#29 The Four-fold Action of the Eucharist. Understanding the Mass and Its Parts.

I have paused at the action of the Consecration to go deeper into the meanings of this central moment in the Mass. In the Consecration is the Institution Narrative, i.e. the account of how Jesus instituted the Eucharist until the end of time. Jesus takes bread and he takes wine; he blesses the bread and wine in an act of thanksgiving; he breaks the bread; and he gives the blessed bread and wine to his disciples, telling them that this is his Body and Blood. These actions can be summarized as a Four-fold Action of the Institution Narrative: (1) Take (2) Bless/give thanks (3) Break (4) Give.

 

All four actions are mentioned in the New Testament. The breaking of the Consecrated Bread was especially significant and the whole Eucharist was called "the Breaking of Bread."All the ancient forms of the Eucharist (which varied by location) incorporate this pattern of the Eucharist.

 

Note the variations (in red) of each Institution narrative from the New Testament:

 

Mark 14:22-2: "While they were eating, He took some bread, and after a blessing He broke it, and gave it to them, and said, ‘Take it; this is My body.’ And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, and they all drank from it. And He said to them, ‘This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.’"

 

Matthew 26: 26-28: "While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body.’ And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.’"

 

Luke 22:19-20: "And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.’"

 

1 Corinthians 11:23-25: "For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it [gave it is implied] and said, ‘This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.’"

 

[See Matthew 14:13-21 HERE  which uses the "Eucharistic language" of the Four-fold Action]

 

 

What is useful to us about this Four-fold Action beyond liturgical studies is that a number of preachers and authors of spirituality use these four actions to describe a Christian life centered in the Eucharist. For example, Fr. Henri Nouwen in his book Life of the Beloved (a very good book) writes:

 

"To identify the movements of the Spirit in our lives, I have found it helpful to use four words: taken, blessed, broken, and given....These words also summarize my life as a Christian because, as a Christian, I am called to become bread for the world: bread that is taken, blessed, broken and given." (pp.41-42)

St. Augustine preached in his Sermon 57:

“You are the body of Christ... You are to be taken; you are to be blessed, broken, and given; that you may be the means of grace and the vehicles of the Eternal love. Behold what you are. Become what you receive.”

This kind of reflection is found in a homily given by Fr. Andrew Budzinski as an example:

 

"Jesus takes you. Another way of saying this is that Jesus chooses you. Think about that for a moment, Jesus chooses you! Jesus says, ‘It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you.’ (Jn 15:16). Perhaps that’s a difficult thing for us to understand sometimes.

 

"God chooses me? Yes. God loves you. Remember ... Jesus’ words at the Last Supper in the Gospel of John when Jesus said to His Father: ‘You loved them even as you love me.’

 

"St. Peter says, ‘you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own.’ (1 Peter 2:9). St. Paul says, ‘he chose us in [Christ], before the foundation of the world."’(Eph 4:1).

 

" Jesus takes you. He chooses you."

 

(Sunday, July 31, 2011 Taken, Blessed, Broken, Given Homily from the 18th Sunday of Ordinary Time; emphasis added)

 

Another example is given by the Methodist liturgical professor Don Saliers:

 

"Just as bread and wine are taken, we are to offer ourselves into God's hands, to give ourselves to God's purposes; just as thanksgiving is raised up, we are to ‘live the thanksgiving’ in gratitude for the mighty acts of God that the eucharistic prayer narrates; just as bread is broken and wine poured out, we must be vulnerable to all that faith demands; and just as nourishment is shared, so we ‘must be prepared to be given for others.’" (Worship and Spirituality; emphasis added)

 

Finally, I quote a particularly fine example of reflection upon the Four-fold Action in our lives from an Episcopal minister:

 

"Christians want to be taken and blessed … and stop right there, thank you very much! That’s the ‘feel good’ part of Christianity. Being claimed by God and blessed by God feels good. But if we stop there, Christianity can become dangerous – even toxic - because if we only accept being taken and blessed, we will continue to encounter Christ on our terms and not on his terms. We will still retain control. This is a sort of spiritual narcissism where I get to be claimed and blessed, but I still hold onto the right to interpret the Bible my way, use the Bible to uphold my own prejudices, and choose who I want to be in relationship with and who I want to exclude.

 

"This is the kind of spirituality the crowd exhibits. They want Jesus on their terms. They want to take him by force and make him a king. They want to know what they need to do to perform the works of God. They want this bread always. They like being taken and blessed … but they stop short of broken and given.

