Category: Religious traditions, rituals. customs, and understandings

God’s Requirements

With what shall I come before the Lord,
   and bow before God most high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
   with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
   with myriad streams of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my crime,
   the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

You have been told, O mortal, what is good,
   and what the Lord requires of you:
Only to do justice and to love goodness,
   and to walk humbly with your God.
  (Micah 6:6-8)

   Religiosity in the days of the prophet Micah (8th century BC) and for centuries before had a heavy emphasis on personal and public sins and atonement for them.
   In the days of the Jerusalem temple, atonement rituals involved sacrifices, especially animal sacrifices. The worse the sin (and the greater the sinner’s resources), the greater the sacrifice.
   Micah—and others—challenged this traditional religious custom and practice. You know what God really asks of you, he taught, it’s simple, three basic things:
  – Do justice
   – Love goodness
   – Walk humbly with your God
   Now-a-days, we have no temple for atonement sacrifices but we still have a somewhat similar atonement mentality.
   But now as then, there’s no paying God back with sacrifices. If you regret what you have done, the answer to what you should and need to do is simple: exactly what Micah taught centuries ago.
   What God asks of you is not to spend time and effort regretting and mourning your failures nor in being jealous of others. “Don’t cry over spilled milk!”
   Just be just, be good, and be humble!

   Look, no matter what you can come up with, you can’t change the past. What’s said is said, what’s done is done.
   Don’t waste time regretting the past. We all have regrets about the past. None of us are perfect people, and none of us has a perfect past. Fact of life!
   Also, don’t waste time and effort in trying to “pay back”. No matter what you may consider to be enough, it may never be enough for another.
   The best you can do is to confess, to admit what you have done and, then, change for the future. It may never be enough for another, but it may be the best you can do.
   We still have a sacrifice mentality. We may feel the need to atone for what we have done. Others may demand that we pay a price for what we have done.
   Over the Christian centuries, many atonement practices have been popularized and some are still with us—e.g., special prayers, fasting, wearing painful devices, or vowing abstention from possessions, marriage, or free choices.
   With the best of intentions, we may still be making inadequate or inappropriate decisions.
   What God is asking of us, requiring of us, is relatively simple to state, pretty much what Micah taught long, long ago:

You have been told, O mortal, what is good,
   and what the Lord requires of you:
Only to do justice and to love goodness,
   and to walk humbly with your God.

   We more or less pray this every day, “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”


2 October 2022

Mairzy Doats

This is the title of a once very popular song, composed in 1943. The words looked strange and were spelt strangely, but, somehow, they sounded right and made sense:
   Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey.
   A kiddley divey too, wouldn’t you?
   One of the song’s writers said it was inspired by an old nursery rhyme:
   Cowzy tweet and sowzy tweet and liddle sharksy doisters.
   With due respect, the way we used to sing and pray in Latin had some similarities. We didn’t necessarily understand many, if not most, of the words, but overall, we had a good sense of what we were all about!
   It reminds me of a saying attributed to St. Francis of Assisi:
   Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.
   In other words, everything we say (or preach or write) may not necessarily be fully or clearly understood, but, overall, it’s through the way we live our lives that we are successfully communicating!
   I studied the Latin language for several years, and, later, I studied in Latin for several years. That included attending Latin lectures, reading Latin text books, writing Latin documents, and even defending a point of view in oral Latin.
   But, no matter my fluency—or lack thereof—the language never could have the emotional impact, evocativeness, and nuanced meaning my native language could and did.
   At times there were Latin words that didn’t entirely make sense to me, but usually I understood the overall message!
   Very often many traditional religious words, sayings, rites, customs, and practices seem like that. We may not necessarily understand all the details, but, overall, we get the idea!

