Prayer Book and Gospel

Today there was a little cheer from someone in the congregation when our priest said that we were going to use the Book of Common Prayer and not the BAS! (And it wasn’t me, surprisingly!) Like most parishes in the Anglican Church of Canada, my church almost exclusively uses the Book of Alternative Services — although, up to 2011 if not a bit later, it was 50/50 BAS/BCP.

This meant that I had the treat of worshipping with the BCP for Holy Communion and not just Morning and Evening Prayer for private devotion. I’ve sung the praises of the BCP in the past, this living link with the pre-Constantinian liturgy, the theology of the Apostles (+Fathers +medieval divines + Reformers), the wider church through the ages, etc., all in magnificent, soaring prose. I’ll link to some of those posts at the bottom.

The Prayer Book, like the Divine Liturgy of St Basil (about which I’ve also blogged on the topic of Gospel), sets forth the Gospel for us through prayer and ritual. This struck me today during the prayer of consecration. But the Service of Holy Communion begins with the (medieval English!) Collect for Purity, begins with looking to God to reveal within. And then: The Law, either the Ten Commandments or Christ’s Summary of the Law, followed by “Lord, have mercy upon us.”

Having received the Law, we hear the proclamation of the Word. We, like the people of Israel, are spoken to by God through his word, through prophets and apostles. We then make an offering to God, like the people of Israel, and then seek his favour through Intercession.

But the liturgy knows that this is not the whole story. Our true response is about to come. First, we fulfil the promise of the Collect for Purity, wherein we had asked God to “cleanse the thoughts of our hearts.” We “confess our manifold sins and wickedness, Which we from time to time most grievously have committed, By though, word, and deed.” We confess our sins, and God gives his grace, first through the words of absolution, and then through the “comfortable words our Saviour Christ saith unto all that truly turn to him.”

Next we meet “Thanksgiving and Consecration” — the Greek word eucharisteia means “thanksgiving.” The thanksgiving and consecration is the prayer where we offer up praise to God in company with the angels, and then the priest proclaims the greatest cause of our thanksgiving:

BLESSING and glory and thanksgiving be unto thee Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who of thy tender mercy didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to take our nature upon him, and to suffer death upon the Cross for our redemption; who made there, by his one oblation of himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world; and did institute, and in his holy Gospel command us to continue, a perpetual memorial of that his precious death, until his coming again.

BCP 1962, p. 82

This little paragraph has so much theology caught up in it, about the Incarnation and its cause, and about Christ dying to save us “by his one oblation of himself once offered.” This is what we’re here for, isn’t? Giving thanks for Christ’s “full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world.” That line is worth going over and over again. This is how the sins that we need to be cleansed from get cleansed.

This is the mystery of the ages — that God became man in a perfect, full union and single person (hypostatic union!), and died for no purpose other than saving us! And this is Gospel. So we remember it and recapitulate it through the drinking of the blood that redeemed us.

For, indeed, next the priest pronounces the words of institution in order that we “may be partakers of his most blessed Body and Blood.” Here is the central act of our blood cult, the glorious climax of Gospel-centred worship. Bread and wine become body and blood without ceasing to be bread and wine. God ones us to himself by dying.

But also by being eaten. And what becomes more united to a person than the very food he eats?

But before we actually go up and receive the portion of bread/body and wine/blood, in Canada the priest prays that we would “through faith in his blood … obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of his passion”. And then, in any BCP service I know of (I hope!), we pray the Prayer of Humble Access.

This prayer is, again, Gospel. We have heard the law and the prophets and the Gospel. We have confessed our sins and heard the story of our salvation, seen it recapitulated with bread and wine. And we are eagerly looking forward to partaking and finding ourselves oned to mystically. But first, we pray this prayer that is not a confession of sin but, rather, an admission of the great glorious goodness of God, who would come down to the unworthy — and a desire that the Communion would be efficacious:

to eat the Flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, And to drink his Blood, That our sinful bodies may be made clean by his Body, And our souls washed through his most precious Blood, And that we may evermore dwell in him, And he in us. Amen.

