 Peter 2:4), capable of bearing the absolute love, goodness, beauty, and joy of God. We expect to be transfigured, or as Dante would have it, transhumanized into glory.
Metropolitan John Zizioulas is a leading contemporary Eastern Orthodox theologian. In this essay he discusses the intimate relationship between the two sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist. Orthodoxy stresses the ontological changes made by the sacraments in their recipients; changes leading the Christian to a progressively closer union with God. Many liberal mainline Christians, by contrast, see these sacraments as thoroughly demystified rituals reinforcing social bonds between community members. These issues are especially prominent in the Episcopal Church, where there is an ongoing debate over the fairly widespread practice of giving communion to non-baptized people. Compare and contrast.
A hat-tip to Facebook friend Freeman Ioannis Edward.
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Baptism...is not only the death of the past--which is henceforth abolished--but also the Resurrection into a new life, which new life however is expressed...with our incorporation into the body of the Church. There can be no baptism which does not automatically entail incorporation into the Body of the Church...For us Orthodox...it is of vital importance to insist that Baptism, the Chrism [Confirmation] and the Divine Eucharist constitute a unified and inseperable liturgical unity. Our criterion is that we undergo an ontological change; that a person must enter a new relationship with the world. One cannot be baptized and yet distance himself from experiencing the Community of the Church; this is why Baptism simultaneously signifies a placement within the Community of the Church and participation in the Divine Eucharist.
...What is important with regard to the Eucharist experience is that man now enters into a relationship with others and the world in general, with Christ as its center. The Church has, at her center, the Body of him who overcame death, and this victory over death that the risen Christ possesses is the same victory from whence life springs for all members of the Church. This Christ-centeredness of the Divine Eucharist is what makes it different from every other experience that the faithful (or people in general) may have. There is nothing so Christ-centered as the Divine Eucharist. There is no other experience that the faithful can have, which is so directly associated to the corporeal presence of the risen Christ.
St Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022) spent most of his life in Constantinople, where he was the abbot of St Mamas. The title "Theologian" (referring in this context to a highly evolved mysticism and definitely not to an ability to write dense books with lots of footnotes) is given in Orthodoxy to only two other saints: John the Evangelist and Gregory Nazianzen. He combined a most intense mystical life with a very rigorous asceticism. His feast is variously celebrated on March 12 or October 12.
The Eucharist, along with a frequent and worthy reception of the same, occupies a crucial place in his spirituality. Of the following three quotes, the first (a communion prayer) is found on pp 60-61 of Kallistos Ware The Inner Kingdom (SVS Press 2000). The following two come from, respectively, On the Mystical Life and Hymn 15.
Rejoicing at once and trembling,
I who am straw receive the Fire
And, strange wonder!
I am ineffably refreshed
As the bush of old
Which burned yet was not consumed.
The Son of God cries out plainly that our union with Him through communion is such as the unity and life which He has with the Father. Thus, just as He is united by nature to His own Father and God, so we are united by grace to Him, and live in Him by eating His flesh and drinking His blood.
We become members of Christ--and Christ becomes our members,
Christ becomes my hand, Christ my foot, of my miserable self,
and I, wretched one, am Christ's hand, Christ's foot!
I move my hand, and my hand is the whole Christ
since, do not forget it, God is indivisible in His divinity;
I move my foot, and behold it shines like that one!
Do not say I blaspheme, but welcome such things,
and adore Christ who makes you such!
Since, if you so wish you will become a member of Him,
and similarly all our members individually
will become members of Christ and Christ our members,
and all which is dishonorable in us He will make honorable
by adorning it with His divine beauty and His divine glory,
and living with God at the same time, we shall become gods,
no longer seeing the shamefulness of our body at all,
but made completely like Christ in our whole body;
each member of our body will be the whole Christ
because, becoming many members, He remains unique and indivisible,
and each part is He, the whole Christ.
For time time now I've felt the need to make a more conscious preparation for receiving the consecrated bread and wine during the eucharist. One way of doing this is the silent recitation of traditional communion prayers, which exist in both Western and Eastern Christianity. These prayers can be said either during the service or just before leaving for church. A good selection from the Western tradition can be found in Saint Augustine's Prayer Book, published by the Anglican monastic Order of the Holy Cross. I've taken the liberty of modernizing the language.
A hat-tip to BillyD for mentioning the book on his site, reminding me that I owned a long-neglected copy.
