The names we give to our worship services reflect our theologies, just as the ways we conduct our worship services do:
• eucharist or holy eucharist
• communion or holy communion
• the Lord’s supper
• the mass
• the liturgy or the divine liturgy
Each of these terms is correct, and each stresses a different prism through which believers look upon the divine mystery of what happens when they partake of the body and blood.
Low Churches often call their service the “Lord’s supper,” which emphasizes the historical remembrance of the service, which some see as a memorial or anniversary celebration of what once happened.
“Communion” and “holy communion” reflect the unitive nature of the sacrament, in that the recipient joins with Christ when she partakes of the bread and wine, and that the community becomes one with each other and with the larger Body of Christ. In this way, Christ is made present once again, not as a memory, but in a mystical way that allows the believer to enter into his birth, death, and resurrection. This is referred to as “anamnesis.”
The terms “holy eucharist” and “eucharist” (“thanksgiving” in Greek) emphasize the gratitude of the faithful for everything God has given and is giving, particularly Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for the salvation of the world.
High Churches use the word “mass,” which is what Roman Catholics call their sacramental liturgy. This word comes from the end of the service in which the faithful are sent out to do the work of God. The Latin phrase is “Ite, missa est,” “Go, the mass is ended.”
Orthodox Christians also use “the liturgy” and the “divine liturgy.” These terms place an emphasis on the worship itself as a gateway to heaven and access to God through Jesus Christ.
Each of these labels carries with it a truth but none contains the whole of the truth of this sacrament, which has layers upon layers of meaning. In fact, the holy eucharist is so mystical we will never get to the bottom of its affects and its effects on this side of the kingdom. Nor are we meant to.
I often picture the eucharist as like the divine puff pastry known as Napoleons or mille-feuilles. Those “thousand sheets” are impossible to count because they are not meant to be dissected. They are meant to be savored. I am sure mille-feuilles is served at the heavenly banquet!
The Lord’s supper, that is. Though we often don’t think of it this way, we who are the baptized are the guests at the Lord’s supper. We are the blessed ones invited to the “marriage supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:9). The presider issues God’s invitation each week: “The gifts of God for the People of God” (BCP, p. 365), holding out the bread and wine in invitation.
In our theological understanding, Christ always is the host of our eucharistic worship just as he was at the Last Supper for his friends on the night before he died. Hear, too, an echo of the many Scriptures that depict eternal life as a wedding banquet or marriage feast. Two examples are the parable of the wise and the foolish virgins (Matthew 25:1-13) and Isaiah’s vision, “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-matured wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-matured wines strained clear” (Isaiah 25:6).
Much more than host, though. Christ really is the feast himself because the meal is his body and blood shed for us. He only becomes the feast through his willing sacrifice on the cross —once for all. “He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds” (Titus 2:14).
At the Lamb’s high feast we sing
praise to our victorious King,
who hath washed us in the tide
flowing from his pierced side;
praise we him, whose love divine
gives his sacred Blood for wine,
gives his Body for the feast,
Christ the victim, Christ the priest.14
Using the image of the priest’s ancient role as one who offers sacrifices to God, this wonderful hymn reminds us that in his self-sacrifice, Christ is victim and priest at the same time. As God, Jesus was the one who instituted the sacrifice; as the Lamb, he was the offering, too. Our Trinitarian theology allows both these mystical things to be True, with a capital “T”.
The Mystical Supper 15 By Sally Brower
In the alchemy of blood and silver,
in the mixture of wine and gold,
we become partakers of divine fire,
full sharers in God’s supper of desire.
This is the great banquet of God,
in which we are united,
the lover with the Beloved,
the perfect union imparting life.
This is the feasting on gifts most holy;
this is the meal of love poured out.
This is the mystical moment,
while empty, we become full,
while dying, we rise to new life.
This is the mystical supper
where we become the love we drink.
1. Mike Aquilina, The Mass of the Early Christians (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 2001), 41.
2. Beth Wickenberg Ely, A Manual for Eucharistic Visitors (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse, 2005), 2.
3. Cyril of Jerusalem, “Mystagogical Catechesis” V:21-22, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Series II, vol. VII, eds. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, trans. Edwin Hamilton Gifford (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1893) 400-401. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf207.pdf.
4. Basil the Great, “Letter 93,” in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Series II, vol. III, eds. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, trans. Blomfield Jackson (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1894) 526. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf208.pdf.
5. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Vol. III, 82,13, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1947).
6. “Communion in the Hand Is a Sacrilege,” These Last Days Ministries, accessed February 24, 2012, http://www.tldm.org/news2/cih.htm.
7. Henri LeClercq and Fernand Cabrol, “Communion,” in Dictionnaire d’Archéologie Chrétienne et de Liturgie, vol. 3, part