Eucharist
THE SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST "The Liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the fountain from which all her power flows" (Abbott 142). This solemn quote represents the core of the church's official teaching on the Sacred Liturgy. When sin entered the world with the fall of Adam and Eve1 so began the need for reconciliation between God and His people. Throughout the Hebrew scriptures many covenants were made to bring about this reconciliation. The Covenant of Abraham and the Covenant of Moses, although they bound or unified God and His people, proved not to be complete. For true and complete reconciliation, God sent His Son that this New Covenant could be achieved through the passion, death and resurrection. The eve of the Israelites exodus from Egypt, God struck down the first born of all the Egyptians. The Israelites were told by God to celebrate a sacred meal. They were to sacrifice a one year old male lamb, without blemish. The blood of this lamb was to be smeared on the two doorposts and lintel of the houses in which they ate. The angel of death would "pass over" their homes sparing their first born children. Consequently, this ritual meal became known as the Passover
Supper.2 When Jesus celebrated the Passover meal with his disciples, he established a new and everlasting covenant not in the blood of a lamb, but in His own blood. He became the Lamb of Sacrifice. Jeremiah prophesied this new covenant when he said: "The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel. . . . I will make an everlasting covenant."3 St. Paul explains the theological significance of this sacrament as a union with the body and blood of Christ - and a re-presentation of the Lords passion, death and resurrection; thus the Paschal Mystery of Christ: For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and after he had given thanks, broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this is remembrance of me." In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, ":This is the new covenant in my blood, Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.4 In the earliest church this sacred meal of Jesus usually took place within the context of a common meal rather than as a separate rite. Most people celebrated this ritual in homes. The communities were very small. The breaking of the bread was the central act of prayer and worship of the people, reminding the early Christians of their identity and of Christ's presence among them. The Christians formulated their own programs of Scripture readings and prayer and before long these were joined directly to the memorial-sacrificial meal. This combination of a liturgy of the Word and a liturgy of the Body and Blood of Christ remains the two major components of the Catholic Eucharistic liturgy today. The Eucharist expresses the Church's faith that Christ is present in the bread and wine. A council of the Eastern church at Nicea in 787 affirmed the real presence of Christ's body and blood in the bread and wine but this was not clea
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1364
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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