Francis de Sales - Prayer (7)

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.