BCP 1962, p. 84

Only then do we go up and receive the Holy Communion, eating God’s Body and drinking His Blood under the species of bread and wine, being mystically united to Him by His grace and heavenly benediction, with the various benefits mentioned in the prayers, including the prayer after Communion.

Then we join the angelic host. We have gone through the history of salvation. Now we are washed through Christ’s most precious blood. Now we stand and sing, “Glory be to God on high!”

The BCP Gospel is not a “Get Out of Jail Free” card. It is not only about the “afterlife” or “going to heaven when you die,” or any such thing as that. The BCP Gospel is the full deal. God loves us, we sinned and fell and are dead. He comes in the proclaimed word, we respond. He gives himself to us because He loves us, not because we deserve it. We are raised to new life through the blood of Christ. We are united to God. And we are destined to sing His praises forever.

It is a Gospel of worship, praise, adoration, with an eye toward heaven both yet-to-come and here-and-now, focussed on Christ and the benefits of his passion, including the spiritual blessings of being part of Him now.

The Gospel is for you today.

Take, eat…

Some pro-BCP posts of mine

So, what’s Sunday morning for, anyway?

Prayer-book Augustinianism

The Collect for Purity

The Prayer Book and the Bible

Loving the Book of Common Prayer 1: Catholicity

Loving the Book of Common Prayer 2: Protestant

Loving the Book of Common Prayer 3: Theological Depth (and breadth!)

Loving the Book of Common Prayer 4: Beauty

Bread in the Desert

Last night was a bit sad for me because it was the last session of my Desert Fathers course for Davenant Hall — “Streams in the Desert: The Christian Wisdom of the Desert Fathers.” We closed with Sts Barsanuphius and John, a pair of monastic fathers in sixth-century Gaza who left behind a corpus of 850 letters of spiritual instruction. Letter 170:

Question from the same brother to the Other Old Man [John rather than B.]. If a fantasy occurs to me by night and, on the next day, there is Holy Communion, what should I do?

Response by John

Let us approach with all our wounds and not with any contempt, as people who are needful of a doctor, and he who healed the woman with the issue of blood (Mt 9.22) will also heal us. Let us love much, that he may also say to us: “Your many sins are forgiven; for you have loved much” (Lk 7.47). When you are about to take Communion, say: “Master, do not allow these holy things to be unto my condemnation but unto purification of soul and body and spirit.” Then, you may approach with fear, and our Master, who is loving-kind, will work his mercy with us. Amen.

Trans. John Chryssavgis, Letters from the Desert (SVS Press 2003), p. 93.

There’s a lot that could be unpacked from this letter from the Other Old Man, about grace and trusting in God and loving God and so forth. What I want to point out is the Holy Communion. As I said on the first episode of my and my brother Jonathan’s podcast, the Holy Communion is paradigmatic for the entire devotional life. And so in Ep. 170 of Barsanuphius and John it is likewise: It is about approaching, doing what you are able, and trusting in God to be merciful even when we are weak.

It is about the coming of grace.

Holy Communion is not often talked about in relation to the Desert Fathers. Usually, and understandably, we talk about their teachings on topics such as interior prayer, fasting, Psalmody, watchfulness, apatheia, hesychia, etc. In the selection of letters in this volume of Chryssavgis’ (who has also translated them all in two volumes for The Fathers of the Church series), Holy Communion comes up in five letters, to both communicants and celebrants. Ep. 241 is a beauty; I’ll quote only a bit:

The deacon serves like the Cherubim, and ought to be all eye, all intellect, with his intellect and thought looking upward, with fear, trembling, and doxology. For he bears the Body and Blood of the immortal King. He even assumes the face of the Seraphim in proclaiming the doxology and in fanning the hidden mysteries as with their holy wings, recalling through these wings their levitation from this earth and from things material, crying out ceaselessly with his intellect in the temple of the inner man (cf. Rom 7.22) the victory hymn of the magnificent glory (cf. 2 Pet 1.17) of our God: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth; heaven and earth are full of your glory” (Is 6.3).

