For centuries people have debated just when the bread and the wine become the Body and Blood of Jesus. Does it happen at the time when the words of institution are said? Or is it at the conclusion of the Eucharistic prayer? Some would argue that it is when the Priest touches the elements, while others think it is when the people respond with the great AMEN. For 2000 years people, priests, and theologians have argued the point with little resolution but to agree that when it happens is not nearly as important as the fact THAT it happens.
For thousands of years, people have been fed and nurtured with the sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood. When it happens, or even how it happens, remains a great mystery. Still, people reverently kneel and fold their hands to humbly receive the great gift of Christ himself. Veneration of the bread and wine, which has become the Body and Blood, has led men and women to fall prone on the floor. Priests and Bishops have willingly given their lives to protect this Holy Sacrament.
Yet much more mystifying to me is why the same prayer we pray to sanctify bread and wine, and which engenders so much veneration and adoration, moves us to no such respect or appreciation for one another.
Sanctify them (the bread and wine) to be for your people the Body and Blood of your Son, the holy food and drink of new and unending life in him. Sanctify us also…
Are we not calling on God to make us different? And are we not expecting that the same mystery, which forever changes bread and wine, should also change us? But where is the veneration for one another? Where is the willingness to fall to the ground before another realizing that they, like the sacrament, have been made Holy? Just imagine what our parish would be like if each treated each other with the respect and dignity we treat the Eucharist? What if we were to realize this truth in our Diocese, our National Church or even the whole of the Anglican Communion? Could it be that the source for the healing of our Church consists of “faithfully receiving…and serving Him in unity, constancy, and peace.”
Unfortunately, it appears that we pick and choose what to believe in our prayers just as we pick and choose what to believe of God’s Holy Word in scripture. Maybe we, like the father of the “possessed” boy in Mark 9:24, should pray, “I do believe; help me in my unbelief.”
The great “I AM” said to Moses, and to all of us, “Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” (Exodus 3:5)
The next time you walk forward for the Eucharist, walk very carefully and know that those who walk with you are HOLY.
Father Bill Myrick
