My Reflections of the Eucharist - Chola Ben 11129

The Eucharist in streets

The word became flesh, became man, so that we can receive it and so that it can became our daily food. The psalmist said man is merely a breath, means man is too small to be able to reach God, God who is the creator, all knowing it became possible for himself to became small so that he could become our daily food and we may receive love from his love, happiness from his happiness, mercy from his mercies, all that is good from his goodness and the world become his kingdom. This is all about the Eucharist in streets of our cities and towns and villages.

The Eucharist in the streets or the Feast of Corpus Christi is carrying our Lord Jesus Christ, who by the power of the Holy Spirit, became the Word made flesh, the Word made bread, out into the streets first of our hearts, then of our cities, towns and our communities. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger said that “we carry him out into everyday lives. These streets are supposed to become his paths. He should not live alongside of us, locked up in tabernacles, but rather in our midst, in our daily routine.” I think Christians have to be the moving Eucharist in their families, communities, cities and towns. I say this in the sense that, if we carry him in our daily life then our lives has to be the real presence of Christ in our streets. This means that whenever a Christian go, He should go, when we talk, He should talk, when we acts, He should acts, whatever we do we have to do it as if he is the one doing it. As Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger said, “our world, our daily routine should become his temple. The Feast of Corpus Christi shows us what it means to communicate sacramentally, to accept him, to receive him by welcoming him with our whole life.” To welcome Christ with our life means to let Christ be the centre of our lives, families, communities, nations and above all our ways of living.  Christ transforms our lives and by the way of procession in our streets Christ is knocking on the door of each one of us and the one who hears him opens for him his door. He said in the book of Revelation “if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” (Rev 3:20). This means that when one heard the voice of the Lord and open up is door which is the heart, he or she start to live on Christ and the Lord became the centre of his or her life.

For Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the Feast of Corpus Christi is a call of the Lord to all Christians, but also a cry from the faithful to Lord. For me the whole Feast is Christ himself want to meet us in our day to day life in all times and all places. He first opened his door to us and when we hear him and open our doors to him. Let us take Christ in our streets through our day to day life. Reflection based on chapter six of On the way to Jesus Christ by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.

***

The Eucharist as the Sacrament of Transformation

The day before he suffered Jesus took bread and said “take this, all of you, and eat it: this is my body, which will be given up for you.” When supper was ended, he took the cup. Again he gave you thanks and praise, gave the cup to his disciple, and said “take this, all of you, and drink from it: this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me.” When one read this words the first thing comes in to the mind is the word transformation. The bread becomes body of Jesus, and wine becomes blood of Jesus. His blood is shed, first on the Mount of Olives, then in the scourging, at the crucifixion, and after his death in the piercing of his heart.

The deep sense of transformation comes in when Christ, transforms men’s acts of violence against him into an act of self giving for these men and the entre humanity into an act of love toward humanity. Our Lord Jesus Christ does not “counter violence with new violence, as he could have done, but rather he puts an end to violence by transforming it into love.” For me, this means that Jesus conquered the violence of his enemies by love. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, points out that “this is the fundamental transformation upon which all the rest is based. It is the genuine transformation that the world needs and that alone is capable of redeeming the world. Because Christ from within transforms violence into act of love and thus conquers it, death itself is transformed and love became stronger than death.” One say within the transformation is contained the transformation of death into resurrection, that is of the dead body into the risen body.

The gifts of bread and wine, which are the fruits of human hands and also the gifts of creation, the transformation so that in them the Lord himself become present, because he is self giving. The Eucharist is the transformed bread and the transformed wine, in which the Lord gives himself to the faithful as a life giving spirit. So the goal of “the Eucharist is transformation of those who receive it in authentic communion with his transformation.” The Eucharist brings unity, this transformation becomes visible through the faithful, who have been transformed and have become one body with Christ. Thus the “Eucharist is the process of transformations in which the Christians become involved, in God’s power to transform hatred and violence, God’s power to transform the world.” The Eucharist transforms our lives and makes us good people in order to create the world where every person feel at home and better place to live as Christ did. Reflection based on chapter six of On the way to Jesus Christ by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.

****

Ben chola 11129t

He lives in us through the Eucharist

In the Gospel of John, Jesus said: “I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which comes down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.” We see the Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “how can this man give us his flesh to eat?” so Jesus said to the Jews “truly, truly, I said to you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” John 6:48ff.

When the murmuring of the Jews arose, maybe it was just an assurance to their followers that Jesus was using metaphorical words, the flesh was just food. According to Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, faith in God who became man is believing in a God with a body and that this faith is real and fulfilled; it bring full union only if it is itself corporeal, if it is a sacramental event in which the corporeal Lord seizes hold of our bodily existence. For Paul, he compares what happens in Holy Communion with the physical union between man and woman. For the Eucharist can be understand when we look on the words in creation story “the two shall be one” (Gen 2:24), that is man and wife will be one. He also adds that “‘he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him’” (1 Cor 6:17). This means that when we eat the body and drink the blood of Christ in form of bread and wine. Christ transforms our lives and makes us to be part of him. It is Christ who assimilates us into himself and takes us out of ourselves, so that we may became Christ like and part of his own substance. It is so because Christ is the heart and the truly existent being.

