____
The Eucharist’s Centrality
What we want to do in this context is to examine the pros and cons of such alternative developments as those just suggested, particularly as it should throw light upon, and help to develop our understanding of, the sacrament of the Eucharist and the place it plays in the Church’s worship and devotion.
There are very good reasons for the suggestion that the eucharist might not always be the most appropriate form of prayer for a meeting; and they have, I suggest, a twofold aspect. Firstly, despite the biblical readings which form an integral part of the Mass this form of worship – the Eucharist – is not in fact seen as primarily a proclamation of the Gospel. Eyebrows are raised either in disbelief or in expectation of something surprising whenever such claim is made. By Gospel, of course, in this context is meant the whole wider ‘Gospel Message’ springing from, and depending upon, the overall Saving History of God’s work amongst his people. The eucharist, as we experience it, and have experienced it from way back before the Reformation, seems to miss out so much of what is a radical part of what we are coming more and more to understand as the Revelation of God to humankind, within his Church. If the eucharist rightly holds a position absolutely central to the Church’s self-consciousness this cannot be allowed to continue. But this is indeed the question which is now quite often being asked.
Over against this, acting as it were as a counterbalance, or more than a counterbalance, is the fact that the Mass seems to offer (or at least is presented to us as offering) so much more than simply prayer or scripture study which can possibly be seen to compensate for this lack – namely the real presence of God in the Sacrament.2 Ever since the Reformation, which was to a very large extent fuelled by doubts in this area, the Roman Church and the Catholic Tradition, has emphasised its belief in this real presence and has encouraged a devotion overwhelmingly concentrating on this belief – a trend which has, I suggest, eventually led us not to a deepening of belief in its centrality but rather to a questioning of it – as has been outlined above.
Unfortunately, in reaction to the doctrines of the Reformation, the Church has done this without really ever going back to the nature of those original doubts at the time of the reformers. It has seldom asked itself whether there was not something lacking, or inadequate, in its current understanding and practice of this (or the other) Sacraments which needed a different solution than that simply of definition (in a philosophical terminology which had, by the time it came,3 already gone dead – see below), its insistent reiteration of the dogma, and the encouragement of a devotional emphasis which, whilst seemingly supporting the doctrine, actually misses, or rather avoids, the real point. Benediction and Exposition which were introduced to bolster this piety do not form an adequate substitute for the Biblical knowledge, prayer and familiarity which was lacking and upon which the sacraments depend for their vitality. The point which was worrying the Reformers is once again not seriously taken up until centuries later.
Thus the Eucharist has become in effect a form of worship which on the one hand rather plays down, or even to a certain extent misses out, the living historical dimension of our Salvation (and going along with this is our traditional rejection of the whole Jewish tradition, thus weakening enormously our awareness of what God’s presence, his mercy, his steadfast loving-kindness – all strong Biblical concepts – mean.) On the other hand by doing this it turns the sacramental dimension into something little different from a conjuring trick – if the right words are said (accurately) by the correctly qualified person (viz. one who has been given the priestly power) then Bingo! there is Christ truly (or really) amongst us – or rather there,4 on the altar.
The inadequacy of this theology receives emotional counterbalance by encouraging a devotion depending for its effectiveness largely on the mysteries of candle light, smoke, sweet smells and flamboyant vestments (which originally took us back, in the early Middle Ages, to the mysteries of Byzantine court life, and more recently to the court life of late medieval feudalism – which Catholicism in particular has ever since relied upon to provide its ambience.)
But those days have gone; a sea change – colour, temperature and temperament – has taken place both radically and emphatically. It is not surprising that many feel the lack of the one dimension and the inadequacy of the other. I do not believe, however, that the basic imbalance with which this leaves us can best be solved by making the Eucharist less prominent in our worship and substituting for it on various occasions a non-Eucharistic form of worship – a temptation which our earlier remarks would seem to suggest. The imbalance lies in our lack of understanding of the Eucharist itself – in the relationship between its Scriptural and Sacramental dimensions. What I am suggesting is once again put forward in the claim that the Eucharist is in fact, or should in principle be, none other than the Proclamation of the Gospel, and the corollary is that at the same time the Gospel cannot ultimately be proclaimed other than Eucharistically – just as Christ’s sacrifice took place both in the Upper Room and on Calvary, both shared with others and alone – not two sacrifices, but one.
This is an enormous claim and an enormous subject which here can only be looked at in minuscule. There is little evidence in the Masses which we experience (even in the more relaxed and ‘experimental’ forms which are common in the meetings of special groups) that this connection exists. For the most part, in our weekly experience of Mass, the readings are simply thrown away, or possibly even worse, but dependent upon this) read from a ‘missalette’ at the same time as they are being ‘read’ from the lectionary.
There is little evidence also that, in what is happening in the sacramental act of Thanksgiving, the breaking and offering and sharing of the bread and wine, the true presence of God is brought about ultimately because of that action’s relationship to the living Scriptures – historically and in the Church.
I suggest that if we could see (if we could have seen) the Eucharist as the Proclamation of the Gospel, as its living realisation, and the Gospel as demanding, rather than mere reading, such proclamation, we would never have got in the tangle of ‘Scripture alone’ over against ‘Scripture and Tradition’ – which takes us back once again to the heart of the Reformation.
Of course this is based upon, and is motivated by, belief in the ‘real’ presence of Christ in the consecrated species – a belief which, although long predating it, was affirmed at the Council of Trent and which has been emphasised, and most probably, in the process, distorted, throughout the historical development of Protestant and Catholic antagonism more or less ever since.6
Many have been concerned with the question of the possibility or impossibility of making sense today of the Tridentine doctrine of transubstantiation; that is not, however, our immediate purpose. It is rather to see how the devotional approach to the elements of the eucharist, which has been encouraged with this emphasis, reflects upon, and reflects back to us, our actual understanding of the eucharist itself. It is to be suggested that in fact it undermines and detracts from our idea of what might be meant by ‘real’ in the doctrine of the ‘real presence’ and at the same time distorts our understanding of the concept of Gospel – the Good News, which Christ came to proclaim, to die for, and for which the Holy Spirit was sent to us to make into a living reality amongst us.
The ‘bowing down before the Blessed Sacrament’ which
occurs, in the Catholic tradition, at and after the consecration
during the Mass (and traditionally in front of the tabernacle),
which is seen as worship, compares interestingly with the attitude
to the Bible manifested when it is held up after the Gospel reading
with the words: “This is the Gospel of the Lord”. On
the one hand we have “This is my body ...”, on the other
“This is the Gospel ...”. The words following the Gospel
reading which can be seen in their turn to follow on from the
earlier Acclamation, might be seen as its Proclamation, but it
isn’t! What is being held up for us all to see at this moment
is neither Gospel, nor proclamation, it is a book! – a sacred
book indeed, the book from which the words of the Gospel are read
– but the Gospel as such is the Good News that goes out,
is proclaimed in the words themselves, and lives and takes actuality
in our hearts, in the Body of the Church – Christ’s
body – as soul and spirit:
The ‘other side’ of the inadequacies is well illustrated, I think, by the story (probably, but not necessarily, apocryphal) of the curate who, whilst the parish priest was away, allowed a wedding party to serve wine to those present in the church who were not going on afterwards to the reception. On return the parish priest heard about this and remonstrated with the curate pointing out the impropriety. The curate appeals to the wedding feast of Cana, to which the Parish priest replies: “That’s all very well, but the real presence wasn’t there then.” The story may indeed be only apocryphal but it well illustrates the far from uncommon misunderstanding and distortion which has developed with regard to, and has settled on, our theology of the ‘eucharistic presence’.
We have on the one hand a fundamentalist approach to the Real Presence in the Eucharist, on the other a fundamentalist approach to the Bible as the word of God. Surely both of these are forms of idolatry. They need careful examination; but furthermore I am suggesting that they are in fact very closely interrelated, and this in itself requires all our critical faculties. In both cases what we are experiencing is a form of fundamentalism – a fundamentalism with regard to the idea of the Real Presence and a fundamentalism with regard to the idea of the Gospel – a ‘bowed down before’, feudal, medieval, presence on the one hand, and effectively a list of do’s and don’t’s from the ‘teaching’ of Jesus, on the other – a New Torah (New Testament), but this time printed on paper (rather than carved on stone,) but not, as in Jeremiah’s vision, written on the ‘heart’.7 The demand for a critical approach in both cases is a demand that they should each be taken more seriously, not an attempt to water them down or reduce their significance and impact. This is our starting point.
