Sacramentally Speaking

In today’s mass reading, we read the following passage from St. Paul’s first epistle to the church in Corinth:

I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you,

that 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.”

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,

you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.

These verses are rich in theology and tell us so much that relates to the Feast Corpus Christi (which is celebrated today in my diocese but was also celebrated by many faithful this past Thursday). In these verses, we see how the Eucharist was such a pillar for the infant Church under severe persecution.

The first and one of the central ideas I want visit relates to the early idea of redemption being found in the Body of Christ. There is a Hellenistic outlook made popular by Plato that shows up time and time again in his writings. This is the idea that the body is some kind of tormented detention of the soul. Plato writes in Phaedrus that we are “…entombed in this which we carry about with us and call the body, in which we are imprisoned like an oyster in its shell.” And then of course we have the more widely known account of Plato referring to the body as the tomb of the soul while playing on phonetic similarities in the Ancient Greek language: “the body (σῶμα – Soma) is a tomb (σῆμα – Sema)”. There is a lot that we can pull from Paul’s text (and Christ’s words) with this historical and cultural context.

I do not wish to make an argument that says that the disciples had to have known about Plato’s philosophy explicitly, however, it most certainly had an influence on the Greek speaking world in which they lived. For example, Cicero, a Roman statesmen and scholar, was a crucial player in transmitting Greek philosophical ideas to the ruling class in Rome prior to the birth of Christ. Not to mention the Stoic school of thought, while distinct from Platonism, shared many key ideas revolving around ideals (even if it disagreed on epistemology). The Roman Empire was most defiantly influenced by many Platonic ideas.

Let’s get back to the text. When we look at Christ’s words here, we can now understand how early Gentile readers might see him as turning something they perceived as a prison into the very means of divine engagement with the physical. In John 6 we read our Lord’s words: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.” (v. 56-57). We, through the physical, are called to share in the representation (or remembrance – ἀνάμνησιν) of His once for all sacrifice made at Golgotha (Heb. 10:1-18).

The last thing I would like to look at is that word used for remembrance, “ἀνάμνησιν” in Greek. This often has sacrificial overtones when used in the Septuagint (LXX: Lev. 2:2,2:9,24:7, Num. 10:10). With this jewish context, we can deduce that Christ was harkening back to memorial sacrifices offered at the Jewish temple in this Passover meal with the Apostles. As any good hermeneutics professor would admit, we cannot read these passages of the words of the institution of the Holy Eucharist without understanding its original context. A good way to understand the context of a passage is to seek out the earliest references in the writings of the early Church. Here is one of my favorite quotes from St. Ignatius of Antioch in his Letter to the Philidelphians (110 AD):

“Make certain, therefore, that you all observe one common Eucharist (εὐχαριστία – “Thanksgiving” in Greek) ; for there is but one Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and but one cup of union with his Blood, and one single altar of sacrifice—even as there is also but one bishop, with his clergy and my own fellow servitors, the deacons. This will ensure that all your doings are in full accord with the will of God”

Similarly, in his dialogue with Trypho the Jew, St. Justin Martyr says that Christians “offer sacrifices to him, that is, the bread of the Eucharist and also the cup of the Eucharist” (115 AD). Of Course I would be remiss if I did not mention this crucial passage from the 14th chapter of the Didache which clarified early christian belief on this matter: “Assemble on the Lord’s day, and break bread and offer the Eucharist; but first make confession of your faults, so that your sacrifice may be a pure one.”

So when we hear the words “Do this in remembrance of me,” we should not think of mere mental recollection. Our Lord is not asking us just to think back to what He did. He is calling us to participate in it. The early Church knew this. The Eucharist was not just a symbol to them, but a sacrificial reality, one rooted in both Scripture and in Sacred Tradition handed down by the Apostles. In a culture shaped by Greek philosophy and Jewish tradition, the idea that God would redeem through the body (through bread and wine) was radical. But this is exactly what Christ does. He takes what was seen by many as weak, broken, or a hindrance to the human experience, and makes it the very means of grace.

Have a blessed feast of Corpus Christi!