GRACE EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Instructed Eucharist Series Part 2

June 2008

The Holy Communion:  Do This in Remembrance of Me

Last week we looked at preparations for eucharistic worship, and at the first part of the service:  the Liturgy of the Word, up to the offertory.

That first part of the service gathers us together in the name of God.  We hear the Word of God through Holy Scripture, and through a sermon that seeks to connect the message of scripture with our lives as a church and as Christians in the world of today.  We affirm our common faith in the words of the Creed, we confess our sins, and we exchange the peace with our neighbors.  All of these things together change us, and ritualize—express through ritual—our change, our renewal, as we approach God.

Now, changed and renewed, we begin the second part of the service:  Holy Communion, the liturgy of the Altar. 

The Shape of the Liturgy

In 1945 an Anglican monk, Dom Gregory Dix, published a book which has been influential ever since.  Called The Shape of the Liturgy, the book advanced the thesis that there are four essential actions that take place, in imitation of Christ, in every version of the eucharist.  These actions together form the “shape of the eucharist.”  They are:

            Take:  The bread and wine are taken.

            Thank:  There is a prayer of thanksgiving.

            Break:  The consecrated bread is broken.

            Give:  The bread and the wine are given to the people.

These actions are inspired by the actions of Jesus at the Last Supper. Jesus took bread, gave thanks for it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, in the same pattern that our eucharist still reflects.  Likewise He took, gave thanks for, and gave the cup of wine to his disciples.  Our eucharist combines the taking, giving thanks for, and distributing the bread and wine because we observe Jesus’ command to “do this in remembrance of me” as we share the sacramental bread and wine.   We are not, though, staging a re-enactment of the Last Supper.  Jesus and the disciples would have had a meal between the bread and the wine; in our worship, the bread and the wine come together.

Take:  The Offertory

At the offertory, the bread and the wine which are to be used at communion are taken by members of the congregation and put on the altar.  Up until that time, they are no more special than any other bread and wine.  Part of the wonder of the eucharist is that God enters into the everyday things of the world when they are dedicated to him, just as he enters into the everyday people of the world when we are dedicated to him.

Also at the offertory, other gifts—most often gifts of money and food—are brought to the altar as offerings to God.

Thank:  The Great Thanksgiving

The Great Thanksgiving begins with the ancient greeting, “the Lord be with you” (or a close variant) and continues after the response with the words “Lift up your hearts”—in Latin, sursum corda.  The sursum corda has been the joyous beginning of eucharistic prayers since the third century, and serves to remind us that everything that follows is offered as a thanksgiving to God.

After the sursum corda, the forms of the prayer diverge.  In Rite I, there are two forms of the prayer; in Rite II there are four forms; and other forms have been developed and approved that are not in the prayer book but will presumably be incorporated in any future prayer book revisions.  All of the prayers have certain features in common, and these points of similarity will be addressed first.  Then we will look briefly at the differences among the prayers.

·         The presider’s hands:  The presider says most of the prayer with his or her hands in the “orans” position:  outstretched and uplifted.  This is probably the most ancient form of prayer, the one Jesus knew.  It connotes an openness and acceptance toward God.  It is in no sense limited to priests, nor to the eucharist.  Try it sometime in your own prayer, in church or in private—you may be surprised at the powerful effect the position of your hands has on your spirit!

·         The Sanctus and Benedictus:  The Sanctus is the song of the angels and archangels, “holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might…”, while the Benedictus is the acclamation immediately following, “blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”  We do not just put words in the mouths of the angels:  the Sanctus is from Isaiah 6, where the prophet saw the Lord in the Temple attended by angels; the words of the Sanctus were what he heard the angels singing.  The clergy and some others bow during the Sanctus, because the angels in Isaiah were said to have covered their faces in the presence of the Lord—a practice our bow reflects.

·         After the Sanctus and Benedictus, some versions of the prayers invite the people to either stand or kneel.  Either posture is appropriate and acceptable.  Kneeling is (surprise!) the more recent tradition, and the one many Episcopalians grew up with; standing is the more ancient posture for prayer.

·         All of the prayers contain the following elements, in some form and in varying orders:  thanksgiving for creation; acknowledgement of sin; celebration of redemption by Christ.  They all contain the “words of institution,” which are the words of Christ by which he instituted the practice of communion: “Take, eat; this is my Body…”, and “Drink this, all of you….”  And they all ask God to bless and sanctify the bread to be the Body of Christ, and the wine to be his Blood.

At the words of institution, the presider touches the bread and the wine.  (All of the bread and wine to be used is on the altar throughout the prayer, though extra vessels such as a second chalice are brought up later.) A sacrament always involves the grace of God, and it always also involves a thing, a created something:  bread and wine at eucharist, water at baptism.  Sacraments are a place where the spirit of God touches us in our physical being.  The priest touches the bread and the wine as a sign that God’s spiritual presence is poured into these real, tangible objects; and the priest who does that action while recalling the words of Christ is part of a succession going all the way back to Christ:  ordained and consecrated by a bishop who is in a line of bishops reaching back to the apostles who were with Christ in an upper room in Jerusalem, sharing that last supper.

During the prayer, after the words of institution concerning each of the elements (that is, the bread and the wine), and at the end of the whole prayer, the presider may bow as a sign of reverence for these things that now, by the grace of God, have come to be for us the Body and Blood of Christ.  It is also common at the end of the prayer for the presider to hold the host and the chalice up together, to elevate to God that which is God’s.  The bread and chalice together in that way have become one of the most common visual symbols for eucharist.