Any concept of transubstantiation (a philosophical, or quasi-philosophical
term) which goes back genuinely in its formulation to the revelatory
self-communicating realist philosophy of Aristotle, as was that
developed by Aquinas, with substance derived from
We, in the Church of Rome today, are still living unfortunately (and now, ever increasingly, uncomfortably) within that medieval culture which passed away elsewhere with the Renaissance and the Reformation – not that the culture of the Enlightenment has been any more helpful, or has produced anything more effective. On the contrary.
We have touched here on a very important point: the significance and role of drama within, not only our worship, but our appreciation of the Gospel message and our understanding of the nature of Christ’s presence to us. The liturgy is essentially dramatic, and so are important parts of the Scriptures. It should be noted that, however strange and foreign it may now be to us as an ‘art form’ the apocalyptic imagery of Revelations is radically dramatic 10 – as indeed is the whole Johannine literature. (Consider – leaving aside the whole of the IV Gospel, to which we will return – those opening words of the First Epistle: ‘That which was from the beginning which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life...’)
It should be noted at this point that Benediction, despite its pseudo-liturgical trappings, is not liturgy, and in fact uses ‘courtly’, not dramatic, symbolism (i.e. honour and respect which has become mere flummery 11 ) to achieve its effect. In the Eucharist itself, which is liturgy par excellence, the dramatic element can be diminished if awareness of its relationship to Scripture, both New Testament and Old, is not maintained, and if that Scripture is not seen as living now in our hearts and our minds, in our lives as Christians.
‘Adoration’, without the ‘existential’ framework given to the Eucharist in this latter’s being derived primarily from the Passover, together with the whole history and God-consciousness of the chosen People, which that entails, right down to and through the life of Jesus himself, is just idealist, ‘unreal’ – it cannot use the word ‘real’ with any true significance however much it appeals to dogma. If we achieve an integration of the ‘epic’ and ‘dramatic’ dimensions in passing on the Word of God (in both senses of this term) in Scripture and Sacrament, our adoration will enhance his presence and its power amongst us rather than encourage a spirituality which is little more than ‘pie in the sky’, or perhaps ‘pie (pie Jesu) in the tabernacle’.
The liturgy – the Scriptural readings, the sacramental dimension, and the living context of both together – is a whole, a dramatic whole. We have been brought up on a tradition which sees the Bible History (if it sees it at all) as the story of what happened to God’s ‘Chosen People’ interspersed with his decrees and regulations with regard to their behaviour – the Commandments etc., whether the Ten or the two thousand other regulations in Numbers, Leviticus and Deuteronomy. However much we acknowledge the inadequacy of this view we nevertheless find it difficult to transcend it.
When we come to the Gospels it becomes still more difficult to escape from the syndrome of ‘What actually happened?’, of the ipsissima verba, the actual words, of Jesus. And yet we should recognise that by far the greater part of the Old Testament, and an even greater proportion of the New, is not narrative, or legal codex, but poetry. In the case of the Fourth Gospel perhaps entirely poetry – but not the sort of poetry we were taught and made to learn at school: not even the verses, which in the case of the Nonconformist tradition, presented, and enabled to be sung congregationally, those greatest of all poetic works, the Psalms.
This poetry, we should note, is essentially dramatic poetry. Of course the Bible (and perhaps even the four Gospels, and to a larger extent the Acts of the Apostles) contain epic dimensions, but as a whole the Gospel Message by which I mean the whole Saving history of God’s work amongst his Chosen People, the announcement, the coming and the public recognition – Epiphany – of the Messiah, his preaching, his death and Resurrection and the establishment of the early Church – for all this is the Good News) is a dramatic and poetic presentation of God’s self-revelation to humankind, his offering his life to be shared by us.
