IN MEMORY OF ME

1. - Throughout history, the Eucharist receives different names, according to the aspect emphasized in the moment: the breaking of bread, the Lord’s supper, Eucharist, mass, holy sacrifice of mass. Right now, the name of Eucharist is coming back. And we are making ourselves conscious that the Eucharist is the meeting of the community. Following the Vatican Council II, we are coming back to the sources, which means the ecclesial renovation and has an ecumenical transcendence. Do this in memory of me, says Jesus. But, what is this?, what do we do?.

2. - It besides exists a secular problem about the relationship among the two parts of the Eucharist, the listening of the word and the eucharistic prayer. The Council says: “The two parts forming up the Eucharist, so to know, the liturgy of the word and the eucharistic liturgy, are so intimately united that they constitute only one worship act”. Therefore, the Council vehemently exhorts the priests “that they must instruct carefully the faithful about their participation in the whole Mass” (SC 56; see SC 14). Benedict XVI recalls the problem in his exhortation The sacrament of charity: “It necessary to avoid that, as much in the catechesis as in the celebration, a juxtaposition of the two parts of the rite takes place”. But, one pf the parts is variable and the other one is fixed and untouchable (SC 22): How shall we avoid the juxtaposition?, is it a question of participation?.

3. – The Eucharist has its origin in Jesus´ last supper: Before the feast of the Passover, Jesus realized that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father, he has supper with his disciples (Jn 13, 1-2) he celebrates the Passover (Lk 22, 15). The supper has a paschal character: the home and the preparative to eat the paschal lamb (Mk 14,12), the ablutions and the washing of the feet (Jn 13, 5), the bread dipped in the sauce (Jn 13,26), the coup after dinner (Lk 22,20), the psalms (Mt 26, 30), the ample conversation (Jn 13 –17) in which Jesus reveals that supper’s sense.

4. – With small differences, the evangels show the Eucharistic origin. Mark:  While they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them, and he said: Take this, this is my body. Then he took a cup and after he had given thanks, passed it to them and they all drank from it. And he said: This is my blood, the blood of the covenant, which is to be poured out for many. (Mk 14, 22-24; Ex 12, 13.26 ss). Mathew says the same (Mt 26, 26-28). Luke says it as follows: Jesus also took bread, and after giving 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 he did the same with the cup after eating, saying: This cup is the new covenant, sealed in my blood, which is poured out for you (Lk 22, 19-20)

5. – It calls our attention that John does not include the account of the Eucharistic institution. Nevertheless, he includes the bread of life catechesis: The bread I shall give is my flesh and I will give it for the life of the world (Jn 6,51). The people ask themselves: How? Jesus talks about his death on the benefit of many (6,55). He gives a fundamental key to understand the Eucharist, the mutual inhabitancy, under the form of a presence beyond the death: He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood, lives in me and I in him (6,56)

6. – About the year 54, Paul writes to the Corinthians and he leaves to us the oldest origin of the Eucharist: This is the tradition of the Lord that I received and that in my turn I have handed on to you: that the Lord, on the night that he was delivered up, took bread and, after giving thanks, broke it, saying: This is my body which is broken for you; do this in memory of me. In the same manner, taking the cup after the supper, he said: This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Whenever you drink it, do it in memory of me (1 Co 11, 23 – 25). The Jewish memorial makes present the fact of salvation in everyone of its strong times. It is not a simple remembrance. Before the scandal of the cross and of the empty grave (Jn 20,2), the Lord tells us: This is my body. It is fundamental to discern the body of the Lord, id est, his presence. The divisions can prevent it (1 Co 11, 20. 28 – 29). Some suggestions: When you gather, each of you can take part with a song, a teaching or a revelation, by speaking in tongues or interpreting what has been said in tongues. But let all this build the Church.