The Catholic Church believes that receiving the Eucharist means entering into communion with Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the only one who shares himself with us in his love which runs right through the cross. This means that receiving communion is always a person act. Receiving the Eucharist it is never being a merely ritual performed in common, which we can just pass off as we do with other social routines.  In communion one enters into the Lord, who is communicating himself to us. The sacramental communion must therefore always in any moment or situation a spiritual communion. I got the material from “God is Near Us” by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.

***

What do you understand by the word “Eucharist”

In the early Church, the Eucharist was often called “agape” or “pax” that is simply mean love or peace. I think the Christians of that time stressed much the connection between the hidden presence of the Lord and the praxis of serving the cause of peace, Christians being peace. Besides agape and pax there was other name, for instance, “synaxis” which is an assembly, a gathering of individuals. Among the protestants the sacrament is called “supper”, which is meant to be a return to the biblical origin, in order to keep Luther’s claim that only the scripture has validity. In fact, in the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians this sacrament is called the “Supper of the Lord”.

Today the Eucharist is the most common name of the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, which the Lord instituted on the night before his passion. No doubt the Lord had instituted his sacrament within the context of a meal, as part of the Jewish Passover meal and it was connected with the gathering at table. The Passover meal was celebrated only once a year. The celebration of the Eucharist was itself actually separated from the gathering at table as the separation from the law took place and the transition was made to a Church consisting of Jews and Gentiles, but most of them were former pagans. The connection with supper thus proves to be extrinsic, as an occasion for misunderstandings and abuses, as Paul demonstrated in his first letter to the Corinthians.

The liturgy of the word, which has its model in the synagogue was combined with the Lord’s words of institution formed the climax of the great prayer of thanksgiving and blessing “berakha” which was derived from the synagogue tradition. The Lord Jesus Christ had render “thanks and praise to God in a Jews tradition and lent new depth to this very thanksgiving through the sacrifice of his body and blood.” The Last Supper was not all about eating the lamb and other traditional foods, but “it was a great prayer of praise that is now contained Jesus words of institution as its centrepiece. The essential element of the last supper was the Eucharist, what we call today Eucharistic prayer.”The Eucharistia is the translation of berakha which means praise as well as thanksgiving and blessing.  Some Church fathers described the Eucharist simply as “prayer”, as the “sacrifice” of praise, as a spiritual sacrifice, which, however, also becomes material and transforms matter; bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ, which is the food of life that nourishes us until we meet God face to face, for eternal life.  I got the material from “On the way to Jesus Christ.” By Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

***

The Relationship between the Word of God and the Eucharist

Ben Chola

The word of God is the preparation of the Eucharistic celebration. I believe that, this may be the reason why the Catholic Church always invites the faithful to come in time to the celebration of mass in order to listen to the good news first before approaching the sacrament of Eucharist or Christ himself. In most cases if one, comes late for the mass, meaning that he or she finds liturgy of the word already being done he or she does not receive the Eucharist.

The liturgy of the word gives the meaning to the liturgy of Eucharist. Due to this the proclamation of the word has to be prepared well and celebrated well. The people taking the readings of the day have to prepare in the manner that when proclaiming to the assembly, they able to understand themselves what they are reading to the congregation. It is always good to know that “‘when the Sacred Scriptures are read in the Church, God himself speaks to his people, and Christ, present in his own word, proclaims the Gospel.’” (SC.45), before the reader takes the reading there is always an introduction in order to take the attention of the faithful to the table of the word. The word of God must be proclaimed, listened to and accepted in spirit in order to appreciate the Eucharist as Christ himself who is present in the sacrament of Eucharist. In the Gospel of Luke 24:13-32, here we see that Jesus himself joined his two disciples preached to them the word of God, in order for them to understand what is about to happen to them. When Christ breaks the bread the two disciples were able to see Jesus and accept him.  Jesus is the word made flesh (Jn 1:14), so the word of God give meaning to the Eucharist and help the faithful to understand and appreciate the sacrament of the Eucharist as the disciples of Emmaus did. Saint Jerome once said the ignorance of the Scripture is the ignorance of Christ.  These words of saint Jerome show that, the word proclaim is Christ himself, so in order to value and respect the sacrament of Eucharist one have to read the scripture and understand it in its fuller sense, as the word which became flesh.

Finally the liturgy of the word and Eucharist are inseparably in the person of Christ, as Saint John puts it in his gospel, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us(Jn 1:1,14).  For me the word of God cannot be separate from the Eucharist because the word is Christ himself and through the word the faithful able to understand and accepts the sacrament of Eucharist as the source and summit of our faith.