   Some of the canonized saints were great philosophers, theologians, canonists, or founders of religious orders, but they were not singled out because of the sermons they preached, or the books they wrote, or the organizations they created.
   They were distinguished because of the quality of the lives they lived and how they affected and impacted the lives of those that knew them.
   Maybe some of their enterprises were good and successful—and maybe not. Maybe they lasted—and maybe not. No matter!
   Maybe you have no idea what mairzy doats means, and maybe, in any case, you don’t care. It’s okay!
   Maybe you know exactly what a kiddley divery too means, and you wouldn’t. So, what!
   Certain words, songs, books, movies, sermons, classes, videos, programs, etc. may or may not be useful to one or another of us. We may even debate their merits with others.
   But to allow the differences of opinion and diversity of interests to become barriers dividing us into conflicting groups is basically, as Mr. Spock would say, illogical.
   It is an indisputable fact that each and every person is unique and no two people are ever or ever can be absolutely identical.
   Therefore, every joining together with another involves compromise (not entirely doing things your way), compassion (enduring things together), and collaboration (achieving something, but not necessarily all that you would prefer).
   Try to use nice words, but above all it’s being nice that counts!


25 September 2022

Religious Imagination

There’s a time and place for religious imagination—for “make believe”. It’s only human to embellish (that is, to beautify, to enhance) factual matters, and with long-term traditions the embellishment may get pretty elaborate.
   When the facts are few and far between, or when they are very slim and easily overlooked, it’s only human that we relate them with more and more descriptive words or imagined supplementary details.
   However, the embellishments may become so many and so elaborate as to disguise or distort the truth itself. That’s why in sworn testimony we call on God as our witness that we are telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
   Take the case of Nicholas of Myra. In the 4th century, in the Eastern Roman Empire, he was the Christian bishop of a town now known as Demre in Turkey.
   There are many traditions about him, most focused on and praising his generosity and secret gift-giving. The best known is about how he rescued three girls whose family was so poor that they had no dowry money for marriages for them by dropping small bags of gold coins through the window of their home at night.
   That’s about it. There are many embellishments in stories about his life, legends really, but very few “hard facts”. His feast is celebrated on December 6th or, in some places, December 19th.
   This is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the origins of the Santa Claus story—but, oh so many elaborations and embellishments over the centuries, so much imagination.
   The majority of modern descriptions of St. Nicholas/Santa Claus are shaped by the famous 1823 poem, “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, and his visits are more associated now with the birthday of Jesus than Nicholas’s own feast day.

   In any case, all this is a great illustration of the role of imagination in religious life and faith—and, in this case, the excessive role of imagination.
   It’s only human that we relate the factual matters of our religious faith with descriptive words or imagined supplementary details. But, we don’t want the embellishments to be so many or so elaborate that they disguise or distort the truth itself.
   The contemporary temptation is to hastily and carelessly discard religious traditions, customs, and teachings from centuries before as though they were purely works of imagination.
   Patience! Of course, they were embellished. We can’t communicate effectively merely by citing the judicially correct, bare-bones, root truth—and especially when we’re trying to communicate (in the best sense of the word) a mystery.
   It’s not a terrible thing to tell little kids about Santa Claus, but it would be if you swore on a Bible that it is “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God!”
   It’s not a terrible thing to teach kids standard catechism questions and answers and religious customs, but as they grow up they need to sift the root truths about matters of faith from religious imaginations that have embellished them over the years.
   When kids grow up, they don’t usually abandon their parents for telling them so many detailed embellishments about Santa Claus, but they do sort out the “hard facts” and know that there really are in this world exemplary people like St. Nicholas.


20 February 2022

Playing Many Roles

A great actor/actress can handle a wide variety of roles. Sometimes they can so effectively become “another person” that at first we don’t realize who they really are.
   Others may be excellent and entertaining performers, but they’re always more or less playing the same kind of character even in very different situations.
   In life, each of us has a variety of roles to play and, similarly, sometimes, for better or for worse, we’re playing the same character throughout. For example, you may be a good mother, but you’re not a good sister if you treat your adult siblings like children.
   As a priest, I’m used to being called “Father”, but a more accurate label for what people expect might be “Brother”. Most people want understanding and compassion from a priest more than paternal correction and being told what to do.
   There also are various categories of roles we play throughout our lives. Some are rooted in biology like child or senior, sister or brother, mother or father, aunt or uncle.
   Some are the result of actions we take such as husband or wife, employee or employer, leader or follower; others result from the actions or rules of others like victim or prisoner, citizen or illegal alien, celebrity or outcast.
   And, of course, the passage of our lives casts us in different roles all the time.
   What defines each role we play is relationship, and most of the labels we use for them involve relationships
   If I have great love and concern within me, but never manifest it to others in word or deed, then I can’t be considered a lover or an empath. I’m not playing the role, even though perhaps I could.
   There’s no hypocrisy in all of this. We all behave differently to different people at different times. We don’t act the same with every other person we relate to in our lives. We are multifaceted, complex beings.

