The Mystical
Supper
Where
communion with God is restored
At the
Mystical Supper in the Upper Room Jesus gave a dramatically new meaning to the
food and drink of the sacred meal. He identified Himself with the bread and
wine: "Take, eat; this is my Body. Drink of it all of you; for this is my
Blood of the New Covenant" (Matthew 26:26-28). Food had always sustained
the earthly existence of everyone, but in the Eucharist the Lord gave us a
distinctively unique human food - bread and wine - that by the power of the
Holy Spirit, has become our gift of life.
Consecrated
and sanctified, the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ. This
change is not physical but mystical and sacramental. While the qualities of the
bread and wine remain, we partake of the true Body and Blood of Christ. In the
eucharistic meal God enters into such a communion of life that He feeds
humanity with His own being, while still remaining distinct. In the words of
St. Maximos the Confessor, Christ, "transmits to us divine life, making
Himself eatable." The Author of life shatters the limitations of our
createdness. Christ acts so that "we might become sharers of divine nature"
(2 Peter 1:4).
From the
moment Christ instituted this Mystery, the Eucharist became the center of the
Church's life, and her most profound prayer. The Eucharist is both the source
and the summit of our life in Christ. It is in the Eucharist that the Church is
changed from a mere human community into the Body of Christ, the Temple of the
Holy Spirit, and the People of God. The Eucharist is the pre-eminent sacrament,
as it completes all the others and recapitulates the entire economy of
salvation. Through the Eucharist our new life in Christ is renewed and
increased.
The Eucharist imparts life and the life it gives is the life of God.
The Church is
that place where heaven and earth are united, and where we can live as we were
meant to be, as before the Fall. The Church's Divine Liturgy is that place
where the disunity that came with the Fall is put aside, and communion with God
is restored. Our participation in the Divine Liturgy is the moment when we are
restored to the Garden of Eden, and God and man walk together. The Divine Liturgy
unites us to the Heavenly Banquet which is taking place before the Throne of
God.
The Divine
Liturgy transcends time, and space, uniting believers in the worship of the
Kingdom of God along with all the heavenly hosts, the saints, and the celestial
angels. To this end, everything in the Liturgy is seen as symbolic, yet also
not just merely symbolic, but making the unseen reality manifest in our midst.
We do not
attend the Divine Liturgy, but participate in the Divine Liturgy, for in
communing with God, we receive the Bread of Life. The Liturgy lifts us up above
the disordered and dysfunctional world, and we are placed on the path to
restoration and wholeness, healed by the self-emptying love of Christ, and
communion with God is restored.
With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
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