 

"And let’s be honest – none of us really wants to be broken do we? We don’t want to face our faults, our defects, our deficiencies, our weaknesses, our hurts, our suffering, our pain, the abuse we’ve suffered and the abuse we have in turn hurled at others. That doesn’t feel good, does it? It’s not fun. We’d rather be smug, self-sufficient, and self-righteous if given our druthers. We’d rather justify, minimize and flee from our brokenness. But that’s not the way of the cross – it is not the way of the Christian.

 

"We cannot be given for the sake of a broken and hurting world unless we allow our own brokenness to be what it is – and to face it honestly. Our brokenness is the place where the crucified One meets us and reminds us that even as we are broken, we are still taken and blessed. We don’t stop being taken and blessed … even when we are broken. It is in our broken state where we can be emptied of our spiritual narcissism and our false ego. It is there where we can find not just serenity but also the ability to connect with the sufferings of others so that we can be given for the sake of God’s people. We cannot be a gift to others until we accept we are broken.

 

"The shape of the Eucharistic life involves all four actions: being taken, blessed, broken and given. It was the pattern of Jesus’ life and ministry and for us to live authentically as Christians it needs to be ours too. We cannot claim to be Christian by having Christ on our terms and avoid being broken and given for others. If we do, our faith remains centered in ourselves and we will succumb to the temptation to harm others and cloak our actions with religiosity and "self-righteousness.

 

"When we are taken, blessed, broken and given, we find ourselves able to connect with the Other and see the face of Christ in them and in doing so we will promote the Body’s growth in building itself up in Love." (Anjel Scarborough; emphasis added)

 

Next Week: The New Covenant Proclaimed in the Eucharist.

 

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# 28 The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Understanding the Mass and Its Parts.

It is the Glorified and Risen Christ
in the Eucharist

Last week I wrote about the Epiclesis (calling upon the Holy Spirit) and the Consecration of the bread and wine in the Eucharist. I wrote:

 

"The ancient understanding of the Mass is that the Risen and Glorified Christ is Really Present in the worship under the appearances of bread and wine that have been duly consecrated. There is a wondrous transformation of the ordinary bread and wine where the Risen Christ becomes present in a way he was not before the Consecration."

 

I also noted the teaching of the Catechism (#1333): "At the heart of the Eucharistic celebration are the bread and wine that, by the words of Christ and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, become Christ's Body and Blood." (#1333)

 

The sacramental presence of the Crucified and Risen Christ through the bread and wine after the Consecration is called his Real Presence. By this we mean it is not a symbolic presence only, or psychological (in our mind only), or an imagined presence, or present only spiritually, if by spiritually we wrongly mean "only figuratively, or ‘not quite really.’"

 

The Catholic Church teaches and believes that the Risen Christ is really and entirely present under the appearances of consecrated bread and wine: "In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist ‘the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.’" (CCC#1374)

 

Over the centuries, many in the Church have tried to explain how it is that the bread and wine are changed to become really the Body and Blood of Christ. The Church has favored an explanation called "transubstantiation" ( a change, trans-, of substance). The term "substance" is used in a very philosophical way, meaning "essence," what a thing is (esse). One can see the challenge of saying the bread and wine are the Body and Blood of Christ when after the Consecration bread and wine are still there on the Altar.

 

But according to the idea of transubstantiation the appearances of the bread and wine, that is, the physical properties of bread and wine, do remain after the Consecration, but the very essence or reality of the bread and wine are replaced (changed) by the essence and reality of the Crucified and Risen Christ. The Eucharist is the only time such a thing happens, and ultimately, this is a mystery.

 

 

To say that Christ is also bodily present under the appearances of the Consecrated bread and wine has to also be understood carefully. It is the Risen and glorified Christ who is Really Present. In other words, his is not a physical reality like that in time and space here on earth (or throughout the universe). Some have proposed the word "transphysical" to describe the Risen Body and Blood of Christ (For an extensive reflection of mine on this go HERE). The Body of Christ "is present in the eucharist not in the usual, natural, visible, local ways bodies are normally present, but rather in a spiritual, non-visible, substantial and sacramental manner." (Nathan Mitchell, Real Presence, p.100).

 

So what we see and taste in the Consecrated bread and wine are the physical properties of bread and wine, but the true reality we receive is not bread and wine but the Crucified and Risen Body and Blood of Christ. Also, we do not receive only part of Jesus in the Eucharist. We receive the whole Christ, his whole reality, "body and blood, soul and divinity."