   If each of us has a variety of relationships in our lives and a variety of roles to play—if each of us doesn’t communicate all that we are and all that we can be in every relationship we have, what about God?
   Over the centuries, different religious traditions have developed different ways to describe the different relationships we have to God and the different relationships God has to us.
   For example, in the early books of the Bible, God is described as the personal God of Abraham. Later he’s called the God of his immediate descendants, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Later still God is considered the family or tribal God of the Israelites (the descendants of Jacob).
   It is took some centuries before the Israelites moved from polytheism to monotheism, from “You shall not have other gods beside me.” to a denial of the very existence of “other gods”.
   The Messianic Jews (the early Christians) began to describe the one and only God in terms of a variety of relationships and ways of communication, especially as:
   – Father: God in the role of the ultimate source of all being and life, the maker, the creator, the sustainer.
   – Son: God self-manifesting through the long-awaited Messiah, Jesus, and his life, example, and teachings.
   – Spirit: God communicating and acting through each, every, and all human persons, in the depths of their being.
   We don’t have up-to-date words to label this complexity, and some of our traditional words no longer mean what once they did.
   We believe in one God, although “Holy Trinity” almost sounds like we don’t!


20 June 2021

Until Death Do Us Part

“Marriage” is a very complicated word—with a very complicated history behind it. It means very different things depending on who is speaking, the language used, and where the speaker comes from.
   “Marriage” historically has had to do with breeding—in the biological sense of sexual reproduction or the procreation of offspring. (Although mating doesn’t always result in procreation.)
   “Marriage” often is described as a kind of bonding—in the sense of a relationship between persons entered into with some degree of consent or, sometimes, constraint. (The relationship may be intended to be—or turn out to be—long or short term or indefinite or life long.)
   “Marriage” may result from merely personal decisions by the parties involved, from mutual agreements between families, and from formal recognition by societal authorities (civil or religious).
   Depending on the culture or customs of a particular time or place, a person may have multiple marriages, whether simultaneously or serially.
   As people, cultures and customs have developed and changed, so has the understanding of “marriage”—a process that is still going on.
   When I was studying Canon (i.e. ecclesiastical) Law many years ago, these were the juridical definitions of the purpose of marriage and of matrimonial consent:

   The primary end of marriage is the procreation and education of children; the secondary, mutual assistance and the remedy of concupiscence. (Canon 1013, §1)
   Matrimonial consent is the act of the will by which both parties give and accept the perpetual and exclusive right to the body for acts which are per se apt to generate offspring. (Canon 1081, §2).

   Canon Law doesn’t seem very romantic! But, don’t blame the canonists. In many times, places, and cultures, romance was not considered a primary factor in marriage.
   Often we speak of marriage as a contract concerning procreation and education of children and sexual rights and obligations.
   Since children can inherit titles, thrones, class or caste prerogatives, money, property, and other material assets, it is clear that there are important contractual matters associated with marriage.
   Sometimes they were at the core of the marriage, since things like love, affection, passion and sexual pleasure could be found and satisfied outside of marriage.
   All this is mostly about legalities. Morality brings another dimension to views about marriage. That’s when we judge certain behaviors, whether within or outside of marriage, as good or bad, holy or sinful.
   When marriage is considered a sacrament, “an outward sign instituted by Christ to bring grace”, the matter becomes even more complex, canonically and theologically.
   For example: When is a marriage “valid”? When/how does a marriage end? When may a marriage be blessed? Are there other relationships that may be blessed? What does it mean, to be blessed?
   In our day, traditional marriages in many different cultures are sometimes being critiqued, reinterpreted, and redefined. What used to be a common and relatively unquestioned institution is being challenged by some and defended by others.
   Long ago, Shakespeare used a grim label for his tale of Romeo and Juliet, two lovers who challenged the marriage customs of their day. He called it a “Tragedy”.


