PARTICIPATION IN THE CELEBRATION OF EUCHARIST

Deepens union with Christ and calls us into communion with one another

Church tradition teaches that the origins of the Eucharist are to be found in the Last Supper of Jesus and how the early community obeyed Jesus' command to ‘break bread’ in His name (Acts 2: 42). This remembering of the Last Supper became a central ritual for Christians when they gathered together. In the earliest times, the Eucharist was celebrated along with a shared meal in the homes of local Christians.

In his First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul describes a Eucharist celebrated in connection with a common supper shared in the homes of the Early Christians. This supper included the blessing of the bread and wine, the breaking of the bread, and Communion. As the numbers of Christians grew, the Eucharist as a sacred meal separated from the common meal.

Believers take part in the Eucharist to give thanks to God, and share this meal as a community. In community believers gain strength from each one who has gathered.

The obligation for all Catholics to attend and participate in Sunday Mass is built on the belief that without the Eucharist we cannot effectively be the Church for ‘cut off from Christ we can do nothing’. This obligation is based on two commands:

The command of Jesus: ‘Do this in [memory] of me’ (Luke 22: 19), which he gave to his followers at the Last Supper;
The third of the Ten Commandments: ‘Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy’ (Exodus 20: 8), which is now celebrated on a Sunday to remember the Resurrection of Jesus on that day.

The Eucharist deepens union with Christ and calls us into communion with one another. The Eucharist remits sin and calls us to a deeper conversion in Christ.

So Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; 55for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. 56Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. (John 6:53–56)

When people see a gathering of Church members, such as at Mass, they see the Body of Christ. This is a sign of the invisible reality that these people are in spiritual union with Christ.

People throughout the world gather for Mass. This is because the Church includes people from different nationalities, cultures and ethnic groups. Catholics all over the world are a sign of Jesus drawing together people of all nationalities, bringing them closer to God and to each other.

The four qualities of the Church are that as a community it is:

One
Holy
Catholic
Apostolic.

Catholics express their belief in these central teachings about the qualities of the Church when they pray The Apostles’ Creed. The Apostles’ Creed is an early formulation of the Church’s basic belief dating from the time of the apostles. The Nicene Creed draws from the wisdom of the first two ecumenical Councils in 325 and 381.

HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE EUCHARIST

PASSOVER

Jesus was a Jew, and like many Jews, sharing meals was an important part of his daily ritual. Meals were an opportunity to build and rebuild relationships in the family.

There are many different festivals that the Jewish people celebrate throughout the year. One of these festivals is the Passover. The Passover festival commemorates the last meal of the Jewish people before their flight out of Egypt. Moses led the Jews out from slavery to the Promised Land and gave thanks for their freedom (Exodus 12). A lamb was sacrificed as part of this festival. This Passover (Seder) meal has been celebrated for over 4000 years.

Each family prepares for this festival by cleaning the house and oven, gathering together special dishes and cutlery used only for special events, and inviting other relatives and friends to celebrate this meal with them so that no one will be left to celebrate on their own. Everyone wears their best clothes.

The supper table is set very carefully with special items:

The book called hagaddah (Hebrew for ‘retelling’) containing the story of how the Jews escaped from slavery in Egypt;
In the middle of the table a plate called the Seder plate. In the middle of this plate is a bowl of salty water. Around the outside, there are smaller dishes of different foods: haroset (chopped nuts, dried fruit, cinnamon mixed with wine); bitter herbs; parsley; roasted egg; and a lamb bone.

At this meal, the Jewish people drink wine and eat unleavened bread which is flat and crisp. When everything is prepared, the meal can begin.

