Almighty Father, whose dear Son, on the night before he suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood: Mercifully grant that we may receive it thankfully in remembrance of Jesus Christ our Lord, who in these holy mysteries gives us a pledge of eternal life; and who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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"When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the Twelve. And while they were eating, he said, 'Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.' They were very sad and began to say to him one after the other, 'Surely you don’t mean me, Lord?'
"Jesus replied, 'The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.' Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, 'Surely you don’t mean me, Rabbi?' Jesus answered, 'You have said so.'
"While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, 'Take and eat; this is my body.' Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, 'Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.' When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives."
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This is the night where we celebrate and remember the Last Supper in the Upper Room - the staging ground of what would become, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, the "source and summit" of our Christian faith. It is the night of the greatest gift that Jesus Christ could ever give us - His very Body and Blood. There is nothing more important in our life as Christians or in our everyday lives than Christ and the Eucharist. That is why belief in transubstantiation is so important and every Christian must strive to cling on to that belief - no, that TRUTH.
Until we accept that truth and treat this holy meal for exactly what it is - the actual Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ - we are just going through the motions of what it is to be a follower of Christ. Starting over 2,000 years ago, Christ first fed his band of followers his Body and Blood - transformed through the mystery of faith into His own Body and Blood. And tonight especially, as we remember that first, sacred night where the mystery of the Eucharist was established, He feeds us once more with His own precious Body and Blood.
When we go before the altar tonight (or any other time) to partake in the Eucharist, communion, at the point of Epiclesis (Sanctify them by your Holy Spirit to be for your people the Body and Blood of your Son, the holy food and drink of new and unending life in Him. [BCP p. 363] ) the bread and wine consecrated by the priest ceases to be that. It becomes the actual Body and Blood of Jesus Christ himself. True, if you were to look at this bread and wine underneath a microscope, one would see no change before and after the consecration and many sight this as a means to dismiss this belief and treat the Eucharist as nothing more than a nice gesture of remembrance or a memorial. But that thought is silly and perhaps verging on insult to the Lord himself. Ian Markham, Dean and President of Virginia Theological Seminary puts it in these terms: "When my father used to make bread at home, on one level it was just the ingredients that he put together and then placed in the oven. But on another level, it was bread made to be eaten in a family meal at the table. The truth of what these ingredients were must include the fact that it was bread made to be eaten."
The bottom line is not only (as outlined explicitly in John 6) that Jesus Christ dove into the differences between partaking of Him in all respects (his actual Body and Blood) in his conversation with the disciples immediately after he fed 5,000 people, in which he made absolutely clear that when one takes communion you are partaking in his actual Body and Blood and that fact cannot be left up to interpretation, but also that there is a very present mystery of divine grace in operation at the moment of Epiclesis. Bread and wine ceases to be just that - it becomes Body and Blood. At this moment,
WE ARE TOUCHING CHRIST
And as Markam so aptly puts it, "So we eat and drink: we take Jesus into us. We receive the bread and wine knowing that they are an enormous resource. We are now empowered by a fuel that God has provided."
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