This is the second of the two
“notes” I want to make on the “fourth way” to prepare for prayer; the first
note was on “imagination"; this one concerns the “Blessed Sacrament”. Francis de Sales writes:
“The fourth way is simply to
exercise your ordinary imagination, picturing the Saviour to yourself in His
Sacred Humanity as if He were beside you just as we are
wont to think of our friends, and fancy that we see or hear them at our
side. But when the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar is there, then this Presence
is no longer imaginary, but most real; and the sacred species are but as a veil
from behind which the Present Saviour beholds and considers us, although we
cannot see Him as He is.”
I was recently reading a book on
prayer which recommended some Roman Catholic writers, with cautions. That is,
after recommending the writers the author of the book wrote, in effect, “Now
remember, Catholics believe such and such about this and that and we don’t
believe those things.”
It seems to me that if we are
going to mature as men and women in Christ and His Body, that at some point we
ought to become secure enough, and knowledgeable enough, to dialogue with
traditions within the Body that don’t see and understand things the way we do -
without us feeling threatened. Why cannot we learn to understand others and to
learn from others? There may be other traditions that have enriching Biblical perspectives.
I admit, to my shame, that I have made the grave error of taking the word of others
about what other movements and traditions believe within the Church, without
actually reading original material from those traditions, or talking to others
within those traditions. I have also made the error of thinking that traditions
are monolithic, that everyone within a given tradition, even Roman Catholicism,
sees things the same way – this of course is foolish. Perhaps we could argue
that the more monolithic and uniform a tradition is, that the less thoughtful
the people in that tradition are? (I write this within the context of Mere
Christianity and the historic ancient creeds).
When Francis de Sales writes of
the Blessed Sacrament, and of what I previously termed Presence with an upper
case “P” – I hope it will give us all pause to consider our understanding of
Communion, the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, the Lord’s Table, the Love Feast;
whatever we are prone to call the breaking of the Bread and the sharing of the
Cup.
It seems to me that the
Scriptures portray Communion as a many-faceted diamond, the height and depth,
and length and breath of which we can spend all of our lives exploring and
beholding.
Matthew draws our attention to,
“Take, eat; this is my body…Drink from it [the cup], all of you; for this is my
blood of the covenant” (Matthew 26:26 – 30).
Mark shows us, “Take it, this is
my body…This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many” (Mark
14:22 – 26).
Then Luke, “This is my body which
is given for you…This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my
blood” (Luke 22:14 – 23).
Where do we have warrant to make
anything of the Bread and the Cup which our Lord does not make? Why do we
sometimes insist on pulling down to our natural understanding that which is a Divine
mystery?
In Luke 22:19 and 1 Corinthians
11:24 we have the concept of celebrating Communion in “remembrance” – and yet the
Greek word [anamnesis] translated as such means more than simply “remember”;
quoting the entry in Kittel, there is an “active sense” which carries with it
“that they actively fulfil the anamnesis’’ [the remembrance] when the Eucharist
is celebrated.
While the Gospel of John does not
contain an explicit account of the Last Supper, let’s recall that John has the washing
of feet in the Upper Room which the Synoptics do not record, and let’s ponder John
Chapter 6, “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him”
(John 6:56). If this was a “hard saying” then, let’s not be surprised that it
is a hard saying now. Through all of this we are encountering dimensions which
are above and beyond our comprehension, but which, nevertheless, we are called
to participate in, to taste, to enjoy, and to live by. Let us not forget that
we are called to be “partakers of the Divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).
We see in 1 Corinthians 10:16 –
17, “Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing [koinonia] in the
blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing [koinonia] in the
body of Christ? Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we
all partake of the one bread.”
Here we have the mystery of John Chapter
6 and of 1 Corinthians Chapter 12:12, “For even as the body is one and yet has
many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one
body, so also is Christ.” As Augustine says, “As is the Head, so is the
Body.”
When we partake of the Loaf and
the Cup, we partake of Christ and, in Christ, we partake of one another. We are
one Bread in Jesus Christ. When we participate in the Lord’s Table we ought to be
careful lest we “be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord…not discerning
the body rightly” (1 Cor. 11:27 – 32). Yes, I may not rightly discern the Head
of the Body; but I also may not discern the members of the Body – I cannot
rightly do one if I do not the other; any more than I can say “I love God” if I
hate my brother.
Francis de Sales shows a respect
and reverence for the “Blessed Sacrament” that we seem to have lost – no matter
our tradition. Francis lived sacramentally, seeing all of life as a many – faceted
sacrament; perhaps it isn’t too much to suggest that his sacramental understanding
was anchored in the Presence (with an upper case “P”) of the Blessed Sacrament.
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