Eucharist - 1
Dear Friends,
At first, it may sound strange, but in reflecting on the Eucharist, the first thing I want to say is that we human beings have both body and soul.
We are incarnate spirits, souls that have a body.
Because of this, our senses are part of our identity: sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste.
Most of what we learn comes to us through our senses.
Therefore, we need a God who relates through our senses.
And God does just that; God respects us as we have been created and comes to us in this way.
“Thus, the central tenet within Christianity, the very thing that defines it, is the belief that, in Christ, God took on concrete flesh and became tangible, physical, someone who can touch and be touched.”
Saint John, in his gospel, the last of the gospels to be written, does not mention Mary or Joseph or Bethlehem or anything about the birth of Jesus.
John simply says: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14)
That one sentence says it all.
It states clearly, simply, and unequivocally that God became one of us, took on our humanity, and relates to us in a human way.
Also, this physical presence of God was not limited to Jesus’ thirty-three years on the earth.
Rather, Jesus made sure that this would continue and that is why he gave us the Eucharist.
This is God’s physical presence, the real presence of God in our world and to us, under the forms of bread and wine.
God knew that we humans need this sensory experience of God’s presence and that we need this regularly, weekly or even daily.
This is why God’s Son, the Word of God made flesh, has left us this sacrament.
It is why being able to receive Communion is so very important to us.
I will continue with some more reflections on the Eucharist next week, in the Inbox of August 25.
Father Michael Schleupner
Quotation above from Our One Great Act of Fidelity by Ronald Rolheiser, O.M.I.
Eucharist - 2
Dear Friends,
In our Catholic tradition, the Eucharist is fellowship, the gathering and sharing of our faith community.
But it is also more than fellowship.
The Eucharist is a remembrance or commemoration of the Last Supper and of the dying and rising of Jesus.
But it is also more than remembrance and commemoration.
In our Catholic tradition, the Eucharist is Jesus, present, here and now.
We have used the words “real presence” and “transubstantiation” to express what we believe here.
“If we believe in the real presence, what then do we actually think takes place in the Eucharist? We hold that the full reality of Jesus Christ enters our body. He is our food. He actually becomes part of us and we a part of him. We are thereby reenacting the central story of our redemption: that the eternal Word would take human flesh and dwell among us. The One who sent the Word now looks upon us and sees within us the real presence of Jesus. Thereby we are saved. We, in turn, look upon each other, even the least, and see the face of Christ.”
So, our walking or processing forward to receive the Eucharist is a physical statement that Jesus is our Lord and our God.
Our saying “Amen” to the words “The Body of Christ” is a verbal statement that we believe that Jesus, the Christ is present and comes to us in this sacrament.
Our standing expresses our dignity as God’s sons and daughters, worthy of the Eucharist because Jesus’ words “Take this, all of you, and eat of it” make us worthy.
The result of all of this is communion.
The gift of Holy Communion gives us communion with Jesus, the Christ and Son of God, and that means communion with God.
I will continue with some more reflections on the Eucharist next week, in the Inbox of September 1.
Father Michael Schleupner
Quotations above from The Word Embodied by John Kavanaugh, S.J.
Eucharist - 3
Dear Friends,
The term the body of Christ is used in three ways in Scripture and theology.
First, it refers to the actual physical body of the Christ.
Saint John’s Gospel states this very tersely and clearly: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14)
The Word is the Son of God.
So, the Son of God took on a physical body in the birth of Jesus, and in Jesus we find the Christ, the anointed one of God who brings God to us and us to God.
This is the body of Christ.
Then, the term the body of Christ also refers to the bread, the Eucharist.
“When the hour came, he took his place at table with the apostles…Then he took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me.’” (Luke 22:14, 19)
Jesus does not say that this is a symbol of his body, but that this is his body.
He is really present here in this consecrated bread.
This is the real presence of Christ and thus of God.
Finally, the term the body of Christ refers to us, the body of believers, the persons and the community of faith.
“As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ…Now you are Christ’s body, and individually parts of it.” (I Corinthians 12: 12, 27)
Once again, the Scripture does not say that we as the faith community are similar to Jesus or a representation of him.
Rather, we are the body of Christ.
So, the incarnation of God in our world continues.