4 April 2021

Remembrance Rituals

Passover is a divinely commanded remembrance ritual that celebrates the liberation of the enslaved descendants of Jacob/Israel—the Hebrew people.
   The Bible describes the repeated, failed attempts to convince the Pharoah to grant them freedom. Ten plagues or divine actions were meant to force his hand. He resisted nine, but with the tenth, the death of every firstborn son, he relented and allowed the Hebrews to leave Egypt.
   Through Moses and Aaron, God instructed the Hebrew people what to do to safeguard their firstborn sons during the final, dreadful, and decisive plague.
   They were to sacrifice a lamb, smear some of its blood on the doorposts and lintel of their dwellings as a marker to spare them from the angel of death, and make a meal of the sacrificed lamb.
   For centuries the key element of the Passover ritual was the actual sacrifice of a lamb followed by the sacrificial meal. However, after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, it was no longer possible to have sacrifices according to the Law.
   Ever since that time, the remembrance ritual changed. The remembrance now includes that of the sacrificial lamb itself, but the meal, no longer actually sacrificial, became more symbolic, a reminder of the ancient salvific acts of God.
   The Passover ritual meal now called the Seder includes various other symbols that remind the participants of details of what they are remembering of the past with thanksgiving and hope.
   Jesus’s death is tied to Passover, and his last supper meal with his disciples before his death is usually identified as a Passover ritual—and anticipatory to the great sacrifice of Jesus’ life.
   For Christians, this ultimate sacrifice of Jesus is at the heart of their version of the ancient remembrance ritual, the Mass.

   Just as on the evening of the tenth plague a lamb was sacrificed and its blood became salvific, so the first followers of Jesus viewed his death on the cross.
   Just as in the Seder the sparing of the firstborn of the Hebrews and their liberation is remembered and symbolically celebrated, so too in the Mass, our being spared and liberated by the death of Jesus is remembered and symbolically celebrated.
   Jesus himself gave the remembrance symbols to his followers: the broken bread, shared by all at the table, this was his body, broken for their and our salvation—the cup of wine, shared by all at table, this was his blood, shed for their and our salvation.
   “Do this in remembrance of me.” he said.
   This remembrance ritual, rooted in the Passover and associated with the Resurrection, began to be enacted every Lord’s Day (Sunday), not just once a year at Passover (Easter) time. It even became a daily ritual for many.
   Because of centuries of theologizing and analyzing of the specifics of the ritual and the meaning of the Lord’s words, as well as great religious divisions about the matter, emphasis was placed on transubstantiation and real presence.
   An unintended consequence has been less attention to the significance of the remembrance ritual’s principal symbolic actions, the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the wine.
   Liturgical reforms in the last century were not so much refinements of complex ceremonials, elaborate vesture, and special architectural arrangements as a challenge to us to rebalance our understanding of this core remembrance ritual of our lives.


21 March 2021

Eye upon the Doughnut

One of my first tastes of philosophy was as a child, in a coffee shop/restaurant, reading this jingle:

As you ramble on through life, brother,
Whatever be your goal,
Keep your eye upon the doughnut
And not upon the hole!

I thought it was great. I still do, but if you try too hard to analyze it, you may miss what it’s saying.
It’s an overall advice to be optimistic rather than pessimistic, to focus more on what you have than on what you don’t. It’s like that riddle of folk philosophy, “Is the glass half-empty or half-full?”
A longer version of the same thought is an old joke about two twin brothers, one always the optimist, the other, the pessimist. One Christmas morning, their parents decided to challenge them.
When the kids woke up, they took the pessimist to a room with a beautiful decorated tree surrounded by presents. He burst into tears. “Look at the star on top of the tree,” he cried, “It’s crooked!”
They took his brother to an empty room with nothing in it but straw and manure on the floor. He clapped his hands in delight, and cried out, “Where’s the pony?”
Going back to the jingle, it’s actually a false dichotomy—the hole in the middle is actually an integral part of the doughnut, a ring shaped piece of baked dough.
You might say that the absences—the missing things—in our life and behavior are also an integral part of our lives.
Not being God, we’re not perfect. Except for a special grace of God, no human person is or ever can be perfect.
We’re all somewhat “doughnut shaped”. We’re all “holey” people trying to become whole and “holy” people!