Trans. Chryssavgis, p. 107

The angelic allegory continues — this is what is recommended to someone serving at the altar in the role of deacon during the Divine Liturgy is meant to meditate upon. The liturgy is not just something we are doing here on earth — we join the host of heaven as we offer up the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. The angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven are worshipping with us. It is a deeply spiritual, powerful, mystical event, and God is present there to us and with us through the Holy Communion.

The desert tradition of spirituality is not, then, divorced from the common worship of the church in all ages. Now, it’s true that St Mary of Egypt went 40 years in complete solitude and thus didn’t received communion. And many of the hermits only received occasionally. But it’s also true that, say, St Simeon the Stylite went for an extended period living on nothing but Holy Communion! When the semi-eremetic communities emerged at Nitria, Kellia, and Sketis, the abbas of the desert all lived within walking distance of a common chapel. Even if they were hermits six days a week, the Desert Fathers, for the most part, got together for the assembly of the saints, the synaxis, and this was a service of Holy Communion.

They received communion at least weekly, and they believed in the Real Presence of Christ, as we see in the Sayings as well as in the discourses of St Shenoute of Atripe. The Sayings include a miracle story wherein one simple monk who doubted the veracity of the body and blood under the species of bread and wine had a vision of the priest offering him bloody flesh at Communion, and so came to believe in the Real Presence. And Shenoute is insistent about the reality of the bread as Christ’s body, sounding in many ways like St Cyril of Alexandria, with whom St Shenoute had contact.

They practised Holy Communion. They believed as did other Christians of the era both that it was truly the body and blood of our Lord and that it was a means of grace.

So, hopefully, this Sunday you will be able to engage in another aspect of Desert spirituality at your local parish church. And, like St Barsanuphius’ companion, remember that the angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim, thrones, dominions, and powers are there, too, worshipping God with us.

This is my body…

Pandemic regulations have shifted, so we can now have up to 43.5 people in our sanctuary for religious gatherings! Wishing to advertise tonight’s Maundy Thursday service, I rounded up the image below for use on Facebook:

Fresco of the Last Supper, Chiesa San Lorenzo, Milan (16th c., my photo)

I chose the photo because of the Renaissance fresco of the Last Supper from San Lorenzo in Milan (a church I visited because its fabric is Late Antique, even if not its decoration). After putting the details below the pic — Holy Communion, 7:30 — I went to type “This is my body…” in the upper left corner.

And then I realised that this blurry photo I took has more going on than I was thinking about. Because there, in the foreground, is a terracotta pieta, of the dead Christ with His mother. I think she’s cleaning His wounds?

Here’s the wild beauty of the Eucharist, friends. The night He was betrayed to suffering and death, the night before He died, Jesus took bread, broke it, and said, “This is my body.”

And then, the next day, they took His body, limp and dead, off a Roman cross. They tended His wounds. They placed His body in a tomb.

Jesus also said, “My flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink.” (John 6:55)

That body, that flesh, is present to us, really present, in the Holy Communion. It is a mystery to be received in reverence, as He imparts His very self and the fulness of His grace to us.

Maundy Thursday: “the same night in which he was betrayed…”

The focus of the Maundy Thursday Epistle in the BCP is the Lord’s Supper, giving St Paul’s treatment of the words of institution from 1 Corinthians 11 — it is this version that makes its way in the liturgy. Some argue that it is the other direction — that the primitive liturgy made its way into St Paul.

Most Anglicans today (in Canada, at least) celebrate Holy Communion every week. I have been a member of two congregations that celebrated the Eucharist every other week and had a service of Morning Prayer every other week. Both sacraments instituted by Christ are bound up with this season of Passiontide and Easter. In baptism, we are baptised into Christ’s resurrection. In Holy Communion, we eat his broken flesh and drink his shed blood.

Holy Communion is the constitutive act of the Church, some argue. When we assemble and meet together, we partake of our Lord, are bound to Him, bound to each other. The liturgy takes us out of the mundane to the supramundane. Some fantastically beautiful meditations on the sacrament of Holy Communion have been written in time past. The liturgy binds us corporally into the history of salvation — this is the point of the anaphora of St Basil, which I blogged here once, as it rehearses salvation history. The climax of salvation history is the Cross, and we are made partakers of Christ’s body and blood broken and shed on that Cross in the mystery of the Blessed Sacrament of Holy Communion, of His Blessed Body and Blood.

