Tag Archives: Eucharist

LitBit Commentary – Gordon Lathrop on the Lord’s Prayer 4

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LitBit: The Lord’s Prayer has been so central to Christian practice that it may be taken as a symbol to stand for all of the assembly’s liturgy. It is one of the summary gifts of Baptism, a central pillar of the catechism handed over to us as we come to join the Christian assembly or as we rehearse, lifelong, the meaning of our participation. It recurs in every Eucharist, as the table prayer of the community, as the final text of the thanksgiving at table. It is as if we come to the end of a presider’s best effort—”praying and giving thanks as well as she or he can,” as Justin would say—and we stutter out again “Lord, teach us to pray,” using that beginner’s prayer as the best conclusion we can give to our common thanksgiving at this holy meal.

Gordon Lathrop, The Pastor, p.23f

 

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LitBit Commentary – The Eucharist (UIW2) 2

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LitBits Logo - 2LitBit: The various names given to this meal by our traditions show something of its meaning: it is the Lord’s Supper, instituted by Christ on the night of his betrayal; it is the Holy Communion, a sacrament of union between Christ and believers, and of the union of the believers themselves; it is the Eucharist, from the Greek word meaning ‘thanksgiving’. Indeed, its primary note is thanksgiving – honouring God for all that God is, and giving thanks for all that God has done in the work of creation and salvation.

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LitBit Commentary – Gordon Lathrop on the Lord’ Prayer 1

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Bread and forgiveness, the matters alive at the centre of the Lord’s Prayer, are “practices.” They involve us in enacting the things that we believe God is doing. That enacting is first of all ritual, communal, repetitive: in the prayer itself, but also in ritual acts of mutual forgiveness and in the ritual meal. But then our hearts and lives are invited to follow—in forgiving others, in exercising hospitality at all of our meals, in sending “portions …to those for whom nothing is prepared,” as Nehemiah 8:10 has it. Such practices are nondistancing, nondistinguishing. They still do not separate us from the rest of humanity, the condition of which the prayer so eloquently articulates. On the contrary. They connect us, in bread and forgiveness.

From Gordon Lathrop, The pastor: a spirituality, p.33f

 

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LitBit Commentary – The Eucharist (UIW2) 1

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The centrepiece of this part of the liturgy is The Great Prayer of Thanksgiving. The origins of this central Christian prayer lie in Jewish prayer at Passover and in the grace at every meal. Jesus built on these at the Last Supper. Our present sacrament also derives meaning from other meals hosted by Jesus – e.g. after the resurrection at Emmaus (Luke 24), or by the seashore (John 21). Its essence is thanksgiving for the mighty acts of God. It is a ‘Great’ Prayer because it is the expression of all the gifts of God for our salvation, above all in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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LitBit Commentary – Gordon Lathrop on the Eucharist 1

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…the meal that we keep, in its intensity and focus, its staple food and festive drink, its ceremonial welcome of a wide circle, might suggest that we are consuming magical food, food of the angels, a heavenly banquet, food that will grant us immortality. Then we hear the content of the feast: “the body of Christ, the blood of Christ, given for you.” A specific, real death is proclaimed, and if “immortality” is given, then this is a new kind of freedom from death, coming in a world-affirming, bounded, palpable, and mortal way, here.

From Gordon Lathrop, The pastor: a spirituality, p.4

 

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LitBit Commentary – John Zizioulas on the Eucharist

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“In the Eucharist we can find all the dimensions of communion: God communicates himself to us, we enter into communion with him, the participants of the sacrament enter into communion with one another, and creation as a whole enters through man into communion with God. All this takes place in Christ and the Spirit, who brings the last days into history and offers to the world a foretaste of the Kingdom.”
John D. Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church

 

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LitBit Commentary – Rowan Williams on the Eucharist 13

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“Celebrating the Eucharist not only reminds us that we are invited to be guests; it also reminds us that we are given the freedom to invite others to be guests as well. We have experienced the hospitality of God in Christ; our lives are therefore set free to be hospitable… Being in the neighbourhood of Jesus is sharing Jesus’ freedom to invite – to make our lives and our communities places of welcome for those most deeply in need of solidarity, of fellowship.”

Rowan Williams, Being Christian, p.46f

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