In the church of the apostles, the great emphasis was on the overwhelming love and mercy of God. Those who embraced the teachings of Jesus didn’t go about bewailing how imperfect they were. On the contrary, they were joyful that they were pardoned for their failings and were now sharers in a new life. And, they eagerly looked forward to wonderful things to come!
Somehow or other, as the centuries passed, maybe because people were “born into” Christianity and took the good news for granted, an emphasis on personal sin and sinfulness gradually became a much more important part of prayer and religious practice.
And, of course, the more we focus on the negative side of our life and behavior, the more down and discouraged we’re likely to become.
It’s a trap! Of course we’re not perfect people. So, of course, we can always find things to bewail—and we can always find others to call attention to our failings.
Let’s face it, we have a very bad habit of keeping our eye upon the hole, and not upon the doughnut!
Here’s another curious thing. You hear others bewailing that people don’t go to confession enough, as in the “old days”.
The roots of the rite of reconciliation were to allow a complete defector among those who had chosen to live according the teachings of Jesus, an “apostate”, to be re-admitted to the Christian community.
Thanks be to God, if we’re getting better and better! Convert your “examination of conscience” into a litany of thanks for the so many occasions of God’s love and mercy!


8 November 2020

From Another Point of View

Remember the experience? A time, when all of a sudden, you looked at a thing from another point of view—and, all of a sudden, it looked very, very different.
Optical illusions are a simple example of that. As a kid, I remember drawing the outlines of a box. You look at it one way, and it’s like you’re looking down on it, even into it, from above—then, all of a sudden, it seems you’re looking up at it from below!
Einstein’s theory of relativity is a sophisticated example of a similar thing. It calls attention to the fact that the position and movement of the observer affects the observation.
Does the sun rise and set? Or, does the earth rotate and the sun stand still?
When did we begin generally to accept the idea that the earth isn’t flat, but round?
Isn’t it odd that the shortest flight from New York to Tokyo may go over the Arctic?

During the Second Vatican Council (1962-1966), there was a very controversial and life-changing shift in a theological point of view:
The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, 21 November 1964, stated in section 8:

The one mediator, Christ, established and constantly sustains here on earth his holy church, the community of faith, hope and charity, as a visible structure through which he communicates truth and grace to everyone . . .
This is the unique church of Christ which in the Creed we profess to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic . . . This church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in the Catholic Church . . . Nevertheless, many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside its visible confines.

What a controversy the cautious words, “subsists in the Catholic Church”, caused! (I remember it well; I was working in the Council at that time.)
Till then, the common point of view was “Outside the church there is no salvation”, and “church” was taken to mean by Catholics as “the Catholic Church”.
The traditional point of view among Catholics before Vatican II was that, over the centuries, many dissidents broke away from the one church of Christ. As a result there now are many churches, but only one is the true church.
The Council began to look at all this from a different point of view. Now, for the first time, Catholics began to distinguish “the church of Christ” from “the Catholic Church.”
“The church of Christ” includes all Christians in their individual and organizational diversity—Western and Eastern Catholics, the various Orthodox churches, the Anglican church, the traditional Protestant churches, Evangelicals, Charismatics, every follower of Jesus!
From this different point of view, there is no black nor white, but various shades of grey. There’s no longer in or out, but varying degrees of unity. The various churches are not ancient enemies seeking unity, but one family whose scattered members are seeking reconciliation.
Negotiations between enemies tend to be rife with suspicion; family reunions are matter of forgiveness and love.
Even if it still seems odd, the shortest way from East to West may go over the North pole!


26 July 2020

Rights, Rules, and Regulations

“It’s a free country, ain’t it?” That used to be part of a very snotty comeback from someone being told what to do—or what not to do.
It’s a very American attitude: brash, bold, assertive, proud—and even disdainful and rebellious.
The United States was born out of rebellion and revolution. The thirteen English colonies rejected the authority of their king, disobeyed his laws and edicts, and asserted that they had a God-given right to be free of him.
Let’s face it, by the standards of their day their behavior was considered illegal, criminal, wicked, and sinful. And, we celebrate it every 4th of July!
The American justification for the revolution and the war for independence involved invoking a higher power and authority than the king and asserting the existence of inalienable natural rights, rights that cannot be taken away by any human authority.
An irony of American history is that we’ve become a very litigious, legalistic country—constantly bring charges against one another and seeking punishment and redress.
We’re constantly arguing about laws, invoking laws, rules, and regulations, and challenging the legitimacy of their interpretation.
American Catholicism also has been very legalistic. For many, the impact of Vatican II was not much more than a change in Church laws, rules, and regulations: turning the altars around, Mass in the vernacular, no more Friday abstinence, and easing up of regulations for Lent.
Here’s a current example of a religious legalism: Because of the Coronavirus, we were “dispensed from the obligation of attending Mass every Sunday”. Dispensed? There weren’t any Sunday Masses!

