Most Holy Eucharist.
Apostles’ Fast. A day when the faithful are highly encouraged to participate in the Divine Liturgy.
1 Corinthians 11:23-32; John 6:48-54.
Read John 6:48-54
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
Today the Church celebrates the feast of the Most Holy Eucharist, wherein Christ our God gives us His own body and blood for the nourishment of our souls and bodies. The Gospel reading recounts the promise of this gift: I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
From the earliest days, the Church has called the gift of Christ’s own body and blood, Eucharist (cf St. Justin the Philosopher, First Apology, 151 AD), a word which means thanksgiving.
If we think about our everydays lives, isn’t it true that we usually give thanks only when something pleasant or kind has been done for us? This is not to say that we should not do so, or to suggest that by doing so we are being malicious, but merely to point out that in our consumer driven culture thanksgiving is often reduced to a kind of exchange, and expression of our pleasure.
In contrast, when we pray the anaphora of St. Basil the Great we recount that Christ, “when He was about to go forth to His voluntary, ever memorable, and life-giving death, on the night on which He was delivered up for the life of the world, He took bread in His holy and pure hands, and presenting it to You, God and Father, and offering thanks, blessing, sanctifying, and breaking it, He gave it to His holy disciples and apostles…”
It is striking that Jesus offers this thanksgiving, this Eucharist, not after He has risen from the dead and conquered death by death, but as He is about to go forth to His passion. From a consumer point of view this makes no sense. It would make more sense to give thanks after the resurrection. But Jesus’ offering transforms what is to come, His sacrificial death becomes the gateway to eternal life.
In this context, when we celebrate the Eucharist, we are not simply thanking Christ for something He did for us 2000 years ago. We are participating in His act of offering, knowing that the passion will come for us in various forms, probably not bloody crucifixion, but certainly in our struggles with work, family, personal relationships, even comparatively minor annoyances like sitting for hours in traffic. All of these things, when offered in thanksgiving become for us means of life and healing rather than destruction.
This is what makes the Christian life so beautiful, as St. Ignatius the God-Bearer says, “I have no taste for corruptible food nor for the pleasures of this life. I desire the Bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, who was of the seed of David; and for drink I desire His blood, which is love incorruptible” (Letter to the Romans 7:3).