Prayer to All the Angels and Saints
Angels, Archangels, Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Powers and Virtues of the heavens, Cherubim and Seraphim and all you saints of God, especially my Patrons, vouchsafe to intercede for me , that I may be enabled worthily to receive this Sacrament to the praise and glory of God's holy name, for my benefit, and that of all God's holy church. Amen.
Prayer of St Bonaventure
Grant that my soul may hunger after you, the Bread of Angels, the Refreshment of holy souls, our daily and supersubstantial Bread, who has all sweetness, and every pleasurable delight. You, whom the Angels desire to look into, may my heart ever hunger after and feed upon; and may my soul be filled with your sweetness. May I ever thirst for you, the Fountain of life, the Fountain of wisdom and knowledge, the Fountain of eternal light, the Torrent of pleasure, the Richness of the House of God. Let me ever compass you, seek you, stretch towards you, arrive at you, meditate upon you, speak of you, and do all things to the praise and glory of your holy Name, with humility and discretion, with love and delight, with readiness and affection, with perseverence even unto the end. And always be my hope and my whole confidence; my riches, my delight, my pleasure, and my joy; my rest and tranquility; my peace; my sweetness; my food and refreshment; my refuge and my help; my wisdom, my portion, my possession, and my treasure; in whom my mind and heart may firmly and unchangeably be fixed and rooted, henceforth and forevermore. Amen.
Prayer to St Joseph
O Blessed Joseph, unto whose faithful guardianship was committed Christ Jesus, whom I have now received in this mighty Sacrament: pray for me that I may guard, cherish, and love him who now abides in all intimacy in my heart. Amen.
Anima Christi
Soul of Christ, sanctify me.
Body of Christ, save me;
Blood of Christ, inebriate me;
Water from the side of Christ, wash me;
Passion of Christ, strengthen me;
O good Jesu, hear me;
Within your wounds hide me;
Suffer me not to be separated from you;
From the malicious enemy defend me;
In the hour of my death call me,
And bid me come to you.
That with your saints I may praise you
For ever and ever, Amen.
A very provocative website is JN1034 (http://jn1034.blogspot.com/), maintained by a gay Greek Orthodox priest who remains anonymous for obvious reasons. However, his commitment to traditional spirituality and theology proves that being lgbt does not automatically make one an adherent of the Jesus Seminar. His post "The Theandric (God-Man) Flesh and Blood of the Holy Trinity", appearing in today's edition of his blog, speaks of the connection between the Eucharist and theosis--the process of becoming united with God by becoming God-like. Note the contrast between fear and awe.
In the Eastern...Churches, this is the priest's call for people to advance to the Mystical Supper and receive the Holy Eucharist: "With the awe of God, faith, and love, come near..." However, most English translations use the word "fear" rather than "awe"...
Established Patristic usage of the Greek word phobos (fear) also meant respect, honor, and reverence....The word fear contradicts not only the original meaning of the compulsory directive to come forth to the Holy Chalice with amazement and reverence, but also of Holy Scripture: "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love" (1Jn 4;18).
The Theandric Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ are not punishments whatsoever, but are the awe-inspiring, therapeutic, god-making holy gifts of recompense for all--all, not one foresaken, none passed over by the Paschal Lamb (double-entendre, yes).
"Take, eat, this is my Body...Drink it, all of you, this is my Blood".
Again, this is an obligatory command, not an elective, not an option, not multiple choice. To become a god via the Holy Eucharist is nonnegotiable. Its mystery of deification is unconditional. The mind need not comprehend this Holy Sacrament (it cannot, nevertheless); the heart must be receptive (love is the attracting force of nature between God and humanity); and the flesh must simply consume God.
Yes, swallow God. You are what you eat, yes? Please note Jesus is quoted as saying "This is..." He does not say "This is similar to..." or "This is an analogy of...", or "This is kind of like..."His words are clear. Is means is. Obvious, to the point, and not ambiguous. Hence, it is the most awesome Mystery of Life: God and God's gods in communion, as God promises: "I said, you are gods"(Jn 10:34).
Christ of Hagia Sophia
Contributors
- Joe Rawls
- I'm an Anglican layperson with a great fondness for contemplative prayer and coffeehouses. My spirituality is shaped by Benedictine monasticism, high-church Anglicanism, and the hesychast tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy. I've been married to my wife Nancy for 38 years.
Nicholas Ferrar
Lancelot Andrewes
St Benedict Giving the Rule
St Gregory Palamas
St Gregory the Great