The prayers:

            In Rite I, Prayer I is the classical Anglican statement of the sacrifice of the cross.  Prayer II is similar except that it, like the prayers of the more contemporary Rite II, also contains a thanksgiving for creation, and avoids some of the most technical theological assertions of Prayer I.

            In Rite II, Prayer A focuses on the sacrifice made by Christ on the cross, and on the completeness of the redemption that sacrifice brought.  It is a new prayer, which takes its form and its theology from classical Anglicanism.

            Prayer B is based on a very old prayer, the third-century Apostolic Tradition written by Hippolytus of Rome.  This prayer recognizes that the redemptive work of God in the Old Testament—the “Word spoken through the prophets”—is continuous with the redemptive work of God in the New Testament—“the Word made flesh, Jesus, your Son.”

            Prayer C, the cosmic prayer (“At your command all things came to be:  the vast expanse of interstellar space….”), is a new prayer.  It narrates the Old Testament drama of God’s continuing efforts to call his people back to him, and the sending of Christ to complete that process, and calls for frequent responses by the people, usually in words drawn from scripture, so that more than most, this prayer is prayed collaboratively between priest and congregation.  The prayer was cutting edge when written, but like many things that were modern in the age of the moon landings, some find that it hasn’t aged all that well.

            Prayer D is drawn from the Eastern Orthodox tradition, in which it is still used.  It too is an ancient prayer, dating back to the mid-300s.  It is also used among Coptic Christians and Roman Catholics, so that it is the closest thing in existence to an ecumenical eucharistic prayer.  This prayer recounts the history of creation and redemption, like the others but in its own way.  It is unique, though, in providing for intercessions in the body of the prayer.  If the intercessions are used, they may sometimes replace the Prayers of the People, with which they would otherwise overlap.

            Finally, we may use prayers from other sources.  Enriching Our Worship is a collection of Eucharistic prayers and other materials that are in some ways like an addendum to the Prayer Book.  These prayers have been written with particular attention to avoiding the casual use of male pronouns for God.  In Advent, Grace Church may use prayers from the Church of England, and in the summer time, we may use prayers from the Church of New Zealand.  We are members of a world-wide communion of churches, and we are free to use liturgies from any of the churches of the Anglican Communion.

The varying eucharistic prayers are like a river that has split into parallel streams; after the consecration of the elements, though, they rejoin once more with the words of the Lord’s Prayer, which we pray as Christ taught his disciples to do.

Break:  The Fraction

“Fraction,” like “fracture”, simply means “break.”  After giving thanks, the priest breaks the consecrated bread.  Breaking the bread is functional:  bread is broken so that it may be shared.  But this is no longer only bread; it is also now the Body of Christ, and the breaking of this bread may remind us of the reality of Christ’s human body, broken on the cross.  After the fraction we say an anthem, usually “Alleluia.  Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us./Therefore let us keep the feast.  Alleluia.”  The first Passover marked the beginning of the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt.  Christ is our new Passover, the beginning of our crossing over from death into life.

Give:  The Holy Communion

In Rite I, before the people come forward to receive communion, they and the presider say together the “Prayer of Humble Access,” which reacknowledges the unworthiness of the individual communicant, and asks the merciful God nonetheless to grant us “so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us….”  This prayer, which is not said in Rite II, makes clear that the initiative of grace comes from God, and not from us.

As the people come forward to receive communion, the clergy and other ministers of the altar are first communicated by the presider, and any extra vessels needed, such as a second chalice, are brought to the altar and filled.  It is traditional that only clergy distribute bread; either clergy or lay chalice bearers may pass the cup.  The bread is placed in the hands of each communicant, who may either eat it or hold it to dip into the wine (“intinction”).  When the cup is passed, it is proper to dip the bread into the wine and eat the bread, thus consuming bread and wine together.  This is particularly appropriate for people who can not tolerate a drink of wine[1], or who are concerned about passing germs.  (Studies confirm that wiping the lip of the chalice with the purificator between communicants is a fairly effective hygienic measure.)  When those concerns are not present, it is usual to eat the bread first, and then take an actual drink of wine; doing so allows for the full and separate symbolism of bread/Body and wine/Blood.  

It is very helpful if communicants guide the chalice to their lips; there is no theological reason to refrain from touching the chalice, and it is very hard for the chalice bearers to know how far to tip the chalice without that help.

Consecrated elements are treated with great reverence, as being in a real sense the body and blood of Christ.  On the other hand, they are not themselves God, and while we treat them reverently, we do not worship them: that would be idolatry.  Consecrated bread and wine are saved (“reserved”) for use at home communions during the week.  If there is more of either than is needed for that purpose, it is reverently consumed by the presider and others.

Closing Prayer and Dismissal

The service concludes with a closing prayer, in which we thank God for the communion we have just had, and ask God to be with us through the days to come as we go out into the world to do God’s work.  That is the final moment of the drama of the eucharist:  equipped with the Word, nourished with the Sacrament, we go out into the world in the name of Christ.  And that, or some variation of that, is exactly how the service ends:  with the dismissal, bidding us all now to go, out to the world, where there is holy work to be done, and our hands to do it.

The service ends with that dismissal, and with the response, “Thanks be to God!”  At that moment, it is appropriate to leave the church.  Many people prefer to wait another moment, as a matter of individual piety or decorum, for the candles to be extinguished.  The candles, as we noted at the beginning of this series, symbolize the light of Christ, and call us into the holy time of a service, and it is certainly equally appropriate to wait until the candles are out and our shared holy time is concluded.

And then remember that we go forth new people:  in the name of Christ; to love and serve the Lord; rejoicing in the power of the Spirit; and blessing the Lord!

MNAJr.+

© The Rev. Michael N. Ambler, Jr.