7. - The first day of the week, the disciples of Emmaus recognize Jesus when breaks the bread with them (Lk 24, 1.13.35). The breaking of the bread is the oldest name given to the Eucharist. The expression designates not only the fact of breaking the bread, but also the whole meal. It is a cheerful dinner. Let’s see the description of the celebration in Troade, Asia Minor: On the first day of the week we were together for the breaking of the bread, and Paul, who intended to leave the following day, spoke at length. The conversation lasted until midnight, with many lamps burning in the upstairs room where we were gathered… he broke the bread and ate. After that he kept on talking with them until day break (Acts 20, 7-11). Here are some of the features of the first Christian community: They were faithful to the teaching of the apostles, the common life of sharing, the breaking of bread and the prayers (Acts 2, 42). The Eucharist. Celebrated in the early Church the first day of the week or day of the Lord (Acts 20,7; 1Co 16,2; Rev 1,10), is from the first instant detached from the Jewish Passover. Saint Agustin of Antioch (+ 107) says about the Eucharist: “That only is to be considered like legitimate the Eucharist that is celebrated under the presidency of the bishop or that one who he has designated for it” (Ad Smyrn. 8.1)

8. – The expression breaking of the bread stays in use while the Eucharist is celebrated in the frame of a meal. It also named Lord’s dinner (1 Co 11,21). In this frame, says Saint Paul, nothing is to be rejected if we receive it with thanksgiving, for it is blessed with the word of God and prayer and made holy (1 Tm 4,4-5). The bread and fish meal that the resuscitated Lord gives to the seven disciples (Jn 21, 13) appears in the primitive Christian art like a Eucharistic expression. The Eucharist means to participate in the Lord’s table (1 Co 10,21). In Abercio´s epitaph (in Hierapolis, Asia Minor, about 180) the Christian’s meal is described like fish, bread and wine (Rouët de Journel, Enchiridion patristicum, Herder, 1969, 187). Nevertheless, more and more, the accent is placed in the thanksgiving: “ Among us this food, says Saint Justin about 155 A D., is called Eucharist”. The Eucharist is detached from the dinner and it is taken to the morning (Saint Justin, Apology I, 66-67). From the fourth century on it is frequent to emphasize that the Eucharist is a sacrifice, as far as it updates the sacrifice of the cross. From the ninth century on the Eucharist is called mass (from the Latin: oblation missa, offering sent)

9. – German theologian M. Schmaus comments: “ For a long time after the apostles, the Eucharist was celebrated with a thanksgiving prayer freely formulated, which connected with the blessing words pronounced by Jesus. In the thirteenth century the persuasion that the words of the Lord were the authentic consecrating form was imposed. The evolution of the Eastern Church followed another course”, “the Greek Church uses bread with yeast. In the Latin Church the unleavened (azymous) bred is compulsory (Florence Council, 1439). The first indisputable witness of the use of the unleavened bread in the Latin Church is Rábano Mauro (+ 850)”.

10. – Between the eleventh and fourteenth century some devotional practices put into effect out of the eucharistic celebration itself are spread: genuflexion, incense, adoration, communion, prayer in front of the sacrarium. “The sacrarium (tabernacle) was at the beginning devoted to keep with dignity the Eucharist so that it could be taken to the sick and to the absent outside the mass” (Catholic Church Catechism, num. 1379). The gross medieval realism (with bloody hosts stories) goes too far. Be what it may be, that is not Christ’s blood, says Thomas of Aquinas (ST, III, q. 76, a 8.c and ad 2). Christ is not “locked” in the sacrarium; there are the sacramental species (ST, III, q. 76, a. 7, c; see Acts 7, 48 – 50). The council of Trent (1551) uses the word transubstantiation (D877) to explain the Eucharistic mystery.

11. – The true presence of Christ in the Eucharist is the product of his word and of the Spirit’s gift. According to the Vatican Council II, it is a Christ’s special presence in the Church (SC 7). Christ makes himself present in many ways: where two or three meet in his name, in the listening of the word, in the baptism, in the poor and in those suffering. But in the Eucharist he is present in a special way. The Eucharist is the meeting of the community, “the updating of Christ’s presence among the community” (Von Balthasar). To what we call bread, wine, table, communion in inconceivable without the community. The true presence of Christ in the Eucharist transfigures the community meeting (dinner) into the Lord’s Supper.

* Dialogue: What do we do in the Eucharist? How can we avoid the juxtaposition?