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In the previous chapter I said that the celebration of the Eucharist is the most complex activity that most people will ever
engage in, and the most demanding action that could be asked of any human being. Here's one theologian's thumbnail sketch
of what's going on in a typical Eucharist. I warn you; this is rich stuff. Read it slowly and carefully.
The Eucharist sums up in itself Christian worship, experience and theology in an amazing richness. It seems to include
everything. It combines Word and Sacrament; its appeal is to spirit and to sense; it brings together the sacrifice of Calvary
and the presence of the risen Christ; it is communion with God and communion with man; it covers the whole gamut of religious
moods and emotions. Again, it teaches the doctrine of creation, as the bread, the wine, and ourselves are brought to God;
the doctrine of atonement, for these gifts have to be broken in order that they may be perfected; the doctrine of salvation,
for the Eucharist has to do with incorporation into Christ and the sanctification of human life; above all, the doctrine
of incarnation, for it is no distant God whom Christians worship but one who has made himself accessible in the world. The
Eucharist also gathers up in itself the meaning of the Church; its whole action implies and sets forth our mutual interdependence
in the body of Christ; it unites us with the Church of the past and even, through its paschal overtones, with the first people
of God, Israel; and it points to the eschatological consummation of the kingdom of God, as an anticipation of the heavenly
banquet. Comprehensive though this description is, it is likely that I have missed something, for the Eucharist seems to
be inexhaustible.(1)
Whew! I find that paragraph exhilarating and exhausting. If you didn't fully understand everything, that's okay. I don't
either, though a part of me would enjoy the challenge of trying to write a book based on that one paragraph.
My point in sharing it with you is to underline the rich complexity of the Eucharist. It would be a worthy lifetime
goal to seek fully to understand the Eucharist. That would be a task beyond the intellectual capacity of most Christians,
however. The wonderful thing, thank God, is that it is not necessary for one to understand the Eucharist in order to participate
in it and receive its graces.
In fact, part of the power of the Eucharist is that it enables worship that is profound and satisfying even to those with
a limited intellectual capacity.
Each summer for many years I have directed a camping session for the mentally and physically handicapped. It is a wonderful
week. The retarded are often especially open and direct in their response to their environment. The seem particularly adept
in the gift of wonder and the experience of the Holy.
At our camp, the retarded campers instinctively respond to the wonder of the Eucharist. They seem to know what is happening
and to give themselves to the act of worship, even when the words can make little sense to them.
I am thinking especially about a camper named Joe. When Joe receives the sacrament, he looks the celebrant in the eye with
a knowing expression and says, "Jesus." Joe can barely talk. Abstract thought is beyond him. Rational thought is rare for
him. Yet somehow he knows Jesus and experiences Christ's presence in the Eucharist. He connects Jesus with the celebrant,
with the bread, and with the atmosphere of the loving community surrounding him. All three are Jesus for Him. Good eucharistic
theology agrees with Joe.
Lots of parents tell stories like the one my wife and I tell of our daughter. When she was two years old, she would line
up all of her stuffed animals and imitate the communion actions of the priest with the words, "Bread of Christ; bread of Christ."
At the eucharistic fraction. our young son used to thrust his hands skyward with a stage whispered, "Yeah!" as I broke the
bread and said, "Alleluia! Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us."
There has been much recent research that suggests that children have an instinctive knowledge and experience of God,
and that the drama and action of liturgical worship touches that instinct.(2) Bring your children to church at an early age.
There is no way to know what and how much they "understand." I suspect that we underestimate their religious potential.
Jesus certainly welcomed them with open arms.(3)
On the other hand, many adult worshippers are unnecessarily retarded in developing their religious potential. Many of us
having made it through Confirmation classes and "graduated" from Sunday School in our teens bring a stunted, adolescent approach
to worship. It's easy to hook on to a few simplistic insights about worship and fail to continue to grow into the mystery
of God in the Eucharist. "I'm here to say my prayers and receive communion. I know it's Christ's body and blood; what more
is there?"
What more indeed! Go back to Maquarrie's admittedly inadequate description of the Eucharist that opened this chapter.
Grasp how intellectually complex and theologically profound the simplest Eucharist is. You will never fully understand it.
It is "the most complex activity" and "the most demanding action" of your life.