 

In the ritual practice of the Mass, it is only after the bread is Consecrated that the Priest shows the Host for adoration and genuflects, not to bread which would be absurd, but to Christ Really Present, and the same for the Consecrated wine. The elements which we now call the Body and Blood of Christ must be handled with the greatest care and reverence and will be given as Communion in the Mass. Some of the Consecrated bread will be reserved in the Tabernacle for the Sick and we genuflect whenever we pass by the Tabernacle. Thus we express our belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

 

Next Week: The Four actions mentioned in the Consecration.

 

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#21 The Eucharistic Prayer (Overview). Understanding the Mass and Its Parts.

 

We now come to the actual Eucharistic Prayer which central to the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Previously, I quoted Catechism #1358 which teaches us that

 

"We must therefore consider the Eucharist as:

- thanksgiving and praise to the Father;

- the sacrificial memorial of Christ and his Body;

- the presence of Christ by the power of his word and of his Spirit."

 

I went on to write that the Catechism is actually noting 4 realities here: the Liturgy of the Eucharist is (1) thanksgiving and praise to the Father; (2) the sacrifice of Christ, (3) the memorial of Christ; and (4) the Presence of Christ (under the signs of the Consecrated Bread and Wine).

 

Eucharistic Prayer III of the Roman Missal also refers to these four primary realities; after the Consecration of the Bread and Wine whereby Christ is Really Present, the Priest prays:

 

"Therefore, O Lord, as we celebrate the memorial

of the saving Passion of your Son,

his wondrous Resurrection

and Ascension into heaven,

and as we look forward to his second coming,

we offer you in thanksgiving

this holy and living sacrifice."

 

You may wish to review my previous post on these four aspects of the Liturgy of the Eucharist (HERE).

 

 

We should expect, then, to find these 4 Primary Realities manifested in the Eucharistic Prayer, i.e. Presence, Praise and Thanksgiving, Sacrifice and Memorial. I shall spend time each week describing how these realities are found in the Eucharistic Prayer and the meaning of this for our Catholic Christian lives.

 

Here is the overview of the structure of the Eucharistic Prayer as described in The General Instruction of the Roman Missal. I will note in red the Primary Realities of the Eucharistic Prayer discussed above: Presence of Christ, Praise and Thanksgiving, Sacrifice and Memorial (Remembrance) and highlight them in the following quote.

 

The General Instruction of the Roman Missal (no. 79) provides the following summary of the Eucharistic Prayer:

 

"The main elements of which the Eucharistic Prayer consists may be distinguished from one another in this way:

 

"a) The Thanksgiving (expressed especially in the Preface), in which the Priest, in the name of the whole of the holy people, glorifies God the Father and gives thanks to him for the whole work of salvation or for some particular aspect of it, according to the varying day, festivity, or time of year.

 

"b) The Acclamation [which is Praise], by which the whole congregation, joining with the heavenly powers, sings the Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy). This acclamation, which constitutes part of the Eucharistic Prayer itself, is pronounced by all the people with the Priest.

 

"c) The Epiclesis, in which, by means of particular invocations, the Church implores the power of the Holy Spirit that the gifts offered by human hands be consecrated, that is, become Christ's Body and Blood [in his Real Presence], and that the unblemished sacrificial Victim [Sacrifice] to be consumed in Communion may be for the salvation of those who will partake of it.

 

"d) The Institution Narrative and Consecration, by which, by means of the words and actions of Christ, that Sacrifice is effected which Christ himself instituted during the Last Supper, when he offered his Body and Blood under the species of bread and wine, gave them to the Apostles to eat and drink, and leaving with the latter the command to perpetuate this same mystery [Memorial].

 

"e) The Anamnesis, by which the Church, fulfilling the command that she received from Christ the Lord through the Apostles, celebrates the Memorial of Christ, recalling especially his blessed Passion, glorious Resurrection, and Ascension into heaven.

 

"f) The Oblation [Sacrifice], by which, in this very Memorial, the Church, in particular that gathered here and now, offers the unblemished sacrificial Victim in the Holy Spirit to the Father. The Church's intention, indeed, is that the faithful not only offer this unblemished sacrificial Victim but also learn to offer their very selves, and so day by day to be brought, through the mediation of Christ, into unity with God and with each other, so that God may at last be all in all.

 

"g) The Intercessions, by which expression is given to the fact that the Eucharist is celebrated in communion with the whole Church, of both heaven and of earth, and that the oblation [Sacrifice] is made for her and for all her members, living and dead, who are called to participate in the redemption and salvation purchased by the Body and Blood of Christ.

 

h") The concluding Doxology [Praise], by which the glorification of God is expressed and which is affirmed and concluded by the people's acclamation 'Amen.'"

