Holy Communion
Rev
Anthony Cane
Jesus celebrated a Last Supper with
his disciples on the night before he died. He
broke bread with them, and shared a cup of wine.
Ever since then Christians have obeyed Jesus'
command to repeat his actions. For many
Christians it is the most important act of
worship, as the following quote shows:
| Jesus
told his friends to do this and they have done it
ever since. Was ever another command so obeyed?
For century after century, spreading slowly to
every continent and country and among every race
on earth, this action has been done, in every
conceivable human circumstance, for every
conceivable human need from infancy and before to
extreme old age and after it, from the pinnacles
of earthly greatness to the refuge of fugitives
in the caves and dens of the earth. There
has been found no better thing than this to do
for kings at their crowning and for criminals
going to the scaffold; for armies in triumph or
for a bride and bridegroom in a little country
church; for the wisdom of a parliament or for a
sick old woman afraid to die… One could fill
many pages with the reasons why this has been
done, and not tell a hundredth part of them. And
best of all, week by week and month by month, on
a hundred thousand successive Sundays,
faithfully, unfailingly, across all the parishes
of each continent and country, the pastors have
done this to make the plebs
sancta dei -
the holy common people of God.
Dom Gregory Dix
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The service
of Holy Communion is sometimes given other names,
such as the Lord's Supper, the Eucharist and the
Mass. Eucharist simply means thanksgiving. In the Bible we
read that the night before Jesus was crucified,
He took bread, and when he had given
thanks,
he broke it, and said,
This is my body… (1 Corinthians
11:24)
| He told
his followers to do likewise, to break bread and
share wine, "in remembrance of me". Today Christians
speak of the Communion service as something that
is 'celebrated', for it is not simply a social
gathering or a look backwards into history - it
is a meeting with Christ in the present. In the Communion
Service we bring our thanks to God as we
celebrate the gift offered to us, the gift of
nothing less than God's self-giving love. In the
Eucharist we hear the good news that the living
God offers to share his life and love with us,
and we respond in prayerful praise, experiencing
forgiveness and healing. In obedience to Jesus'
command, we take bread and wine and share them in
remembrance of him, celebrating his presence with
us now and the confidence we are given for the
future.
In the
Communion Service we meet as the family of God,
and it is a kind of family meal.
Here there are no divisions of status or class,
as each person is of equal and supreme
importance. In fact, through our participation in
the Eucharist, we ourselves become the Body of
Christ; we ourselves become bread to be broken,
to meet the needs of a hungry world. Nourished by
the body and blood of Christ, we are sent out
from worship to take God's faith, hope and love
to the people and places where they are needed.
Christians
believe that God is preparing a future for us
which can be spoken of as feast,
a heavenly banquet to which all are invited.
Until then, Communion will continue to be
celebrated and God's people (Christ's Body) have
much work to do.
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© St Luke's, Torquay
July 2007
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