“The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (NRSV, 1 Corinthians 10:16b, 17)
The Crucifixion and Ascension of Our Blessed Lord were definite events. Each happened at a particular spot on a particular day in a particular year – a year which, as time goes on, is receding farther and farther into the past. But the Christian religion is concerned rather with the present than with the past because, though the Crucifixion and Ascension once marked its beginning, its centre is now and always the Person of our Crucified and Ascended Lord.
When, seven weeks after Good Friday, the Risen Lord returned to Heaven, he did not journey from one part of the Universe to another. On the contrary, he withdrew from this sphere of space and time into that supernatural world which is the eternal background of the Universe and which is none other than the visible Presence of the omni-present God.
From then onwards no place and no part of life has been distant from him. That was the sure ground of his final promise to his Apostles on Ascension Day, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me…And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (NRSV, Matthew 28:18,20).
That eternal world to which he then returned was the same as that from which he had come when he was born in Bethlehem. Or, as he himself put it on Maundy Thursday evening, “I came from the Father and have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and am going to the Father” (NRSV, John 16:28).
But he went back with his Ascended human Body, the same Body in which he had been offered to the Father by old Simeon in the Temple; the same Body in which he offered himself to his Father on the Cross for the world’s salvation – an offering which was invested with this tremendous meaning at the Last Supper the night before when he took the bread and wine saying, “This is my body, which is given for you”. “…this is my blood…which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (NRSV, Luke 22:19; Matthew 26:28, our emphasis).
But on Ascension Day that Body was what it had become at his Resurrection, a supernatural glorified Body fitted for a supernatural, glorified life. And it is in that glorified life of God’s visible Presence that Our Lord ever offers himself to his Father as the perfect sacrifice for the sins of the world. And that sinless and acceptable offering of himself, which our Crucified and Ascended Saviour makes on our behalf, enables him to bring us sinners with him to his Father. (See Note)
But in order to be thus brought by him we must become a living part of his offering and that in turn means becoming a living part of him. And that in point of fact is what we are and have been ever since our Baptism when we were made members of Christ. And that phrase is to be understood literally. For every baptised man, woman and child has been made part of Our Lord’s Ascended Body, part of the living personal bond that joins Heaven and earth, and human beings and God. It is his Ascended Body which is the underlying reality of the Church, the mystical Body of Christ, “…which is the blessed company of all faithful people…” (1)
So St Paul told his flock at Corinth, “…you are the body of Christ and individually members of it” (NRSV, 1 Corinthians 12:27).
And it is through that identification of himself with his Church below that, in the Eucharist, Our Lord is able to offer here in this world that Sacrifice of himself which he eternally offers in Heaven.
For at the Offertory of the Eucharist we offer ourselves and our daily lives to God, not as individuals separate from one another and separate from Our Lord, but as members together of his Body, intimately united to him. In other words, at the Offertory we offer the Body of Christ in relation to ourselves.
But at the Consecration we offer to God Our Lord himself, present on our altar as he is in Heaven, and so take our part in that offering of himself which he eternally makes on our behalf. In other words, at the Consecration we offer the Body of Christ in its relation to Christ himself.
And at the Communion we receive his Ascended Body in the Blessed Sacrament under the outward forms of bread and wine, so that we may truly become what we already are – the Body of Christ. So St Augustine the Great told his flock in North Africa in one of his sermons, “If you have received well, you are that which you have received”. (2)
Or, in the words of St Paul, “The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (NRSV, 1 Corinthians 10:16b, 17).
To put the same truth from another point of view: we who are already the children of God through our Baptism become truly his children by faithfully receiving the Son of God himself in the Blessed Sacrament.
Such, in brief, is the original, actual and true meaning of the Eucharist, the central act of worship of the Church of Christ. We can understand, therefore, why the chief benefit of Communion is the unity of Christ’s people with Christ and with one another. And we can also understand why uncharitableness, which injures and can even destroy that unity, is so grievous a sin. It becomes still more grievous when the sin of treachery is added, and members of the Church speak unkindly or maliciously about their fellow members to those outside the Church’s ranks. In so doing they injure Christ, they damage his Church, and they poison their own souls.
How different are the true fruits of Communion: the bonds of love and gentleness and loyalty which unite the Church to Christ and her members to one another. May such fruits be apparent in the life of each one of us so that we all may be worthy members of the glorified Body of Christ.
Note
This mystery is at the heart of the hymn, Once, only once, and once for all.
References
1. Book of Common Prayer (1662) From prayer after Communion. Available from:
http://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/book-of-common-prayer/the-lord%27s-supper-or-holy-communion.aspx (Accessed 24 May 2013) (Internet).
2. Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430) Sermon 227, cited by Dix, G. (1945) The shape of the liturgy, Westminster: Dacre Press, p.247.