The night this sacrament was instituted — this was the night of deepest darkness. Steve Bell sings a hauntingly beautiful song with a refrain that begins, “Into the darkness we must go, gone, gone is the light.” In the Gospel of St John, when Judas leaves the Last Supper, “it was night.” And into that night Christ goes to be betrayed, abandoned, forsaken, beaten, scourged, nailed to a Cross, cursed, and slain for the sins of many.

That is the act we memorialise in the Eucharist. The act we are transported into by means of sacred time.

A few more items, then, from the Canadian BCP 1962. The second Maundy Thursday collect:

O GOD, who in a wonderful sacrament hast left unto us a memorial of thy passion: Grant us so to reverence the holy mysteries of thy Body and Blood, that we may ever know within ourselves the fruit of thy redemption; who livest and reignest with the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Prayer of Humble Access from the Order for Holy Communion:

WE do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, Trusting in our own righteousness, But in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy So much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, Whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, So to eat the Flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, And to drink his Blood, That our sinful bodies may be made clean by his Body, And our souls washed through his most precious Blood, And that we may evermore dwell in him, And he in us. Amen.

From the catechism:

Catechist. Why was the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper ordained?
Answer.For the continual remembrance of the sacrifice of the death of Christ, and of the benefits which we receive thereby.

Catechist.What is the outward part or sign of the Lord’s Supper?
Answer. Bread and Wine, which the Lord has commanded to be received.

Catechist.What is the inward part, or thing signified?
Answer.The Body and Blood of Christ, which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord’s Supper.

Catechist. What benefits do we receive thereby?
Answer.The strengthening and refreshing of our souls and bodies unto eternal life by the Body and Blood of Christ.

Catechist. What is required of those who come to the Lord’s Supper?
Answer. To examine themselves, whether they truly repent of their former sins, stedfastly purposing to lead the new life; have a living faith in God’s mercy through Christ, with a thankful remembrance of his death; and be in charity with all men.

Evagrius’ mystical communion

In light of my post on Sunday about virtual communion, the following proverbs from the Ad Monachos of Evagrius Ponticus are worth some attention:

118. Flesh of Christ: virtues of praktiké;
he who eats it, passionless shall he be.

119. Blood of Christ: contemplation of created things;
he who drinks it, by it becomes wise.

120. Breast of the Lord: knowledge of God;
he who rests against it, a theologian (theologos) shall he be.

-Trans. Jeremy Driscoll, Evagrius Ponticus: Ad Monachos, p. 62

Here, Evagrius has completely allegorised and spiritualised Holy Communion, it would seem. The Eucharistic imagery is used to direct the reader/listener to the three stages of Evagrian ascent to God — praktike, physike, and theologike. The first is ascetic labour — battling the eight wicked thoughts, pursuing the virtues, engaging in the lifestyle of the hesychast. The second is the first level of theoretike, of contemplation, where we contemplate created things. The created order, at this stage, is not viewed for its own sake, but rather for the sake of what it can show us of God. It is, essentially, a sacramental worldview, one similar to Coleridge’s idea of symbols being gateways to God, passages to the numinous (not sure he used the word numinous, though). The third level is moving upward to direct contemplation of God.

These three stages are referenced throughout the Evagrian corpus. A single example should suffice, I hope. Evagrius sees these three levels of the spiritual life in Scripture, writing in the Scholia on Proverbs:

The one who has widened his heart through purity will understand the logoi of God – those connected with praktike, physike, and theologike. For all matters which concern the Scriptures, are divided into three parts: ethics, physics, and theology. And to the first correspond the Proverbs, to the second Ecclesiastes, and to the third the Song of Songs. (Scholion 247) –Trans. Luke Dysinger

In Kephalaia Gnostica 1.27, Evagrius says that contemplation of the Most Holy Trinity is the highest level and goal of the contemplative life. We also read in Ad Monachos:

Better is knowledge of the Trinity than knowledge of the incorporeals;
and the contemplation of it beyond reasons for all the aeons. -ch. 110, trans. Driscoll

This tripartite scheme of spiritual ascent has been applied by Evagrius here in Ad Monachos to the Eucharist. My immediate inclination is to see this as allegorising, as I say. However, through comparison with other Evagrian texts (interpret Evagrius with Evagrius, the right way forward), Jeremy Driscoll warns us against such an interpretation, saying:

These three proverbs would be badly misunderstood if the reader were to see in them merely a spiritualizing or allegorizing tendency such that the flesh of Christ is thought to be no more than a scriptural code word for virtue or his blood no more than something of the same for contemplation. The point is rather quite the opposite. The proverbs mean to express that the very possibility of progress within praktiké and from this to contemplation and from this to the knowledge of God is grounded in the mystery of the Incarnation. But here Evagrius says more. What the Incarnation makes possible is communicated through the action of eating Christ’s flesh and drinking his blood and the intimacy that this implies. Further, it should be noted that the expressions “eat his flesh” and “drink his blood” are generally so closely associated with the Eucharist that it seems unlikely that Evagrius would not have wished the same connection to be made here. (Evagrius Ponticus: Ad Monachos, 321)

Indeed (I need not display the evidence here), Evagrius makes reference to the Eucharist and its effect on us elsewhere in his writings. This, I think, is important, because I think we sometimes develop an image of the Desert solitary of Egypt sitting alone in his cell, eschewing all human contact and meeting God directly through the uncreated light. However, Evagrius, the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, and the various stories about them in a number of historical sources all point to the weekly celebration of Holy Communion in the Desert communities of the fourth and fifth centuries.

And yet.

As we sit here now, 1600 years or more later, it can be a comfort, I think, to meditate on mystical communion with Christ, communion of a sort that does not mean gathering within six feet of a large group of people and drinking wine out of the same silver chalice. He comes to us alone in our cells (apartments, houses). Let us open our hearts to Him as we practise the virtues, seek knowledge of Him in creation, and hope one day to ascend to contemplation of God Himself directly, a sort of mystical holy communion with its own grace abounding in our hearts.

Virtual communion: Christ and the means of grace

This morning, the Free Methodist Church I attend celebrated virtual communion. The pastor admitted to not being sure about what it means theologically, but he wanted to do it at this time, to celebrate Christ’s death and resurrection through the sacrament of Holy Communion. So we all had our tiny cups of grape juice and bits of bread at home.

I’m not sure about this theologically, either.

And I don’t know what John Wesley, who had a high view of the sacrament and recommended receiving it weekly (as often as possible, in fact), and would receive it daily during Christmastide, himself, would have thought, either. His sermon “On the Duty of Constant Communion” is worth reading, though!

Nonetheless, a few thoughts that I had about doing this ran as follows.

At the most basic, if we set aside the questions of Real Presence and what a sacrament is, Holy Communion — we can all agree — is a memorial of Christ’s precious death and glorious resurrection. Therefore, even if someone were to definitively prove that there was no mystery in the bread and juice I consumed this morning, no special grace or Presence of the Lord, it would still service as a vibrant and tactile reminder of our salvation.

That alone might make it worth doing, so long as we aren’t cheapening the sacrament in doing this. (Are we?)

My next thought, however, tells me that, in fact, Holy Communion, even from a symbolist or memorialist position (which I do not hold), is never “just” bread and wine, and never “just” a remembrance. Through the enacting of the recapitulation of the Last Supper and recollecting the body broken and blood shed, in reading and praying the very words of Scripture, the words of the Word, we encounter Him. He meets us.

And in receiving bread and wine in faith, we encounter Him. He meets us, enters us.

Now, is it the same as when we are truly the ecclesia, the assembly of God’s people, constituted precisely in being taken out of the world and gathered together in one place and, as Christ’s mystical body, mystically consuming His body? No, I don’t think so. I’m not sure I can articulate how it is different.

Different isn’t wrong, though.