But here is a comforting clue to our approach to this mystery. As we said above, the Eucharist is an activity and an
action. That means that worship is essentially an act. It is something you do.
You do not have to have a Ph.D. in liturgics to qualify for communion. There is not a threshold of understanding you
must reach before you can participate in the Eucharist.
The Eucharist is what the Church does. It is the activity and action of the baptized members of the Body of Christ.
You see, the Church in its eternal wisdom does fully understand the Eucharist. The Church is more than just your parish
or congregation, or just the Episcopal Church as one denomination, or even the worldwide church in all of its diversity.
The Church "militant and triumphant" includes all God's people in heaven and earth with Christ at its head offering the perfect
Eucharist to God the Father through the Holy Spirit.
You are a member of Christ's Body the Church. Because you are grafted into Christ, you join in the perfect worship of
Christ's Body regardless of the degree of your own retardation. Your standing before God is not as an independent individual,
but as a baptized member of the Church, buried and raised with Christ. That is your identity.
So, when you worship, it is your act, and you take your part in the perfect act of the Church with Christ at its head.
That means your participation in worship is not dependent upon your knowledge and understanding, but rather upon your baptism.
It also means that your worship is not dependent upon your feelings and religious emotions of the moment.
"I just don't feel very religious today, so I guess I shouldn't go to church." Wrong! Feelings are ephemeral. Worship
is not based on feelings any more than it is based on intellect. It is first of all an act of the will. In fact, whenever
you are not feeling very religious or not feeling very close to Christ, that is precisely the time when you should go to worship.
It is no great offering to worship God when you feel like it. It is a far greater service to worship God in spite of your
lack of feeling.
It would be a poor husband who, on his way home from work, took his emotional temperature and decided that he really didn't
feel especially loving toward his wife at this moment. Then, reasoning that it would be superficial, insincere, and hypocritical
for him to go home with such tepid emotions, simply checked into a motel for the night or until he judged himself as loving
worthily. A good husband comes home every night whether he feels like it or not. It is one of those acts that helps define
love.
The greatest gift we can give God is to do God's will when we don't feel like it. When God feels absent to us and we
are not enjoying God's gifts, if we persevere and act in love, which is always God's will, we are at that moment loving God
for God's sake and not just for the sake of God's gifts. This is a high form of love and discipleship. Those people whom
God truly honors with the gift and challenge of spiritual maturity are those from whom he will remove his gifts temporarily,
remove the comfort of his presence, in order to allow the exquisite offering that comes when we love God in spite of God's
absence.
Love, like worship, is an act. Love is not primarily a feeling. "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another."
(John 13:34) You can't command an emotion. Feelings just are. You can only command an act. Love and worship are both acts.
You must decide to love and to worship.
True love and true worship have their emotional side as well. Love and worship provoke our deepest feelings. In fact,
worship concentrates life. People often find themselves especially sensitive to their emotions when they come to church.
A parishioner of mine found herself breaking down into tears three straight Sundays. Her life had been in great turmoil.
"I seem to be able to handle myself okay through the week. It's just when I come to church that I turn into a blubbering
idiot," she said.
What better place to cry than in the Church, within the heart of Christ! The freedom of worship is to let down your
masks and be as you are in the loving, accepting presence of God. Because worship touches us so deeply, we often discover
our deepest emotions emerging in worship. That's good. It's okay to be emotional or to cry in church. We talkled about
handling our feelings in church in the section on preparing to worship.
Worship is first of all an act, something we do. But worship needs our total involvement. Therefore worship invites
our full intellectual involvement, the attention of our minds being devoted to growing in the knowledge and love of God.
And worship invites our full emotional involvement, the disposition of our feelings to give ourselves openly and receive divine
love.
Archbishop William Temple said that worship is submission of all our nature to God. In an eloquent passage he says it
thus: (Worship) is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness; the
nourishment of mind with His truth; the purifying of imagination by His beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the
surrender of will to His purpose -- and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature
is capable.(4)
1. John Macquarrie, Paths in Spirituality, New York: Harper & Row, 1972, p. 73.
2. I need to do this endnote.
3. Mark 10:13-16; Matthew 19:13-15; Luke 18:15-17.
4. William Temple, Readings in St. John's Gospel, London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1930, p.68.
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