The Eucharist as A Meal
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Date
2005
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Tangaza University College
Abstract
The Eucharistic meal is the sacramental celebration of the Paschal mystery of
Christ It is a miraculous meal understood only with the help of the Holy Spirit. It is a
sacred meal in the form of bread and wine.
Often we talk of the Eucharistic meal as the source and summit of our life. The
source because it is the only way we nourish our spiritual life forever. No other food can
make us more Christ-like than this sacred meal on the altar. And it is the summit because
everything starts and ends in that very living bread and wine. Our whole spiritual life
depends entirely on that living food given to us as a gift. The Holy Eucharist therefore is
Christ himself coming to us in the form of bread and wine.
In the Old Testament, bread and wine were offered as a sign of grateful
acknowledgement to the creator. This offering was a type of the Eucharist to come. In the
offering, the taking of bread and wine symbolized God's union with his people.
For instance, every Jewish meal was a sacred event, a time when the family
would give thanks. These meals followed customary laws and brought people together.
Not only did the meal bring them together, but it also created bonds, strengthening
relationships and later became covenant meals. In this period, these meals had religious
tones as God's blessings were asked before eating.
Every Jewish meal was a ritual and followed its customs. No meal was eaten
without prayers and thanksgiving. The host or elder breaks the bread and gives thanks.
And therefore, the promises and covenant given to them by God are truly expressed in
their celebration together. These meals portrayed the ways in which God had liberated
them from slavery and other problems affecting them.
Our Eucharist comes from this Jewish heritage. Christ grew up as a Jew and
respected the Jewish way of life. He followed the same way when starting the Eucharist.
He followed the same customary rules to be followed by a Jewish elder or host. He
himself was the host of this meal. The Eucharist grew from the Last Supper, the sharing
of Christ's body and blood. It became a sharing in the paschal event of Christ.
This was a new ritual in the life of the Christian community, because Christ
attached a new meaning to the existing ritual, that of his remembrance, whenever we
celebrate the Eucharist.
The Eucharistic celebration ?Jew out of this context as Christ shared his Passover
meal with his disciples. Though Christ was with his disciples in this meal, it was at the
time when the Jewish communities were praying for the coming of the messiah.
This has become the departing point for all the Christian Eucharistic rituals. This
was the starting point of his ministry and his presence amongst his people as a sacrificial
victim. Everything we do and celebrate today in the Holy Eucharist is a remembrance of
the Last Supper, where he gave up his life for the world.
A sacrifice is an external and social offering of some acceptable gift made to God
by an authorized representation of the community. Its purpose is to unite persons with
God, their creator. It implies an immolation of a victim, which suffers and dies. The
immolated victim has to express an intimate relationship between God and man.
Likewise Christ offered himself for the world's liberation from the bondage of
sin. This idea of sacrifice has been passed down from ages past. For example, in the
Samburu culture, sacrifices have been offered to God in order to cement that relationship
between God and his people.
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The Eucharistic meal is a visible sign, which communicates God's love and care
for us in Jesus Christ. In the Eucharistic celebration we participate actively in the act of
receiving Christ. This act is a meeting point with Christ's Spirit who gives life to our
spiritual bodies. When we receive Christ, it is not we who transform Christ into
ourselves, but Christ transforms himself into us, by incorporating or uniting us into his
own mystical body. This incorporation is realized when we allow Christ to live within us
under the form of bread and wine. This is a mysterious way in which Christ is the very
center of our Christian life.
This meal is taken in union with Christ, and becomes our soul's food. This is our
divine food, which is the very body and blood of Christ. The soul is really and truly fed
on this food. It is a real food because it nourishes and gives eternal life.
This meal starts a new relationship between God and his people, now to be
celebrated as a banquet. We believe that the body and blood of Christ is present in the
consecrated bread and wine. We don't say the Eucharist is like the body and blood of
Jesus, but it is the body and blood of Christ. This was affirmed by Christ himself when he
said 'this is my body... this is my blood' (Mk 14:22-24). What this says is that the real
presence is a mystery. What appears to be bread and wine is in its very substance the
body and blood of Christ. The entire Christ is present in his whole human and divine
being in the form of bread and wine.
I chose the topic "Eucharist as a meal," because of its richness and similarity with
our daily food for survival. For us to survive we have to eat, and for our souls to survive
we have to eat too. It is against this background of how important food is for our life, that
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I decided to use the topic "Eucharist as a meal" for its importance as food for the soul and
the source of our lives as Christians.
The other reason is the value we Africans attach to our food as the source of our
love for our visitors. Whenever you go to somebody's house, the first thing is to be
welcomed and being asked 'Tea or Beer?' and not 'What can I do for you?'
This paper is an attempt to put the Eucharistic meal in the context of real food for
our souls. Some comparisons where it is appropriate have been made with the Samburu
community, which is found in the Northern Part of the Great Rift Valley of Kenya. MI
the Biblical citations are from the African Bible. The paper itself is a research work done
in Nairobi.
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Keywords
The Eucharist