Friday, May 20, 2005
CHRIST IS RISEN!
Ethelbert, Martyr & King of East Anglia
2nd Vespers Constantine & Helen: Isaiah 61:10-62:5 Apostle: Acts 8:40-9:19 Gospel: St. John 6:48-54
St. John 6:48-54, especially vs. 54: "Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has
eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." By speaking of Holy Communion as the Mystic Supper or as the Holy
Mysteries, and especially by referring to the Holy Gifts as the Bread of Life, let us be careful not to reduce the Eucharistic
elements by spiritualizing them. Orthodox Christians mean exactly the words we confess: "I believe that this is truly Thine
own immaculate Body, and that this is truly Thine own precious Blood."
Father Anthony Coniaris disabuses all notions which stray in the direction of reducing the bread and wine to allegories,
emblems, representative symbols, or a "pure," immaterial, spiritual substance. He exhorts us to be forthright: "The bread
and the wine that are received at Communion are literally His Body and Blood. They are not merely symbols. For Jesus
Himself said, 'For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed'" (Jn. 6:55). These words of the Lord stand as
the touchstone of the Faithful as we receive Holy Communion.
We are always correct in referring to the Holy Gifts as the "Mysteries" of Christ's immaculate Body and precious Blood.
The Church steadfastly resists using feeble human words to define precisely how the elements of Bread and Wine are the
Body and Blood of Christ. The account of Uzzah's destruction serves as a warning against all attempts to depend solely on
human thinking to clarify what Faith declares about Holy Communion. That sad man "put forth his hand to the ark of
God," to steady it, thinking he could save it from falling when the oxen stumbled. For that act he was stricken dead
because of his presumption (2 Sam. 6:6,7).
On the other hand, we are not wrong to reflect upon what the Lord says in these verses from St. John. Let us, then, begin
with His statement, "I Am the bread of life " (vs. 48). As God, the Lord Jesus unquestionably is the source of all life - the
tree that buds, the tiniest baby in the womb, the vibrant presence we touch in a gifted artist, the faintest heartbeat we hear in
the breast of one near death. To partake of Holy Communion is to join ourselves to the Bread of Life Himself and to be
strengthened and renewed both for this life and for that life which shall be.
Notice in this passage that the Lord distinguishes sharply between Himself as "the Bread that comes down from Heaven"
and the "food which the fathers ate in the wilderness" (vss. 50,49). Both surely should be categorized as "miraculous"
food. Similarly may we understand the rich wine made from water at the wedding feast at Cana (Jn. 2:11) or the bread
multiplied by the Lord by fiat on the mountain by the Sea of Tiberias (Jn. 6:1-14). However, the Body and Blood received
in the Divine Liturgy stand apart even from these other miraculous foods.
The manna, the wedding wine, and the multiplied bread were time-limited. One ate or drank of them, and they nourished,
but only for a moment. When we partake of the Lord's Body and Blood we partake of eternity, that we "may eat of it and
not die" (vs. 50). To Commune is to trust in the Lord's promise that "Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has
eternal life" (vs. 54). All other "miraculous" foods, like all foods we receive, come from the hand of God, but they remain
types and shadows of the true life-giving Bread of Eternity.
Let us agree with St. John Chrysostom and "be blended into that flesh. This is effected by the food which He hath freely
given us....He hath mixed up Himself with us; He hath kneaded up His Body with ours, that we might be a certain One
Thing, like a body joined to a head." Christ Himself is received. We are united to His glory and become a terror to the
demons.
As I am become Thy Tabernacle through the reception of the Holy Communion, may all evil and all passion flee away from
me as from fire, O my Creator.