Taking up dear John Wesley again, he preaches in The Means of Grace that there are three chief means of grace:

1. Prayer
2. Reading the Bible
3. Holy Communion

He says:

By “means of grace” I understand outward signs, words, or actions, ordained of God, and appointed for this end, to be the ordinary channels whereby he might convey to men, preventing, justifying, or sanctifying grace.

In a service of virtual communion, we are engaged in at least two out of three means of grace. So when we eat that bread and drink that wine, when we hear our minister pray the words of sacred Scripture, the words of institution from Our Lord Himself, when we pray the other prayers — I think we meet with Jesus.

Reading Clement of Alexandria, in fact, I am realising that the Church Fathers are not always uniform in their interpretation of Scripture (no surprise), and I also realise the polyvalence of certain passages, especially John 6 — “I am the bread of life,” etc. I cannot, at this stage of church history and raised an Anglican, I cannot read John 6 as anything but Eucharistic. Clement of Alexandria, I have found, reads this sometimes as Eucharistic, sometimes as about encountering the Word in Scripture, sometimes about meeting Him in prayer.

All three of Welsey’s means of grace are means of encountering Jesus as the Bread of Life from John 6, as far as Clement is concerned.

I have also noticed that the mystic and ascetic Evagrius Ponticus also sees encountering Christ at prayer as equal to meeting Him in the Eucharist. Furthermore, Origen also believes that we can meet and commune with Christ in Scripture as well as we can in the Blessed Sacrament.

So, at this weird moment in history, when virtual communion is all we can get — Jesus will be there with us, in us, through us, for us.

Taste and see that Lord is good. (Ps. 34:8)

A Prayer Before Communion

One thing I have enjoyed in my devotional life is carrying about a wee book of prayers which I have compiled. I use this little book especially before and after Holy Communion. It helps me focus my thoughts and heart, especially if I communicate in a setting that does not use the Book of Common Prayer.

Here’s one I found today in Ancient Collects and Other Prayers, Selected from Various Rituals by W. Bright:

Lord our God, the Bread of Heaven, the Life of the world, I have sinned against Heaven and before Thee, and am not worthy to partake of Thine immaculate Mysteries; — but in Thy divine tenderness do Thou vouchsafe me by Thy grace to partake of Thy holy Body and precious Blood, without condemnation, unto remission of sins and eternal life. –Liturgy of St. James

The ancient prayers are very good at keeping in mind our unworthiness and God’s grace at the Communion Table.

Consider also Charles Wesley, Hymn 28 from Hymns on the Lord’s Supper:

Author of our salvation thee
With lowly thankful hearts we praise
Author of this great mystery,
Figure and means of saving grace.

The sacred true effectual sign
Thy body and thy blood it shows,
The glorious instrument divine
Thy mercy and thy strength bestows.

We see the blood that seals our peace,
Thy pard’ning mercy we receive:
The bread doth visibly express
The strength through which our spirits live.

Our spirits drink a fresh supply,
And eat the bread so freely given,
Till borne on eagles’ wings we fly,
And banquet with our Lord in heaven.

George Herbert, The Holy Communion

Since I’ve quoted Hooker on the Eucharist at length, here’s a poem I often read in preparation for receiving the Blessed Sacrament. George Herbert’s 1633 poem ‘The Holy Communion’. Classic Anglicanism is rich and beautiful, as you can tell. He also expresses something of eucharistic soteriology, as you can see. For Herbert’s indentations done properly, go to the online edition at the CCEL.

The H. Communion.

NOt in rich furniture, or fine aray,
Nor in a wedge of gold,
Thou, who for me wast sold,
To me dost now thy self convey;
For so thou should’st without me still have been,
Leaving within me sinne:

But by the way of nourishment and strength
Thou creep’st into my breast;
Making thy way my rest,
And thy small quantities my length;
Which spread their forces into every part,
Meeting sinnes force and art.

Yet can these not get over to my soul,
Leaping the wall that parts
Our souls and fleshy hearts;
But as th’ outworks, they may controll
My rebel-flesh, and carrying thy name,
Affright both sinne and shame.