 

 Next Week: The Thanksgiving of the Eucharistic Prayer (in the Preface)

 

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#17 The Liturgy of the Eucharist: Understanding the Mass and Its Parts

 

The first post of this series "Understanding the Mass and Its Parts" discussed some of the actions and meanings of the Mass ( HERE)

I also stated that the Mass has two tables by which the Lord nourishes us: the Table of the Word (corresponding to the Liturgy of the Word) and the Table of the Eucharist (corresponding to the Liturgy of the Eucharist). ( HERE)

The General Instruction of the Roman Missal, which regulates the worthy celebration of the Mass, states:

"The Mass consists in some sense of two parts, namely the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, these being so closely interconnected that they form but one single act of worship. For in the Mass is spread the table both of God’s Word and of the Body of Christ, and from it the faithful are to be instructed and refreshed. There are also certain rites that open and conclude the celebration." (GIRM#28)

It may be a bit confusing to speak of the Liturgy of the Eucharist because we can also call the entire Mass the Eucharist. Just note that when the Church uses the specific phrase "Liturgy of the Eucharist" she means the second major part of the Mass.

We have just finished the teaching on the Liturgy of the Word. It was pointed out that Christ speaks to us in the Liturgy of the Word (through the proclamation of the Scripture Readings and Gospel and through the Homily). Though there are certain nonverbal actions which accompany the Liturgy of the Word (such as the gesture and actions which accompany the proclamation of the Gospel: See HERE), mostly Christ is speaking to us in audible words which involve the ear which hears.

In the Liturgy of the Eucharist, Christ is also communicating with us, in words, but also in visible signs and actions. Here the eyes and other senses are involved, including the sense of touch, taste and sometimes smell.

Before examining the various parts of the Liturgy of the Eucharist, I want to give an overview of what happens in this part of the Mass. The Catechism conveniently sums it up for us:

"We must therefore consider the Eucharist as:

 

- thanksgiving and praise to the Father;
- the sacrificial memorial of Christ and his Body;
- the presence of Christ by the power of his word and of his Spirit." (#1358)

The Catechism is actually noting 4 realities here: the Liturgy of the Eucharist is (1) thanksgiving and praise to the Father; (2) the sacrifice of Christ and (3) the memorial of Christ; and (4) the Presence of Christ (under the signs of the Consecrated Bread and Wine).

 

Eucharistic Prayer III of the Roman Missal also refers to these four active realities; after the Consecration of the Bread and Wine whereby Christ is Really Present, the Priest prays:

"Therefore, O Lord,

as we celebrate the memorial
of the saving Passion of your Son,
his wondrous Resurrection
and Ascension into heaven,
and as we look forward to his second coming,
we offer you in thanksgiving
this holy and living sacrifice."

What we give thanks for are all the gifts of God to us: the gift of God’s love, the gift of Christ and the Holy Spirit living within us, the gift of our Faith, spiritual gifts, the gift of our life, the gifts of human relationships, the gift of creation, the gifts of our talents, the gift of our material resources, etc.

We give thanks in the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the very name of "Eucharist" means "thanksgiving" in Greek, the original language of the Mass.

The memorial which is made requires a careful understanding. In establishing the Eucharist at the Last Supper Jesus says "Do this in memory of me." The word translated "memory" which Jesus uses is in the Greek  the word "anamnesis." As one source writes:

 

"This Greek word is practically untranslatable in English. ‘Memorial,’ ‘commemoration,’ ‘remembrance’ all suggest a recollection of the past, whereas anamnesis means making present an object or person from the past. Sometimes the term 'reactualization' has been used to indicate the force of anamnesis." (The New Dictionary of Sacramental Worship, p. 45)

More will be said about this when we come to the Eucharistic Prayer in the Mass; however, suffice it to say that the memorial of the Mass refers to re-presenting the saving actions of Jesus in the Liturgy. There is also a sense where God is asked to remember his People as his people are asked to remember him in the present as God has acted in the past and for the future.

 

The Sacrifice of the Mass is naturally part of this memorial presentation of the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus. His sacrifice is his sacrificial love offered for us on the Cross and made everlasting in his Resurrection. By the action of the Holy Spirit, we join our lives to Christ’s One Sacrifice so that we may live in his sacrificial love.

In the Liturgy of the Eucharist all this—the thanksgiving, the memorial sacrifice, the Real Presence–is made present by the ordained Priest or Bishop in their ministry through the Word of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. But all the Baptized also make offering united to this objective sacrifice of the Mass. As the Priest invites the Assembly at the Offertory "Pray, my brothers and sisters , that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to the Lord our God."

Next Week: The Liturgy of the Eucharist and the Incarnation

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