Chapter 2: The Eucharist

From the very beginning Christianity has been the proclamation of joy, of the only possible joy on earth. Joy, through its misunderstanding, is found in the bottom of darkness. Christian joy, which was proclaimed through the cross, is the transformation of the end into a beginning. This is how the church brings us into union with God. All actions the church does is done in the “opposite”. Baptism is a rebirth from death. We are called to die first then we are reborn into Christ. The Eucharist is a calling to die to the world before then we are reborn through the communion in the one body of Christ. The church has always taught that in order to be alive in Christ you first must die. Out of this great joy the church developed and acquired its meaning. The gospel begins and concludes with the proclamation of great joy (cf. LK 2.10, LK 24.52). In order to enter the great joy that the church bestows to the community, it can only be done through one action that from the very beginning has been the only source and fulfillment of joy, the very sacrament of joy, the Eucharist. 

Fr. Alexander begins the next section by saying that the Eucharist is a liturgy. Using the word liturgy can get one into some trouble however, we must understand liturgy as the source of all joy which goes out and becomes life for all. This is what is meant when one says we must make liturgy a lived experience. Liturgy must always be lived because this is the source of life that produces joy. If liturgy then is meant to be the source of life one might ask what exactly then is liturgy? Fr. Alexander gives the definition of liturgy as being the gathering of the community which is not a mere collection of individuals-but the coming together of the community. It is a service for a group on behalf of the interest of the whole community and not the individual. Thus the liturgy of ancient Israel was the corporate work of the chosen people and not a few people to prepare the way for the coming of the messiah. Fr. Alexander would take this definition and begin to un-package it in regards to the church by saying the church is a service, a ministry and a calling to act in this world after the fashion of Christ. The liturgy then is not to be understood in “cultic” terms (he means here do not look at liturgy as a set of things you must do in order to complete a liturgy) because Christianity must be considered as the end of religion. Christianity is not another “religion” but rather it is life. If many of you are around me you would always hear me say that Orthodoxy is not a denomination but life. This is what Fr. Alexander means by liturgy. Liturgy is lived out and not meant to be a set of ancient practices- liturgy being lived out means that we can live in communion with God through our actions because our actions become a constant form of liturgy and prayer. Liturgy and prayer-if understood as being lived out-can be viewed as a journey into the kingdom of God.

The liturgy of the Eucharist can best be understood as a journey. It is a journey of the church in the kingdom of God. This is why you will hear many priests and teachers within the church say that the church and the liturgy is heaven on earth. This make senses because the church has always stood outside of time. The church is not of this world meaning every action done within the church is a heavenly action and should be approached and respected with the greatest reverence. This is why we venerated icons not because we worship them rather because they serve as a window into heaven. So when we begin our journey in the morning whether we drive twenty kilometers or walk a few blocks this is the start of the gathering of the community that constitutes the matrix of the church; the community of believes united in the body of Christ. As the community gathers together this fulfils the purpose to make present the One in whom all things are at their end, and all things are also at their beginning. This then would explain why the liturgy and the church are truly meant to be a separation from the world. It our attempt to bring the church and the liturgy to the world we reduce the beauty and goodness of the church to the lowest common denominator forgetting that Christ himself was not recognized by his own disciples. After his death Mary thought he was the gardener, the disciples on the road to Emmaus did not know him. He was only recognized when the heavenly actions were conducted by Christ himself; the breaking of bread and opening of scripture (cf. LK 24.41-44). That is what we do in liturgy and that is the same time the disciples recognized who Christ was and this is how we come to be in union with Christ. When going to church the world and society should be left at the doors as we enter the mystery of our faith. However, if we bring the world inside with us then this great mystery is misunderstood and our unity with Christ is not revealed leaving many of us to look for the meaning of life within the world never to find it because union with God is meant to occur within our lived liturgy. 

If liturgy is meant to be a constant way of life then the accumulation of this life reaches the climax within the Eucharist. Liturgy is meant to be union with God through the participation of the community as a whole. The Eucharist then is meant to be the ultimate form of joy for the entire community. In the Eucharist we are standing in the presence of Christ, and just like Moses before God, we are to be covered with his glory. The Eucharist then becomes our entrance into the kingdom. Hence the importance of preparation for the liturgical celebration. If there is no preparation for liturgy then the meaning of liturgy and the Eucharist is lost in the great rush of the world and to time. Praying a liturgy in less than two hours seems to be the norm to many people however liturgy is outside of time. Many Orthodox churches, when you walk in, will notice that clocks are never present within the chapel. This is so because the church stands outside of time and is not governed by time. Beauty and joy are not packaged into a “time frame” but rather the true essence of liturgy which leads to joy is the fact that it is constantly being lived out and hence time ceases to be important.