Compare it for a moment with a play of Shakespeare. You, can work out the story line – what actually happened 12 – and perform what you have left as if it might be an Agatha Christie ‘whodunnit’ – (We used to do something very much like this in my junior school.) You can on the other hand extract and recite some of the great speeches (a task at school left only to those who had ‘poetic’ gift and ability) in order to reveal the poetic element – Shakespeare was not just a playwright but also a poet. Actually, of course, he was a dramatic poet, and this is the point, and it his strength and a radical part of his genius. He was not an entertainer, nor a philosopher, he did not have a message, what he provides is a revelation – a revelation about the nature, strength and weakness, the glory and the stupidity, of humankind.
In the Bible we have a not totally dissimilar Revelation (that is not ‘dissimilar’ with regard to structure and dynamics) of the relationship between God and humankind – at least one which is in very many ways conveyed, handed-over, within similar parameters – human parameters calling on all the gifts and skill given to us through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Wisdom – something which, within the Bible itself, the Wisdom literature was beginning to realise.
Within the context of Shakespeare we are also right to talk of his greatest speeches as needing proclamation; but they are proclaimed within the context of the play. Their success in isolated proclamation surely depends not just upon the artistic abilities of the actor but upon our being aware of the wider context – the agonising stupidity and tragedy of King Lear or the equally agonising inability to cope under intolerable pressure of Prince Hamlet, all of which, of course, comes out in the ‘story line’. So also in the Bible – in the Bible readings we are given at Mass. What comes over is not merely dependent upon the abilities of the reader, though it certainly is highly dependent up this – as well as the reader’s interest, concern, dedication and so on. It is dependent upon the Bible being an accepted part of our culture and our education, which it has perhaps never been within Roman Catholicism – at least since the days of St Augustine of Hippo, when he was reading and explaining the Scriptures to his congregation in a language which was their own!
It is worth noting, however, the essential ‘story line’ dimension of the Sacraments. In the Eucharist it is the Last Supper that we go back to: “When he was at supper with his disciples, he took bread...” 13 But the mode of presenting this is not ‘fireside’ story telling, just as the Passover, upon which it so heavily relies, is not simply story telling – it too is sacramental. Both end in a meal – a meal which fulfils the story and gives it a dimension which it would not have simply as story. The reading of the Gospel – by which I mean the Old Testament reading, the Psalm (if one includes that), the Acclamation and the ‘Gospel’ itself in the more usual sense – is proclaimed, made real, brought down to earth (perhaps in such a way that the distinction of earth and heaven vanishes 14 ) when it both introduces and is complemented in the sacramental action which follows it. If the readings are going to be effective, ‘meaningful’, this has to come over. The “Good News” is rooted not just in the Incarnation and Christ’s preaching, but at the Last Supper and on Calvary.
How is this to be done?
In recent years there has been a development in which the readings at Mass have been separated off from the ‘altar table’ – read from a different location, in the most modern churches often quite far away, perhaps with a solemn procession of the Book. One can see why this has developed – to show that these readings have equal importance in their own right and to make them stand out as the context for the sacramental action rather than being merely introductory prayers as are the Introit and Kyrie (not to mention the ‘olim’ Asperges.) Nevertheless this separation can go too far and has led to that distortion involved in the “This is the Gospel of the Lord”. They need to be brought back once more into a more visible symbiosis – but this time in a rather different way.
And then there is an even more problematic innovation which has sometimes been tried (not without considerable difficulty and with mixed results): after the readings (and homily, if there is one – wherever it has come from), at the point at which one would normally have the ‘Bidding Prayers’,17 i.e. the offering of our needs and concerns both to God and to one another, the president asks as well for offerings of the company’s thoughts upon the readings which have just been listened to. To do this is to attempt to bring closer together, in conscious and outspoken form, the liturgy of the Word and that of the Sacrament – for ultimately, as I have suggested, they are one, they are interdependent, they are the dimensions – Scripture and Tradition – if you like (the x and y coordinates,) of the real presence of the body of Christ in his Body the Church – something essentially shared from every point of view.