There is the very personal incarnation in Jesus, and his body is the body of Christ.
That incarnation continues in the Eucharist, and this is also the body of the Christ.
And to top it off, even we who are joined with Christ through faith and sacrament are the body of Christ, living on this earth today.
Last week, I reflected on our response in word and posture to the sacramental body of Christ.
Next week, in the Inbox of September 8, I turn to our response to the living body of Christ, to the community of faith and to each person in the community.
Father Michael Schleupner
Eucharist - 4
Dear Friends,
The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke recall the Last Supper with Jesus giving the bread and wine to his apostles and saying: “This is my body” and “This is my blood.” (Matthew 26:26-27. Mark 14:22-24. Luke 22:19-20.)
The gospel of John also recalls the Last Supper, but not in the above way.
John tells about Jesus taking a towel, a basin, and a pitcher of water and washing the feet of the apostles.
He then tells of Jesus saying: “Do you realize what I have done for you? As I have done for you, you also should do.” (John 13:5,12, 15)
Why would John not tell of Jesus giving us himself, his body and blood, under the forms of bread and wine?
To answer this, we have to remember that John’s was the last of the gospels to be written.
It was probably not written until the year 90CE or even a bit later.
By that time, the acceptance and practice of the Eucharist was well in place.
What may not have been sufficiently in place was a sense of oneness with one another as fellow Christians and a sense of service to all people.
So, John records something that happened at the Last Supper that the other evangelists do not record.
He is reminding his readers of what the Eucharist is intended to do.
It is not only a private devotion or a way to develop my own individual relationship with Jesus and with God.
Rather, it is also intended to form us as persons who are other-centered, persons of service.
“The Eucharist is both an invitation that invites us and a grace that empowers us to service. And what it invites us to do is to replace distrust with hospitality, pride with humility, and self-interest with self-effacement so as to reverse the world’s order of things.”
I will continue these reflections on the Eucharist next week, in the Inbox of September 15.
Father Michael Schleupner
Quotation above from Our One Great Act of Fidelity by Ronald Rolheiser, O.M.I.
Eucharist - 5
Dear Friends,
In our Catholic tradition, we often speak of the sacrifice of the Mass.
What does it mean for the Mass – and that means the Eucharist – to be a sacrifice?
I can recall learning many years ago that the Mass is a sacramental sacrifice.
The idea is that Jesus’ giving fully of himself on the cross out of love for us is the one complete, final, and eternal sacrifice.
It and its effects, our reconciliation with God, last forever.
Nevertheless, at the Last Supper, Jesus gave us himself, his body and blood, under the forms of bread and wine.
He was clear that this was not to be a one-time thing.
He told us: “Do this in memory of me.” (Luke 22:19; I Corinthians 11:24)
This remembering is a making present once again the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross – Jesus’ sacrifice of his body and blood.
We now remember this and make this present again under the forms of bread and wine.
This is why the Mass, not a new sacrifice, is a sacramental sacrifice.
Jesus wants us to do this because this is our way of allowing the life and love of God to be absorbed more and more fully into our entire being.
Maybe we can think of it this way:
“To make a sacrifice is to surrender something out of love, something that is ours and is painful to give away, and to let the pain of that surrender stretch and change our hearts in such a way that we are now more open to communion with God and others.”
Jesus’ sacrifice of himself was a giving of something very valuable, his human life, out of love for us.
He tells us to make this sacrifice present again and again under the forms of bread and wine.
His intention is that through this, our hearts will be more and more open to communion with God and others.
I will continue these reflections on the Eucharist next week, in the Inbox of September 22.
Father Michael Schleupner
Quotation above from Our One Great Act of Fidelity by Ronald Rolheiser, O.M.I.
Eucharist - 6
Dear Friends,
In the Mass, after the presentation of the bread and wine and the preparation of the altar, the priest addresses those present with these words:
“Pray, brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father.”
The focus here is on the Eucharist as a sacrifice.
The question is: why the words “my sacrifice and yours”?
The first thing to recall is that the Eucharist is not a new sacrifice.
It is a re-presenting of the one sacrifice of Jesus under the forms of bread and wine.
In the invitational prayer above, the ordained priest is acting in two distinct roles:
in persona Christi, in the person of Christ who is really the one offering the sacrifice;
and in persona ecclesiae, in the person of or on behalf of the Church.