Onley thy grace, which with these elements comes,
Knoweth the ready way,
And hath the privie key,
Op’ning the souls most subtile rooms;
While those to spirits refin’d, at doore attend
Dispatches from their friend.
Give me my captive soul, or take
My bodie also thither.
Another lift like this will make
Them both to be together.

Before that sinne turn’d flesh to stone,
And all our lump to leaven;
A fervent sigh might well have blown
Our innocent earth to heaven.

For sure when Adam did not know
To sinne, or sinne to smother;
He might to heav’n from Paradise go,
As from one room t’another.

Thou hast restor’d us to this ease
By this thy heav’nly bloud;
Which I can go to, when I please,
And leave th’earth to their food.

A little Richard Hooker on the Eucharist

I cannot shake this idea of writing something deep and involved about eucharistic soteriology, so I just Googled “Richard Hooker on eucharist”, whereby I found this article from The Continuum on just that topic. It is mostly about Hooker’s understanding of the Real Presence in the Eucharist. Hooker (1554-1600), if you don’t know, is one of the greatest theologians of the Anglican tradition, and he is one of the people who really set the stage for what the Church of England would grow to be over time. He has been called a Catholic Protestant. Or perhaps a Protestant Catholic.

Anyway, I have lifted a quotation from the aforelinked article for your perusal, hoping that you can handle the Elizabethan English. It is worth reading. Hooker is a man of his age, and he does not shy away from vivid imagery such as ‘in the wounds of our Redeemer we there dip our tongues.’ The bit that relates to my research trajectory is at the end; I have bolded it for easy skimming. 😉

Let it therefore be sufficient for me presenting myself at the Lord’s table to know what there I receive from him, without searching or inquiring of the manner how Christ performeth his promise; let disputes and questions, enemies to piety, abatements of true devotion, and hitherto in this cause but over patiently heard, let them take their rest; let curious and sharpwitted men beat their heads about what questions themselves will, the very letter of the word of Christ giveth plain security that these mysteries do as nails fasten us to his very Cross, that by them we draw out, as touching efficacy, force, and virtue, even the blood of his gored side, in the wounds of our Redeemer we there dip our tongues, we are dyed red both within and without, our hunger is satisfied and our thirst for ever quenched; they are things wonderful which he feeleth, great which he seeth and unheard of which he uttereth, whose soul is possessed of this Paschal Lamb and made joyful in the strength of this new wine, this bread hath in it more than the substance which our eyes behold, this cup hallowed with solemn benediction availeth to the endless life and welfare both of soul and body, in that it serveth as well for a medicine to heal our infirmities and purge our sins as for a sacrifice of thanksgiving; with touching it sanctifieth, it enlighteneth with belief, it truly conformeth us unto the image of Jesus Christ; what these elements are in themselves it skilleth not, it is enough that to me which take them they are the body and blood of Christ, his promise in witness hereof sufficeth, his word he knoweth which way to accomplish; why should any cogitation possess the mind of a faithful communicant but this, O my God thou art true, O my Soul thou art happy!” Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity V.67.12

This is the great, central, catholic, classic teaching on the effect of Holy Communion in the life of the believer. This is what I want to expound..

The Agony by George Herbert

I first met this poem in Malcolm Guite’s book Faith, Hope and Poetry (my review here), and I encountered it again last week in his lecture ‘Christ and the Poetic Imagination’ at Regent College’s Laing Lectures. A blessed Good Friday to you.

The Agony

Philosophers have measur’d mountains,
Fathom’d the depths of the seas, of states, and kings,
Walk’d with a staff to heav’n, and traced fountains:
But there are two vast, spacious things,
The which to measure it doth more behove:
Yet few there are that sound them; Sin and Love.

Who would know Sin, let him repair
Unto mount Olivet; there shall he see
A man so wrung with pains, that all his hair,
His skin, his garments bloody be.
Sin is that press and vice, which forceth pain
To hunt his cruel food through ev’ry vein.

Who knows not Love, let him assay
And taste that juice, which on the cross a pike
Did set again abroach, then let him say
If ever he did taste the like.
Love is that liquor sweet and most divine,
Which my God feels as blood; but I, as wine.