“In the Eucharist we are at the centre of the world: we are where Christ, the Son, gives his life to his Father in the Spirit.  And in the Eucharist we are at the end of the world: we are seeing how the world’s calling is fulfilled in advance; we are seeing ourselves and our world as they really are, contemplating them in the depths of God, finding their meaning in relation to God.  And the job of a Christian is constantly trying to dig down to that level of reality, and to allow gratitude, repentance and transformation to well up from that point.  ‘With you is the fountain of life’, says the psalm; and it is that fountain that we drink from in Holy Communion.”

Rowan Williams, Being Christian, p.59

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“… self-awareness and repentance [are] completely bound up with the nature of what we are doing in the Holy Eucharist: the celebration and the sorrow, the Easter and the cross are always there together.  And as we come together as Christians, we come not to celebrate ourselves and how well we are doing, but to celebrate the eternal Gift that is always there, and to give the thanks that are drawn out of us by that Gift.”

Rowan Williams, Being Christian, p.54

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“… when the risen Christ eats with disciples it is not just a way of proving he is ‘really there’; it is a way of saying that what Jesus did in creating a new community during his earthly life, he is doing now with the apostles in his risen life.  We who are brought into the company of the apostles in our baptism – which, remember, brings us to where Jesus is to be found – share that ‘apostolic’ moment when we gather to eat and drink in Jesus’ presence.  And that is why, throughout the centuries since, Christians have been able to say exactly what the apostles say: they are the people with whom Jesus ate and drank after he was raised from the dead. Holy Communion makes no sense at all if you do not believe in the resurrection.”

Rowan Williams, Being Christian, p.45

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“In the Eucharist we are at the centre of the world: we are where Christ, the Son, gives his life to the Father in the Spirit. And in the Eucharist we are at the end of the world: we are seeing how the world’s calling is fulfilled in advance; we are seeing ourselves and our world as they really are, contemplating them in the depths of God. And the job of a Christian is constantly trying to dig down to that level of reality, and to allow gratitude, repentance and transformation to well up from that point.”

Rowan Williams, Being Christian, p.59

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“One of the most transformingly surprising things about Holy Communion is that it obliges you to see the person next to you as wanted by God. God wants that person’s company as well as mine. How much simpler if God only wanted my company and that of those I had decided to invite. But God does not play that particular game. And the transforming effect of looking at other Christians as people whose company God wants, is – by the look of things – still sinking in for a lot of Christians, and taking a rather long time…”

Rowan Williams, Being Christian, p.51

How to use this LitBit Liturgical Commentary Snippet

LitBit liturgical commentary snippets are intended to be inserted into a pew sheet in the midst of the liturgy itself. They are mostly easily included by creating a text box in your word processing program and then formatting text and box size and location so that it appears in the right place without obstructing the printed order itself.

Select the above text, copy it and paste it into a text box in your word processor.

Shorter commentary texts might be situated on your page as a “gloss” or side comment; longer texts might span the page. It can help to change the font and colour of the text to minimize confusion on the page.

 

“Holy Communion changes the way we see things as well as people. It changes how we see the world and…it changes how we see one another (as we learn to see our neighbour as God’s guest). It reinforces and sustains the hospitality that believers want to show to those in need, and it also obliges us to look at other Christians and take seriously the fact that they have been invited too.”

Rowan Williams, Being Christian, p.51

 

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“For Christians, to share in the Eucharist, the Holy Communion, means to live as people who know that they are always guests – that they have been welcomed and that they are wanted… In Holy Communion, Jesus Christ tells us that he wants our company”

Rowan Williams, Being Christian, p.41

 

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“If Jesus gives thanks over bread and wine on the eve of his death, if Jesus makes that connection between the furthest place away from God, which is suffering and death, and the giving and outpouring of his Father, and if in his person he fuses those things together, then wherever we are some connection between us and God is possible. All places, all people, all things have about them an unexpected sacramental depth. They open on to God the Giver.”

Rowan Williams, Being Christian, p.49

 

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“Holy Communion is no kind of reward: it is, like everything about Jesus Christ, a free gift. We take Holy Communion not because we are doing well, but because we are doing badly. Not because we have arrived, but because we are traveling. Not because we are right, but because we are confused and wrong. Not because we are divine, but because we are human. Not because we are full, but because we are hungry.”

Rowan Williams, Being Christian (2014), p.53

 

 

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