The Eucharist then should not be understood as a set formula or specific actions being taken that transforms the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. What that does is actually diminish the liturgy altogether and dare I say the liturgy ceases to exist if we treat the Eucharist with this mindset? The Eucharist as a term is what gives unity and meaning to all the elements of the liturgy. The fathers called the Eucharist the bread and wine of the offering, and their offering and consecration which leads to communion. All of this is the Eucharist and all of this could be understood as Eucharist. This is why we can never pinpoint to a certain point in the liturgy with the bread and wine is transformed into the body and blood of Christ because the gathered community is the true meaning of the gathering of the body of Christ. It is in the community that the true transformation occurs. This point goes back to chapter 1 when Fr. Alexander made the point about the priesthood of all humanity. The entire community is the one making the sacrifice and not just “the priest”. The Eucharist then is understood and should only be understood as the gathered community coming together in the unity of the body of Christ. This explains why the community was vital to the early church. This is why the canons of the church forbid bishops, priests and congregants from moving from church to church. If you were part of a community this was the community you were apart from. By “church hoping” the body of Christ was then divided up because the entire community was not present for the Eucharist meal. This is why the early church emphasized and still emphasizes the need for the community to come together for the liturgical celebration. The beauty then of the Eucharist is summed up in this that the Eucharist as Fr. Alexander would say “is the sacrament of cosmic remembrance: it is indeed a restoration of love as the very life of the world. 

The content of Christ’s Eucharist is love and it is only through love can we enter into the Eucharist and be made its partakers. This is why the kiss of peace is very important (done right before the Anaphora prayers in the Coptic rite) because this is the expression of love the gathered community shows to one another. This love Christ has given to us and this gift comes from the church. Fr. Alexander then explains the main purpose of the church being expressed through love when he says “The church then constitutes itself through love and on love, and in this world it is to "witness” to Love, to re-present it, to make Love present. Love alone creates and transforms: it is, therefore, the very "principle” of the sacrament”.  

By way of conclusion if we come to realize and break down what we know about liturgy and Eucharist we will then we able to come to realize the beauty and goodness of all creation being offered back to God. In that sense Fr. Alexander words are true when he says: “When man stands before the throne of God, when he has fulfilled all that God has given him to fulfill, when all sins are forgiven, all joy restored, then there is nothing else for him to do but to give thanks. Eucharist (thanksgiving) is the state of perfect man. Eucharist is the life of paradise. Page 37”. Eucharist then becomes the life that was intended for the creation of the world. To be united to God in his kingdom. This is why it is very important to stress the point that when the community gathered for the liturgical service that the world and all its problems are to be left at the door. Liturgy and Eucharist are heavenly celebrations. If we come to understand that as God’s creation we are to be his icons in the world then all our actions thoughts and words will become heavenly actions to the people we stand in front of. This is why the beauty of creation is to be glorified because God created everything good. Creation and its goodness hit the climax in the liturgy through the participation of the Eucharist. 

A few quotations from chapter two: 

It meant (talking here about liturgy) an action by which a group of people become something corporately which they had not been as a mere collection of individuals—a whole greater than the sum of its parts. It meant also a function or "ministry” of a man or of a group on behalf of and in the interest of the whole community. Thus the leitourgia of ancient Israel was the corporate work of a chosen few to prepare the world for the coming of the Messiah. And in this very act of preparation they became what they were called to be, the Israel of God, the chosen instrument of His purpose. Page 25.      

Thus the Church itself is a leitourgia, a ministry, a calling to act in this world after the fashion of Christ, to bear testimony to Him and His kingdom. The Eucharistic liturgy, therefore, must not be approached and understood in "liturgical” or "cultic” terms alone. Just as Christianity can—and must—be considered the end of religion, so the Christian liturgy in general, and the Eucharist in particular, are indeed the end of cult, of the "sacred” religious act isolated from, and opposed to, the "profane” life of the community. The first condition for the understanding of liturgy is to forget about any specific "liturgical piety.” Page 26.

The Eucharist is the entrance of the Church into the joy of its Lord. And to enter into that joy, so as to be a witness to it in the world, is indeed the very calling of the Church, it’s essential leitourgia, the sacrament by which it "becomes what it is.” Page 26.

The liturgy begins then as a real separation from the world. In our attempt to make Christianity appeal to the man on the street, we have often minimized, or even completely forgotten, this necessary separation. We always want to make Christianity "understandable” and "acceptable” to this mythical "modern” man on the street. And we forget that the Christ of whom we speak is "not of this world,” and that after His resurrection He was not recognized even by His own disciples. Mary Magdalene thought He was a gardener. When two of His disciples were going to Emmaus, "Jesus himself drew near and went with them,” and they did not know Him before "he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave it to them” (Lk. 24:15—16, 30). Page 27-28.

In church today, we so often find we meet only the same old world, not Christ and His Kingdom. We do not realize that we never get anywhere because we never leave any place behind us. To leave, to come…This is the beginning, the starting point of the sacrament, the condition of its transforming power and reality. Page 28.

Unnecessary it is indeed, for we are beyond the categories of the "necessary.” Beauty is never "necessary,” "functional” or "useful.” And when, expecting someone whom we love, we put a beautiful tablecloth on the table and decorate it with candles and flowers, we do all this not out of necessity, but out of love. And the Church is love, expectation and joy. It is heaven on earth, according to our Orthodox tradition; it is the joy of recovered childhood, that free, unconditioned and disinterested joy which alone is capable of transforming the world. In our adult, serious piety we ask for definitions and justifications, and they are rooted in fear—fear of corruption, deviation, "pagan influences,” whatnot. But "lie that feareth is not made perfect in love” ( l Jn. 4 :18). As long as Christians will love the Kingdom of God, and not only discuss it, they will "represent” it and signify it, in art and beauty. Page 30.

In Christ man returns to God and in Christ God comes to man. As the new Adam, as the perfect man He leads us to God; as God incarnate He reveals the Father to us and reconciles us with God. He is our peace—the reconciliation with God, divine forgiveness, communion. And the peace that the priest announces and bestows upon us is the peace Christ has established between God and His world and into which we, the Church, have entered. Page 32.

As we proceed further in the eucharistic liturgy, the time has come now to offer to God the totality of all our lives, of ourselves, of the world in which we live. This is the first meaning of our bringing to the altar the elements of our food. For we already know that food is life, that it is the very principle of life and that the whole world has been created as food for man. We also know that to offer this food, this world, this life to God is the initial "eucharistic” function of man, his very fulfillment as man. We know that we were created as celebrants of the sacrament of life, of its transformation into life in God, communion with God. We know that real life is "eucharist,” a movement of love and adoration toward God, the movement in which alone the meaning and the value of all that exists can be revealed and fulfilled. We know that we have lost this eucharistic life, and finally we know that in Christ, the new Adam, the perfect man, this eucharistic life was restored to man. Page 34.

We offer the world and ourselves to God. But we do it in Christ and in remembrance of Him. We do it in Christ because He has already offered all that is to be offered to God. He has performed once and for all this Eucharist and nothing has been left unoffered. In him was Life—and this Life of all of us, He gave to God. The Church is all those who have been accepted into the eucharistic life of Christ. And we do it in remembrance of Him because, as we offer again and again our life and our world to God, we discover each time that there is nothing else to be offered but Christ Himself—the Life of the world, the fullness of all that exists. It is His Eucharist, and He is the Eucharist. Page 35.

The content of Christ’s Eucharist is Love, and only through love can we enter into it and be made its partakers. Of this love we are not capable. This love we have lost. This love Christ has given us and this gift is the Church. The Church constitutes itself through love and on love, and in this world it is to "witness” to Love, to re-present it, to make Love present. Love alone creates and transforms: it is, therefore, the very "principle” of the sacrament. Page 36-37.

When man stands before the throne of God, when he has fulfilled all that God has given him to fulfill, when all sins are forgiven, all joy restored, then there is nothing else for him to do but to give thanks. Eucharist (thanksgiving) is the state of perfect man. Eucharist is the life of paradise. Page 37.

Up to this point the Eucharist was our ascension in Christ, our entrance in Him into the "world to come.” And now, in this eucharistic offering in Christ of all things to the One to whom they belong and in whom alone they really exist, this movement of ascension has reached its end. We are at the paschal table of the Kingdom. What we have offered—our food, our life, ourselves, and the whole world—we offered in Christ and as Christ because He Himself has assumed our life and is our life. And now all this is given back to us as the gift of new life, and therefore—necessarily—as food. Page 41.

He became man and lived in this world. He ate and drank, and this means that the world of which he partook, the very food of our world became His body, His life. But His life was totally, absolutely eucharistic—all of it was transformed into communion with God and all of it ascended into heaven. And now He shares this glorified life with us. "What I have done alone—I give it now to you: take, eat. . . . ” We offered the bread in remembrance of Christ because we know that Christ is Life, and all food, therefore, must lead us to Him. And now when we receive this bread from His hands, we know that he has taken up all life, filled it with Himself, made it what it was meant to be: communion with God, sacrament of His presence and love. Only in the Kingdom can we confess with St. Basil that "this bread is in very truth the precious body of our Lord, this wine the precious blood of Christ.” What is "supernatural” here, in this world, is revealed as "natural” there. And it is always in order to lead us "there” and to make us what we are that the Church fulfills herself in liturgy. Page 42.