Such innovations may perhaps be of some help if they are educative – helping us to explore and realise our faith. They are not answers in themselves. Merely as such they would not get us far. What is ultimately necessary (and I think these ‘experiments’ might well help towards this) is for us to develop a far greater respect for, hunger for, need for, knowledge of, the Scriptures – how they can be read privately and publicly (they are not the same) to the benefit of our worship, our prayer, our awareness of Christ amongst us. And at the same time for us to develop and cultivate a more mature, less naive and purely devotional, understanding and respect for the Sacraments themselves. This is happening; it is happening in the Church at large; it is surely happening where such meetings explore the way forward – and not just for the laity involved, but for priest also – in an on-going process, often month by month; meeting and praying together, following this by listening to something which it is to be hoped will even further open our minds, and give us something to feed upon.
How this reaches the everyday, everywhere, parish or otherwise, life of the Church is problematic. But surely it is an essential part of the way ahead.
1. Mat
22:37-39; Mk 12:30-31.
2. As
will be seen the often repeated story of a doubter who said that
if he or she really believed that Christ was truly present in
the sacrament she would stay on her knees before it and never
again move, offered as an example of how weak our faith normally
is and strong it could be, completely misses the point of what
presence means and what sort of presence we are called to.
3. i.e.
at the Council of Trent.
4. Bear
in mind that it was only comparatively recently that communion,
for the ordinary participant, was regarded as an essential part
of the Eucharist. It was sufficient for that bread to be turned
into the body of Christ and for it to be there.
5. Note
this word ‘host’, from the Latin hostium, victim. By
concentrating on this particular aspect of the mass (viz. sacrifice)
the other dimensions, meal, banquet, are being entirely ignored.
6. Or
at least until very recently, as for example with the work of
ARCIC.
7. Cf.
Jer 31:32.
8. Cf.
E. Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of the Middle Ages.
9. Cf.
J. Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages.
10. Cf.
for example that somewhat dated (1922!) but extremely effective
monograph by C. C. Martindale, St John and the Apocalypse.
11. Cf.
again, Huizinga, op.cit.
12. If
you are a Bradleyan you can even ask: How many children did Lady
Macbeth have? (Cf. L. C. Knights, Shakespearean Interpretation,
id.)
13. Similarly
in the other sacraments, we go back to the baptism of Christ,
the healing miracles, the wedding feast at Cana etc. This last
representing an outstanding ‘story line’ dimension in
the ‘Poetic’ W Gospel.)
14. Cf.
Mat24:35.
15. It
can be argued as to whether it might not be better for the readings
to come from the body of those assembled. Perhaps alternating
these two might be helpful, but I suggest that a better idea of
proclamation is achieved when it comes from the table, as long
as the rest aren’t simply an audience ‘out there’.
16. This
comes over even more effectively in the context of a Maundy Thursday
Passover.
17. There
seems to have been a systematic attempt to destroy the effect
and purpose of these prayers by the introduction of printed volumes
of ‘Bidding Prayers’ for the use of priests or readers
who are unable to think for themselves or in sympathy with those
with whom they share their worship. As with the ‘Missalettes’,
anathema sit!
 |
(nephesh) and 
(ruach), and this ‘ensouling’,
‘enspiriting’ is precisely what makes that Body Church,
rather than mere Society. It makes it the living Gospel –
this is the Gospel of the Lord!
– trôgein Jn 6:54] not swallowed toothlessly in pseudo-piety) such
language is not only correct but actually effective.
(ousia) (perhaps
meaning: beingful-ness), should be able to cope with this; a philosophy
derived however from the quasi-reified idealism of the later Middle
Ages, whether it actually calls itself ‘realism’ or
‘nominalism’ 8, such
as that in effect, and one might have to add, inevitably, promulgated
by Trent, can not; for Trent still belonged to a culture which
had substituted allegory for poetry and the fantastical for drama.9
[ha ’erets
– the earth, the land]
– the sacred Land of Israel) through the bread and the wine
– the food of life, our lives (thus real bread and real wine)
– in the offering of Christ’s life, our life, and in
the communion which follows.