After the Offertory, when the bread and wine are placed on the altar and offered to God, there comes the Eucharistic Prayer. The priest says or sings the familiar words: “The Lord be with you” and then “Lift up your hearts”. (1) So we are asked to lift up our hearts to God, and because we have come to offer Our Lord to God in thanksgiving for our salvation, the priest continues with the words Jesus himself used at the Last Supper (2), “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God”. (3)
Preface
The Eucharistic Prayer includes the Preface which is a prayer of thankfulness. It leads to the most holy part of the Eucharist. The great feasts and festivals of the Church have their own special or proper Preface, so that at Christmas we give special thanks for Our Lord’s Birth and at Easter for his Resurrection. So the Preface goes on until we burst into song at the Sanctus, the hymn which Isaiah the prophet heard the angels in Heaven sing (6:3).
Sanctus and Benedictus
At the Offertory we can think of ourselves as standing at a distance from the Throne of God, but now as we come nearer we are, as it were, within earshot and so we join with the angels and archangels and with all the company of Heaven and sing, “Holy, holy, holy”. This is called the Sanctus because that is the Latin word for holy. It is followed by the Benedictus, which looks ahead to that moment in the Eucharist when Jesus is present in our very midst as he was with his Apostles on the first Easter Day:
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the Highest”. (4)
This was the song, you remember, which the crowds sang when they escorted Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday (Matthew 21:9). It is called the Benedictus because that is the Latin for Blessed. Hosanna is the Hebrew for “Save, pray!” and is a shout of adoration.
During this part of the Eucharist the torch bearers with their lighted candles come in and kneel at the altar steps so as to form a kind of guard of honour for Jesus when he comes to be present on the altar in the Blessed Sacrament.
The Consecration
And so we come to the centre of the Eucharist, the Consecration. In some churches a small bell is rung so that our minds will not stray from Our Lord as he comes into our midst to offer himself with us to God, and a hush comes over the whole church.
In order to have a little understanding of what happens you must get out of your heads all ideas about Heaven being a long way away. Heaven is where God is seen. If we could see God now, we should be in Heaven. When Jesus went back to Heaven on Ascension Day, he did not go on a journey but simply took his place again in that heavenly life which surrounds us on every side.
At the Consecration the priest, acting as Our Lord’s personal representative, does what Our Lord himself did at the Last Supper. The priest takes the bread and wine and offers Our Lord in his Risen and Ascended Body and Blood to God, and the Bread and Wine then become what is offered, as Our Lord promised they would, “This is my Body, this is my Blood”; so that the forms of bread and wine on the altar and Our Lord’s Ascended Body in Heaven become one. To mark this holy moment the small bell rings three times, and again three times. In some churches a big church bell is used instead of a small bell or in addition to the small bell. People who live near the church and are ill at home will hear the bell and know that we have reached the holiest moment in the Eucharist and they can join in as well.
We know that we are not fit to approach God, and so in the Eucharist we remind him of all that Our Lord, who is our Great High Priest, has done to bring us to him. At the Offertory we offered ourselves to God with the bread and wine, both completely unworthy, but it was the best we could do at that moment. But now, at the Consecration, Jesus takes possession of our poor offering, and that makes all the difference, because he is completely worthy of God. And the priest says Our Lord’s own words, “This is my Body” and as the Bread becomes the living Bread from Heaven and hides Our Lord in his Heavenly Body, so the priest holds It up and offers It, or rather Him, to God. The priest does the same with the chalice, after saying Our Lord’s own words, “This is my Blood”. And at the same time Our Lord, our Great High Priest, now in our midst and still showing the scars of his Crucifixion in his hands and feet and side, brings us to his Father and presents us, with his glorious, sinless Self, as his people whom he died to save. And God receives and welcomes us for the sake of Our Lord, his Son and our Saviour.
And so week by week through the centuries, Our Lord in the Eucharist has brought generation after generation to his Father. Men and women and children, of every race and in every land, have in countless Consecrations been presented by Our Lord to God. And so it has gone on until this day, and God welcomes us with joy, as he welcomed all those faithful people, because he sent Jesus into the world and gave him to us in order that he might bring us to God.
SUMMARY
1. Preface, Sanctus and Benedictus: we are now coming nearer to God’s Throne and join in the angels’ song, “Holy, holy, holy”.
2. Consecration: the priest, acting as Our Lord’s personal representative, does what Our Lord himself did at the Last Supper. The priest takes the bread and wine and offers Our Lord in his Risen and Ascended Body and Blood to God, and the Bread and Wine then become what is offered, as Our Lord promised they would, “This is my Body, this is my Blood”; so that the forms of bread and wine on the altar and Our Lord’s Ascended Body in Heaven become one. At the same time Our Lord brings us to his Father’s Throne and presents us as his people whom he died to save and God welcomes us with his Son.
References
1. ©The Archbishops’ Council (2000) Common Worship. The Order for the celebration of Holy Communion also called the Eucharist and the Lord's Supper, Order One. Available from:
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/commonworship/texts/hc/orderone.html (Accessed 25 August 2010) (Internet).
2. Dix, G. (1945) The shape of the liturgy, Westminster: Dacre Press.
3. ©The Archbishops’ Council (2000) Common Worship. The Order for the celebration of Holy Communion also called the Eucharist and the Lord's Supper, Order One. Available from:
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/commonworship/texts/hc/orderone.html (Accessed 25 August 2010) (Internet).
4. ©The Archbishops’ Council (2000) Common Worship. The Order for the celebration of Holy Communion also called the Eucharist and the Lord's Supper, Order One. Available from:
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/commonworship/texts/hc/orderone.html (Accessed 25 August 2010) (Internet).