We can’t blame all of the legalism on American culture. There is a certain legalism in the Church itself.
For centuries, the Church defined itself as a perfect society. The two perfect societies, Church and State, each had their own legislative, judicial, and executive functions and personnel. They each could make laws.
The Church has a Code of Canon Law, courts, judicial trials, and can mete out sentences and punishments.
Of course Church authorities have to be of service to all its members, and their challenge is to be of service: to serve more than rule, to teach more than legislate, to witness more than enforce.
What a curious irony of history! American Catholics historically have been outstandingly obedient, dutiful, and rule-abiding. When it comes to the Church, the majority of them are certainly not at all “brash, bold, assertive, proud—and even disdainful and rebellious”!
In the history of the Church, many others—in many other times and places—have been, for better or for worse!
In hindsight, the American revolution came to be seen as a good—not perfect, not without flaws, faults, and limitations—but as a good. Today, the U.K. and U.S, are not enemies but allies and share common roots, culture, and history.
In the Church, a similar change of attitude has occurred. The “heretics” and “schismatics” of the past are now brothers and sisters in Christ, part of the one Church of Christ in all of its diversity.
Let’s stop waving the “Don’t Step on Me” flag and march under “Ex Pluribus Unum”.


28 June 2020

Thanks Be to God!

What Americans do on the fourth Thursday of the month of November, what Jews do on the fifteenth day of the month of Nisan, and what Christians do on Sundays have a lot in common.
All three involve symbols, and the symbols involve remembrance, and remembrance involves gratitude, and gratitude expresses itself in giving thanks.
Thanksgiving in the United States traces its origin to 53 Pilgrims celebrating their first harvest in Plymouth in 1621, joined by 90 Native Americans. The format of the Thanksgiving celebration is a meal together, giving thanks to God for his bounty, and the typical foods served evoke those of the original celebration, especially turkey, cranberry sauce, corn, and other fall vegetables—and pumpkin pie!
Passover began as a celebration of the liberation of the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt. It is celebrated with a ritual family meal of remembrance, rich in symbolism. Many of the foods eaten are reminders of specific aspects of the ancient history of the Jewish people.
Sunday Mass (or Divine Liturgy) is a kind of weekly echo of the Easter celebration. It is rooted in the Passover observance and also is a ritual, collective meal of remembrance, rich in symbolism. The foods eaten are only two: bread and wine.
Sometimes what happens with ritual observances is that we can get so engrossed in the details that we pay less attention to the overall meaning. And, with ritual meals, we can get so absorbed by the foods themselves that we pay less attention to their symbolism.
Thanksgiving, Passover, and Mass, each in its own way, are about remembering the gifts, love, and providence of God and personally and collectively giving thanks to God for them.

“Thanksgiving” names the essence of the observance, “Passover” alludes to the critical moment in the history of the people of God which was the beginning of the observance, and “Mass”, oddly, echoes the final Latin words of dismissal (Ite, missa est) when the Sunday observance is over!
The better name for the Sunday observance is Eucharist—which comes from the Greek word, eucharistia, meaning gratefulness, thanksgiving.
What sometimes happens with our observance of each of these rituals is that we may become so concerned with, devoted to, or distracted by particular aspects of them that we are insufficiently attentive to their central element and purpose: grateful personal and collective thanksgiving to God.
In St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian Christians, he reminded them of this, that the essence of their weekly observance was more than just a meal together:

. . . the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” (1 Cor 11:23b-24)

The broken bread was to remind them of the loving gift of Jesus’ body, of his life for them; the wine, of the lifeblood of Jesus that sealed the new covenant. For all this, and for you and I being part of it, we ever give grateful thanks to God!


14 June 2020