This is the reason for the words “my sacrifice.”
At the same time, the invitation states “my sacrifice and yours.”
This is because all who are present have a priestly role through baptism and are to be part of the offering of this one sacrifice of Christ.
Finally, the words addressed by the priest also invite us to bring here all the sacrifices we make in our daily lives, especially in care and service of one another.
So, we may regularly give our time to care for aging parents or refrain from buying some new clothes for ourselves so that we can afford some sports equipment for our children.
We can bring all of these personal sacrifices with us to Mass and join them to the sacramental sacrifice of the Eucharist.
“…we ourselves are to become spiritual sacrifices in the sense that we offer ourselves in service to others. Again, what we find here is ample evidence that what we do at the liturgy should be reflected in the way we live our lives. What Christ did once for all was to offer himself as a saving sacrifice for our salvation. What remains to be seen is how well we in fact sacrifice ourselves for the sake of others.”
I will continue these reflections on the Eucharist next week, in the Inbox of September 29.
Father Michael Schleupner
Quotation above from Responses to 101 Questions on the Mass by Father Kevin W. Irwin.
Eucharist - 7
Dear Friends,
Why do we have to come to Mass?
Why is our celebration and reception of the Eucharist so important every Sunday?
We can simply say that Sunday is the Lord’s day and we are keeping the third commandment in coming to Mass on Sunday.
For us Catholics and for all Christians, there is also the truth that each Sunday is like a little Easter, celebrating that very special first day of the week when Jesus rose from the dead after dying on the cross.
We can also say we need certain regular patterns in our relationships.
For example, we need these to stay together as a family.
Regular dinners together are important for a family.
They can be very simple, but it is the being and eating together that are important.
We need these regular times together for family unity, for a sense of belonging, and even for our identity as individuals.
The same thing is true spiritually, with the Eucharist.
We need the Eucharist to stay in communion with God, with Christ.
We need this sacrament to be nourished and strengthened for living our everyday lives in communion with God.
One author puts it this way:
“The mystery of our faith, the heart of the matter, is the paschal mystery – Christ’s death and resurrection and our dying to sin and rising to new life through him. Because it is the key to all that we believe and because through the Mass we just don’t think about it, but we truly experience it and participate in it, it makes sense that the church would want to insist on how important it is by making it obligatory. Put a different way: Because it is so important, why wouldn’t we want to go at least every Sunday.”
I will conclude these thoughts on the Eucharist next week, in the Inbox of October 5.
Father Michael Schleupner
Quotation above from Responses to 101 Questions on the Mass by Father Kevin W. Irwin.
Eucharist - 8
Dear Friends,
Our English word Eucharist comes directly from the Greek word which means thanksgiving.
So, the heart of Eucharist or the Mass is giving thanks to God for all that God has done for us and our salvation, especially through Jesus Christ.
It follows that the Eucharistic Prayer is the heart of the Mass.
We begin this prayer with a dialogue between the priest and the people which concludes with the priest saying, “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God” and all responding, “It is right and just.”
That brief interchange gets to the very core of the entire Eucharistic Prayer.
Here we recall God’s saving actions in Jesu Christ, especially his death and resurrection.
We remember this especially in the words of consecration of the bread and wine which re-present what Jesus did at the Last Supper.
He gave us this sacrament of his body and blood as a way to remember and become one with his dying and rising.
In all of this, we are giving thanks to God.
“Thank you is the response we make to someone who has either given something to us or has done something for us. God did not give us something, as much as he gave us someone: his very own Son.”
The Eucharist leads us not just to be thankful during the celebration of the Mass, but to adopt a posture of thankfulness toward life in general.
Maybe at each Mass we can focus on being thankful to God for life, for loved ones, and for life situation.
For life: just for this day of life and for the years we have had so far.
For loved ones: family, friends, persons who have made a difference in our lives.
For life situation: having a home, food, and so many things we may take for granted.
Being grateful to God is an expression of the core truth or fact of our existence – that we have our very being and life from God.
Gratitude, inspired by the Eucharist, is the core of our spiritual condition.
Father Michael Schleupner
Quotation above from Understanding the Revised Mass Texts by Father Paul Turner.
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