The festival begins in the evening after all the festival candles have been lit. The youngest person present begins the celebration by asking a number of questions e.g. Why is this night different from all other nights? Why do we eat only unleavened bread? Why do we dip a vegetable in salt water? Why do we eat bitter herbs? Why do we all sit in a reclining position as Roman freemen did? These questions provide a starting point for the recounting of the story. The father of the family reads the story. He uses the food to help the family remember the important parts of the story. The meal is then shared and the evening concludes with traditional Passover songs. Special prayers are said throughout the celebration, for example ‘Blessed art thou, Lord our God, Master of the universe, who has kept us alive and sustained us and has brought us to this special time.’

Jesus and his disciples ate a Passover meal together before Jesus’ Passion and Death. Jesus’ final Passover meal with his friends is known as the Last Supper. All four of the scriptural Gospels recount this meal. In Luke’s Gospel, we hear Jesus’ words: ‘…Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the Gospel of John, we see Jesus washing the feet of the disciples. Jesus says: ‘So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.’ (John 13: 14).

THE LAST SUPPER AND THE MASS

The liturgy recalls the events that saved us and makes them present

Jesus and his disciples ate a Passover meal together before Jesus’ Passion and Death. Jesus’ final Passover meal with his friends is known as the Last Supper and is recounted in all four Synoptic Gospels.

In Luke’s Gospel, we hear Jesus’ words: ‘Do this in memory of me’. In the Gospel of John, we see Jesus washing the feet of the disciples. Jesus says: ‘So, if I your Lord and teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.’ (John 13:14).

Church Tradition teaches how the Eucharist began at the Last Supper and how the early community obeyed Jesus' command to ‘break bread’ in his name (Acts 2:42). This memorial of the Last Supper became a central ritual for Christians when they gathered together. In the earliest times, the Eucharist was celebrated along with a shared meal in the homes of local Christians.

In his First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul describes a Eucharist celebrated in connection with a common supper shared in the homes of the early Christians.

This supper included the blessing of the bread and wine, the breaking of the bread, and communion. As the numbers of Christians grew, the Eucharist as a sacred meal separated from the common meal.

Believers today still remember and celebrate the Last Supper on Holy Thursday. For Jews, this time is the beginning of the Jewish Passover Festival. The bread and wine are symbols of nourishment and food for the Christian journey. Believers take part in the Eucharist to give thanks to God, and share this meal as a community. In community believers gain strength from everyone who has gathered.

Mark 14:12-26

The Passover with the Disciples
On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, his disciples said to him, ‘Where do you want us to go and make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?’ So he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, ‘Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the owner of the house, “The Teacher asks, Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?” He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.’ So the disciples set out and went to the city, and found everything as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover meal.

When it was evening, he came with the twelve. And when they had taken their places and were eating, Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.’ They began to be distressed and to say to him one after another, ‘Surely, not I?’0He said to them, ‘It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the bowl with me. For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born.’

The Institution of the Last Supper
While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, ‘Take; this is my body.’ Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. He said to them, ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.’

THE ORIGINS OF THE EUCHARIST

The ritual we call the Eucharist was being celebrated by Christians before the New Testament scriptures were formed.

The Letters of Paul, written between the year 40 and the year 60 speak of the tradition of the celebration of the Eucharist originating in the words and actions of Jesus at his Last Supper which were passed on to him and which he in turn passed on to the communities he established.

The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke recount the meal Jesus shared with his disciples the night before he died in which he associated the actions and words of that meal with his death on the cross on the following day. The Eucharist celebrates and represents this same mystery throughout the ages of the Church. John’s account of the Last Supper has a different emphasis but Chapter 6 of his gospel contains an extended reflection on the meaning of the Bread of Life which is deeply Eucharistic.

The Acts of the Apostles also shows that the Eucharist (at first called ‘the Breaking of Bread’) was one of the cornerstones of Christian life and identity from earliest times. While the first context for the Eucharist was an actual meal, Paul’s Letters show that, even by the mid-first century, the Eucharistic meal was separating from an ordinary meal.

Christianity grew from Jewish roots, and the development of the Eucharist was influenced by Jewish prayer and practice, especially the offering of praise and thanks to God and the liturgical understanding that when the great events of salvation are celebrated ritually, for example at Passover, their power and reality are extended into the present and are immediately available to each person.

The New Testament texts as well as being based in Jesus’ words and actions at the Last Supper were influenced by the words and actions of the first Christian communities as they celebrated the ritual that Jesus gave to his own on the night before his death.

The basic shape of the Eucharist is established in these early texts: bread and wine are taken, thanks and praise are offered to God over them, the bread is broken and the bread and wine received by all. All experience the presence of Christ with them as they eat and drink the Body and Blood of the Lord.

The basic meaning of the Eucharist is also established in the texts of the scripture: the Eucharist proclaims and makes present through the ages the mystery of the Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

THE EARLY CHURCH

For the first three centuries the Eucharist celebrated in houses, in homes and in secret.

For the first three centuries the Eucharist was celebrated in the houses and homes of Christians. In times of persecution these celebrations would have been in secret, in catacombs and other hidden spots. At other times Christians gathered together openly in each others’ homes or in ‘house churches’ for the Eucharist though Mass was not celebrated publicly as it is in our own time.

The liturgy around the core of the Eucharist, the re-enactment of Jesus’ words and actions at the Last Supper, developed gradually. Christians borrowed from the Jewish synagogue ritual a service of readings and prayers which preceded the taking, blessing and breaking of the bread.

Readings were taken from the Old Testament scriptures and from what would become the New Testament scriptures; and the letters and testimonies of the apostles and disciples. Psalms would be sung.

After these the leader of the community would pray spontaneous prayers of thanks and praise over the bread and wine, recalling especially the acts of God in Jesus Christ before breaking the bread and sharing the cup. Thus from early times the structure of the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist was established.

This is how St Justin described the Eucharist around the year 150:

On Sunday we have a common assembly of all our members, whether they live in the city or the outlying districts. The recollections of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as there is time. When the reader has finished, the president of the assembly speaks to us; he urges everyone to imitate the examples of virtue we have heard in the readings. Then we all stand up together and pray. On the conclusion of our prayer, bread and wine and water are brought forward. The president offers prayers and gives thanks to the best of his ability, and the people give assent by saying, “Amen”. The Eucharist is distributed, everyone present communicates, and the deacons take it to those who are absent.

The earliest language of the Mass was generally Koine Greek, the common tongue of the Greco Roman Empire, though other vernacular languages such as Aramaic/Syriac were also used. Latin, the language of Western Europe and North Africa began to be used there, and by 380 was used in Rome. Latin eventually became the liturgical language of the Mass throughout the West while Greek remained the chief, but not the only, liturgical language of the East.

RELIGION OF THE EMPIRE

In the year 313 the Edict of Milan ensured the freedom of the Church and established Christianity as the religion of the Empire. This meant that Christianity moved into the public domain.

The number of Christians increased greatly and the Eucharist began to be celebrated in formal buildings often based in shape and size on the basilicas, large rectangular buildings where people gathered for meetings and to conduct public affairs.

Further rites were developed to adapt the Eucharistic celebration to its new public reality. In a small domestic celebration of the Eucharist there is less need for formal introductory rites as people simply gather, and prayers and readings can begin immediately, but at a large formal gathering, rites to prepare people and mark the starting point of a ceremony are much more necessary hence the development of Introductory Rites at the Eucharist.

More formal ceremonies demand more formal texts and a definite structure. So the order of the Mass became standard and texts for the Eucharistic Prayers began to be written down rather than spontaneous.

Visibility required the raising of the altar table, so the sanctuary began to be somewhat detached from the assembled people and a separation began between the clergy and congregation.

During this period Mass began to be celebrated facing to the East in expectation of Christ, ‘the rising sun’: the people faced east, the Priest at their head and the altar tables were often set in an apse against the eastern wall.

Bishops were raised to a rank of honour within the Empire and were identified by clothing paralleling the dress of secular leaders.

Processions developed naturally as Bishops and ministers entered the body of the Church and moved through the people to the sanctuary.

Especially in the East, torches, candles and incense became part of the liturgy and spread throughout the Church and song accompanied these processions.

After a greeting the readings began. The role of the congregation was to respond and assent to the words and actions of the Bishop and ministers through acclamations both spoken and sung, to bring forward the gifts of bread and wine and gifts for the poor at the commencement of the Eucharistic liturgy, and to come forward to receive Holy Communion.

People received the Body of Christ in order to become the Body of Christ. St Augustine said, ‘Be what you see and receive what you are’.

While the form and texts of the Mass were settled by the end of the 5th century, there was still a variety of usage throughout both East and West and the liturgical life of the whole Church was enriched by the adoption of aspects of each other’s practice. A good example of this is the development of Holy Week. Liturgies honouring the key events of the last week in the life of Jesus began in the Church at Jerusalem and gradually spread to the whole Church.

THE MIDDLE AGES

The Middle Ages saw the Christianisation of most of Europe. People were born into faith as they were born into society. And, as in any society, there was a range of behaviour and commitment reflected in the celebration of the Eucharist.

On the one hand, Mass was celebrated in great cathedrals and abbeys with liturgies of great power and beauty. On the other hand, some Priests and people had little education or instruction to help them to understand their faith and its liturgy.

In general, the Middle Ages saw a great flowering of monasticism which influenced the way the Eucharist was celebrated.

During this period the clergy and monastics gradually assumed liturgical roles previously fulfilled by the people. At Masses that were not sung, the Priest said all the prayers and readings himself and was responded to by minor clerics and eventually altar servers.

Typically, much of the Mass was recited quietly and the gestures and actions of the Priest were followed and understood in an allegorical way. Each gesture was understood to represent some aspect of the mystery of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus. For example, the five times the Priest turned towards the people were understood to represent the five post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus.

During the Middle Ages, stained glass and wall paintings became important to help people pray and reflect on the mysteries that the Priest was celebrating at the altar.

From the 9th century people began to receive Holy Communion on the tongue rather than in their hands because of the possibility of misuse. Later, in the 12th century, communion from the chalice was withdrawn in the West for the same reason.

Receiving Holy Communion at all became rare. Even from the time of late antiquity people had developed such a sense of awe about the Eucharist that they avoided receiving it.

During the Middle Ages they preferred to commune by gazing at the consecrated host as it was held up after the words of consecration. Later in the period this desire to see and adore the Blessed Sacrament led to the practice of Exposition and Benediction.

Moreover, the focus on the Mass as a sacrifice offered to God by the Priest on behalf of the people made it seem less necessary for the people to receive communion or even to be present. This led to the celebration of private Masses. People would pay Priests to say Masses for various intentions especially for the dead. Naturally this led in time to various abuses.

The problem of lack of proper preparation and education of Priests in some places, the proliferation of local customs and extra texts added to or deleted from the Mass added to the confusion.

Despite all this, the Mass did remain the mainstay of Catholic life, and the Middle Ages saw the emergence of one of the great theologians of the Eucharist, St Thomas Aquinas.

He made brilliant use of the new learning of his era to develop a theology which steered the Church away from some of the crude physical explanations, then widespread, while affirming the true presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

COUNCIL OF TRENT

Towards the end of the Middle Ages, many Bishops and leaders were calling for reform.

Towards the end of the Middle Ages, many Bishops and leaders were calling for reform of Church life and order but sadly it was not until after the Protestant Reformation that the Council of Trent was called and the Catholic Church itself undertook a thorough reform, including a reform of the Mass.

A new Missal was prepared which set out the ritual for Mass and purified it of many of the accretions and additions of the medieval period. This Missal replaced the great profusion of local customs with a clearly set out rite that looked back, not yet to the earliest celebrations of the Mass in the first centuries, but to the original Roman rite.

