Down to Earth God

Communion

A close friend feels weird about the idea of communion (mass, the Eucharist, whatever you want to call it). It makes her feel uncomfortable. As a Christian for whom taking communion is a core part of my religion I find her reaction as difficult to understand as she finds my participation in the rite.

I assume the confusion comes from some of the language, 'This is my blood', 'This is my body' and some of the archaine theological disagreements over the years about whether the 'host' (the wafer of bread) becomes the actual body or not. To an unsympathetic outsider there are suggestions perhaps of cannibalism; a misunderstanding that contributed to persecution of the early church and many Christians meeting their death, but, contrary to this impression, the Eucharist is in essence a symbolic reenactment of a shared meal. It is a coming together, communion, of the whole church in solidarity with Christ and his disciples that takes us back to the meal on the eve of his crucifixion, the Lord's Supper.

It's special for Christians firstly because we believe Christ himself prescribed this form of commemoration and secondly because it links to the belief that through Christ's sacrifice we are forgiven our faults. We confess our past mistakes and put them behind us ready to make a fresh start.

The point about sharing Christ's body (the bread) and his blood (the wine) isn't that we are literally feeding on him it is that, through the ritual of commemoration, we become part of his body the church. I am using church here not in an institutional sense but to mean the body of people who carry forward Christ's work in the world. I am minded again of
the words of Teresa of Ávila. "Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours."

Or as a prayer at the end of the service expresses it, 'Almighty God,we thank you for feeding us with the body and blood of your Son Jesus Christ. Through him we offer you our souls and bodies to be a living sacrifice. Send us out in the power of your Spirit to live and work to your praise and glory. Amen.

As to what happens to the host on communion table it is a much misunderstood debate and for me personally irrelevant. The point of the service, of any ritual in fact is to bring the participants into a sense of spiritual communion to bring them into a sense of common purpose and participation in God's purpose. The sacraments are outward symbols that help bring us to this state. The bread and the wine help us remember the supper, Christ sharing the bread and the wine with his disciples reminding them of the solemnity of what was about to happen and its significance. The symbolism and the theatricality is intended as an aid to our imagination to take us there and to be a part of it but it's what happens on the inside; in our hearts and minds that matters.

When I take communion I am remembering that Christ died for me, that he bore the punishment for the things that I and others have got wrong. I remember that he gave his body up for torture and shed his blood for me. I am remembering that last meal with his disciples where he shared the bread and the wine and forewarned them what he intended to do. I am accepting the sacrifice that he made for me and offering my life however imperfectly in his service.