COMMUNION

Submitted September 22, 2005

SERMON ON HOLY COMMUNION

Motto: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Mat.4: 4; Deut.8: 3).

Have you ever heard these biblical words? Yes, they were asserted by Christ when He was tempted by Satan in the wilderness. In asserting these words, Jesus withstood the temptation of sin since, as God and Man He lived in perfect harmony with the will of His Father. Notice, Jesus agrees that food is necessary for living. In fact, He does say that we all need “our daily bread” (Mat.6: 11), to sustain the process of life. But what Christ is saying in the verse with which I began the sermon is that food alone does not satisfy the hungers of a human being. Why not? Because food satisfy the body only but the soul is to be fed, also.

The question arises: Does the world have food for the soul? I want to share with you a story that will answer this question. When the first Orthodox Christians came to America, they first got jobs in the mines, stores, steel plants and mills, because they had a physical hunger. But after a while they experienced a different kind of hunger: a hunger of the soul for God. They missed their churches and worship services. They missed the mysteries, the loving fellowship of the Christian community. So you know what they did, don’t you? They organized parishes and built churches, they called priests to minister to their spiritual needs, to provide nourishment for their souls. Now they fully realized that human beings cannot live on bread alone, and that the world has no food for the soul!

One may ask: What is the food God has provided for our souls? Listen to these words of Christ: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven” (John6: 51). In clear words Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, identified Himself with that spiritual food for the proper growth of the human personality. It is Christ, the bread of life, offered us in the Holy Eucharist. Now, since there is so much misunderstanding about the peak of our spiritual life, that is, the partaking of the Holy Eucharist, in my sermon of today I will share with you very concisely the teaching of our Orthodox Church on the Mystery of Eucharist.

The Eucharist, which means thanksgiving, is the Mystery in which the bread and wine of offering are changed by the Holy Spirit into the true Body and Blood of Christ, and then the faithful partake of it for a most intimate union with Christ and eternal life. The Body and Blood of Christ are called the “Bread of Heaven and the Cup of life” or “Cup of salvation.” They are also called “the Holy Mysteries” or “the Bloodless Sacrifice.” The Holy Eucharist is the greatest Mystery of our Faith.

Our Savior Jesus Christ pre-indicated the future establishment of this great Mystery when He said: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day…He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in him” (John6: 53-54; 56). The very establishment of the Mystery is set forth in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, and then is repeated by St. Paul.

In St. Matthew’s gospel, we read: “And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body.’ Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them saying, ‘Drink from it all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins’” (Mat.26: 26-28; see also Mark14: 22-25; Luke22: 19-20; I Cor.11: 23-24). The words of Christ at the Mystical Supper are very clear and do not allow any other interpretation apart from the most direct one. They were given to the Apostles and mean that we receive the true Body and the true Blood of Christ.

Having given communion to His disciples, the Lord Jesus commanded: “Do this in remembrance of Me” (Luke22: 19). This bloodless sacrifice must be performed “till He comes” (I Cor.11: 26), as the Apostle Paul teaches, that is, until Christ’s Second Coming. The Eucharist was received by the Church from the first days as the greatest Mystery. The institution of it is preserved with the greatest reverence. It will be performed until the end of the world. For the first thousand years of Christian history, when the Church was undivided, the holy gifts of the Body and Blood of Christ were received as just that: His Body and Blood! The Church taught that this is a Mystery: the bread is truly Christ’s Body, and that which is in the chalice is truly Christ’s Blood, but one cannot say how they become so.

We do not even try, as the Roman Catholic Church does, to explain the unexplainable! St. Paul instructs with what reverence and preparatory self-testing we must approach the Mystery: “Therefore whoever eats this bread and drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s Body” (I Cor.11: 27-29).

In the Mystery of Holy Eucharist, when the priest, invoking the Holy Spirit upon the offered gifts, blesses them, the bread and wine are actually changed into the Body and Blood of Christ by the coming down of the Holy Spirit. After this moment, even if we continue to see bread and wine on the Holy Table, in their very essence, invisibly for our physical eyes, in front of us is the true Body and Blood of Christ, under the form of bread and wine.

I cannot stress enough that the sanctified Gifts are not only signs or symbols reminding the faithful of the salvation, as the Protestant reformer Zwingli taught. Also, it is not only by His activity and power that Christ is present in them, as Calvin, another reformer, taught. By the same token, Christ is not only co-present in panem, cum panem, sub panem, “in the bread, under the form of bread, with the bread,” as Luther taught. They all were dead wrong!

The consecrated Gifts in the Mystery of the Eucharist are changed into the true Body and Blood of Christ! This is the teaching of the Orthodox Faith! This is the unchanged teaching of The Church for two millennia. Here is what the holy Fathers who participated in the First Ecumenical Synod professed: “At the Divine Table we should not see simply the bread and the cup which have been offered, but raising our minds on high, we should with faith understand that on the sacred Table lies the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world, Who is offered as a Sacrifice by the priests; and truly receiving His precious Body and Blood, we should believe that this is a sign of our resurrection.”

In order to explain the possibility of such transformation of the Eucharistic elements into the Body and Blood of Christ, St. John Damascene indicates how the bread and wine or water taken by us as food are converted “in a way unknown to us” into our own body.

Here are my questions: Do you approach the chalice when the priest invites you to do so “with fear of God, with faith and with love?” Are you a frequent partaker of Holy Communion? If you are not, I do remind you of these words of Christ: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you!” (John 6: 53). Yes, we are spiritually dead if we fail to do so! Yes, we cannot live by bread alone, we need to feed ourselves with the spiritual food “the bread of life…the bread which comes down from heaven that one may eat of it and not die” (John 6:48; 50). This bread cannot be offered by this world, but by the Church! It is the Holy Eucharist, the very Body and Blood of Christ!

There is a well known case study in medical journals that emphasizes the need for spiritual food. A number of years ago, there was a large foundling home in South America. Some one hundred babies were there, ranging in age from six months to three years. The institution provided normal care for the youngsters. There was nourishing food to eat, clean clothing to wear, and adequate medical facilities for the sick. Yet something was missing. Over a period of time the children became restless, listless and hopeless. There was no joy and radiant life. Something was wrong!

It was discovered that the children were not being loved. The nurses were so busy that they did not lovingly cuddle their charges. Once they started to do this, a gradual change came over them. As they showered their affection on them, as they kissed them and held them close, as they sang to them and spoke to them, as they simply loved them they changed. This was nourishment for their souls! This was the food that had been denied them!

Beloved: As we pray to God for “our daily bread,” let us remember that, as Orthodox Christians, this means food to sustain not only our bodies, but food to sustain our souls, also. Our sublime spiritual food is the Holy Eucharist! Let us not deprive ourselves of the power which is communicated to us in the eating and drinking of the Holy Gifts! However, let us not partake of them in willful disregard of the Lord, since it could result in sickness and death. Here is again St. Paul’s warning: “He who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself!” (I Cor.11: 29). Let us examine ourselves and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup to unite ourselves with Christ as a foretaste of the Kingdom, taking to heart His divine words: “Man shall not live by bread alone!” (Mat.4: 4). Try and remember: The Eucharist has always been the supreme act of thanksgiving and praise to God in His Church. So, come, “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm34: 8) Amen.

The Rev. Dr. Dumitru Macaila, Sts Constantine & Helen Greek Orthodox Church, Swansea, Illinois – September 25, 2005



Volume 7 Number 39 - Tuesday, September 27th, 2005	A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY