(typical protestant communion food)
Once, a long time ago, I was a member of a Born Again church. Our closest neighbors were also our Churchmates (obviously). I have relatives who are now Pastors and/or Hillsong back-up singers. I still have cousins attending the said church.
I have a collection of fond memories of my youth in the Born Again church and one of those is the Eucharistic celebration. In fact that was the first time I witnessed it "up close and personal". It was the first time I had a visual internalization of what Eucharist was. (Notwithstanding my Roman Catholic background, by this time I had believed that the Vatican was total evil... Now I'm glad that's just ignoramuses hyperbole.)
It was I think, April, just in time for Holy Week. And I remember the Pastor's helpers distributing small plastic cups with sweet red wine in it, and bite size Skyflakes crackers. Then he started saying the words: "This is my body... eat..." And then we mimicked his moves. "This is my blood... drink..." Again, we, the congregation, mimicked the Pastor's movements. Then he mumbled prayers, we said "Amen, amen..." And that WAS THAT... I remember all this. I just don't remember KNOWING that I had truly been MYSTIFIED. I don't remember having the full knowledge that I have eaten Christ's sacrifice. But what I do remember is the feeling like I was in our high school's stage play witnessing a particular scene pulled out from Mulan.
And now that I think about it, it's sad that the Eucharist, for mainstream protestants in the Philippines (Baptists, Born Agains, Methodists, etc...), is anything but real, symbolic, and mystical. The Eucharist is reduced into JUST a reenactment of the Last Supper with toasted bread and some cheap, sweet red wine. The Eucharist has been downgraded to a memorial service that seeks to bury it, otherwise, they would have to do that again and again in their services.
"DO THIS IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME..."
Jesus Christ is Christ Pantocrator. If He were a mere human being, as C.S Lewis once said, He would have been a mad man, a liar, or else, prince of devils then I would have understood the memorial services these protestant churches are making of the Eucharist. In the context of Filipino sentimentality, memorial services are done to commemorate the life of the departed loved one so that remembering his/her death would not be painful. Memorial services, in essence, is about death... If Christ were a mere man, saying the things He said, doing the things He did, he would have been a liar, lunatic, or prince of devils. The Eucharist might as well be a memorial service so he could be buried so easily away from heart's memory...
(Consecrated bread and Sanctified wine)
REAL, SYMBOLIC, AND MYSTICAL
In the Orthodox Church's Holy Tradition, (which has been practiced and taught by Christ Himself to the Apostles, by the Apostles to the Bishops of the time, by the Bishops of the time, to the Orthodox hierarchs and priests of today), the Eucharist is the heart of the Church. The Church is a Eucharistic Community.
When Jesus said 'do this in my remembrance', He didn't command us to create a picnic club for Him wherein we can have communion once a month or conduct a passion play every holy week. He said it with the same effectiveness when He told the rich young man to give away everything he had to the poor and follow Him.
We cannot downplay the essence and importance of the Eucharist in our Church life. The EUCHARIST is REAL. This is because Christ and Christ's saving power has been manifested in history which means this tradition has been preserved to this day. Otherwise, it's all Myth. The EUCHARIST is SYMBOLIC because it symbolizes our unity with the Triune God and solidifies the faithfuls' membership of the True Church established by Christ since 33 AD.
The EUCHARIST is MYSTICAL because the physicality of bread and wine has been consecrated by the very Holy Spirit of God through the celebration of the Eucharist. Thus, the bread and wine are hallowed making these a pleasing sacrifice to God since Christ was a pleasing sacrifice for us. When we take the Communion, we become partakers of His divine energies, thus enabling us to be healed both body and soul. The Eucharist is the physical act of "Thy will be done, on Earth, as it is in Heaven..."
SYMBOLISM OR INVOCATION?
The Eucharist is both symbolism and invocation. Just like what I have remarked, we cannot minimize the Eucharist as mere symbolism (otherwise Orthodoxy would be a legalistic religion) nor can we hyperbolize it as pure invocation. To be minimalistic is to become protestant and to be very much invoking is to be pagan. To take the former is to remove the Eucharist of any healing power or deification it can bring to a believer when he/she partakes in it. To take the latter is to strip off Eucharist of its holy vestments designed by Christ Himself. There is synergy in the Eucharist being symbol and invocation. For one, we are commanded by God to do this in His remembrance; we must LIVE IT. And in living it through participation in the Divine Liturgy, we ask the Holy Spirit to fill in the symbols (bread and wine) so we can be healed and be deified, that is invocation-- we invite the Bodiless powers into our lives through the Holy Eucharist.
This is the Eucharist. TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT.
:D FIN
Photos:
No comments:
Post a Comment