This reform of the Mass was influenced not only by the acknowledged abuses that had gradually crept in but also by the need to affirm key understandings about the Mass against the challenges raised by the Protestant reformers.

These challenges principally concerned the denial of Mass as a sacrifice and the denial of the real presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Efforts were concentrated on restoring the Mass in such a way that its meaning and effect were clear, stripping away the many additions, mandating the ancient rite enshrined in the Roman Missal.

No particular attention was paid to the relationship between Priest and people in the offering of Mass, nor to the role of the congregation apart from their prayerful presence.

However, it was recommended that the people receive Holy Communion each time they attended Mass which was a radical idea at that time. The possibility of celebrating Mass in the vernacular was discussed but was not introduced.

The reforms were widely accepted throughout the Church (though provision was made for rites that had been in use for 200 years or more to continue) and firmly enforced.

A key to this wide and effective reform was the Council’s effort to educate and prepare Priests for their tasks. Seminaries were erected all over the Catholic world for the training of Priests.

These measures, plus the zeal of new orders such as the Jesuits, were highly successful in re-establishing and re-inspiring Catholic Europe. This version of the Mass remained substantially the same for 500 years.

Uniformity and adherence to the rules and rubrics contained in the Missal meant that Catholics could attend Mass anywhere in the world and recognise the same ritual and language. However, the role of the people was still simply to pray along silently at Mass either with a rosary or a prayer book or as best they could. The great abuses disappeared and the Mass was restored, sublime, especially when augmented by the music of Palestrina and other musical masters of the 16th and 17th century, but a Mass in which only the Priest, his assistant ministers and the choir had an active part.

VATICAN II

The liturgical reforms of Vatican II proclaimed the Mass as ‘source and summit of Christian life’ and encouraged the ‘full, conscious and active participation’ of all in the Eucharistic celebration.

The reforms arose from the immense amount of liturgical research carried out by scholars in the 19th and 20th centuries whose studies of the early Church had uncovered sources of ancient celebrations of the Eucharist.

There was a great desire at Vatican II to return to these sources, to re-examine and reappropriate the twin fountains of Church life, Scripture and Tradition, and to apply the insights gained to the liturgy of the contemporary Church.

The greatest effect of the Vatican II reform was the recovery of the liturgical role of the congregation at Mass and the restoration to the people of the responses, songs, acclamations and prayers appropriate to them.

Another important consequence was the restoration of liturgical ministries, lector, cantor, acolyte, for example, so that, led by the Priest, the Mass is clearly seen as an ordered act of praise and thanks to God in which Priest, ministers and people each play their part.

The broader explanation of Christ’s presence in the Eucharistic celebration – in the gathered people, in the proclaimed scripture, in the person of the presiding priest as well as pre-eminently in the elements of bread and wine – encouraged an understanding of the whole Mass as an opportunity of encounter with the Risen Lord and a participation in the Paschal Mystery, rather than focussing chiefly on the moments of consecration or Communion.

The Mass continued to be centred, as it always had been, upon the remembering and re-presentation of the events of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus made present to the Church throughout every age but it was now enriched with a fully developed Liturgy of the Word.

After readings from both Old and New Testaments interspersed with responses and acclamations and concluded by a homily (Liturgy of the Word), the Church carries out the command of Jesus at his Last Supper, bread and wine are taken, consecrated and shared among the people. They become Sacraments of the Body and Blood of the Lord by which all are fed and through which all are immersed in the identity of Christ and share in his mission to the world (Liturgy of the Eucharist). Introductory Rites lead into the Mass and a brief Concluding Rite brings it to an end. Catholics from the first centuries would immediately recognise the basic shape of this celebration.

Another important result of the Vatican II reform was the permission given for the Mass to be celebrated in vernacular languages rather than in Latin, and the audible praying of the Eucharistic Prayer. Congregations could immediately relate to what, for centuries, had been concealed and the People of God had a voice once again!

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