Exhaling

Eucharist = Thanksgiving

As H’s words are no longer spouting at her blog (at least for now), I’ll share her profoundly practical thoughts with the world here in the form of combox words, to springboard us to the next level:

I’ve never thought of myself as living the analogy of bread being broken and fed to others, the horizontal aspect of His sacrifice that we share in; I suppose many do, but anyway, it put me in mind of an old lady the other night who tho’ a Methodist, has pretty much become eucharist in her love. She conquers her wanting to take, by giving. We have to do everything but breathe in and out for some, and she’s approaching that point, and is terribly disappointed, but she gifts from it when possible.

Yes, we are to become gift. That’s what the whole suffering book is really about, isn’t it, Honora? Being gift, so that others will know their own giftedness and goodness, so they can in turn become gift to others, for Him. And as I said somewhere already, our “givingness” comes from heartfelt gratitude for all we have been given. This is what it means to live a eucharistic life. Now let’s unpack this, and translate it into life.

This is a mystery, and one that we can only approach in small chunks. As a wordsmith and logophile, I like to begin with the word (well, everything begins with the Word, doesn’t it?):

eucharist
εuχαριστία
eucharistia
thanksgiving

Christ “gave thanks” before blessing the bread and wine and declaring it to be His Body and Blood. The early Church fathers (including Ignatius of Antioch and Justin Martyr) used the term “eucharist” to describe both the prayers of the liturgy and the consecrated bread and wine. Hence, “eucharist” has come to refer to the sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood.

This is fitting, as the whole life of Christ was an act of oblation and thanksgiving, leading up to the institution of the Eucharist as a perpetuation of the complete immolation He was about to offer on Calvary.

But first, He lived a life of generosity and self-sacrifice, of humble self-gift and serving the needs of others (to the point that his friends and relatives thought He had lost a few marbles and felt they had to rescue Him from the crowds!). He came to demonstrate how God loves; He sets aside his glory, bends low as a servant to wash the feet of his disciples (even the one he knew would soon betray him) and then he gets up and says, “Love looks like this. This is how you love and serve one another.” And then He is able to say, “Love one another as I have loved you.”

“Looking up to heaven,” He gives thanks. Then, He blesses and breaks the bread and gives it to all, hiding His glory still more mysteriously than in the Incarnation itself. He lowers Himself and conceals His glory to become man, and then He lowers Himself still lower and conceals His glory still further to become Bread. Bread. Take and eat and have life in you…

He invites us to move beyond ourselves and live for love, loving both God and neighbor with all we’ve got, because this is the way of truth, the way of joy, the way of life in abundance.

I think I may post the poem I was asked to write for the 10th anniversary of our Perpetual Adoration Chapel here, which is very much focused on living the eucharist.