Church as Eucharistic Community

Church as Eucharistic Community

by Metropolitan Anthony Bloom ( http://masarchive.org/Sites/texts/1988-03-04-1-E-E-T-EW02-002ChurchAsEucharisticCommunity.html )
Forum talk at Pushkin House 4 March, 1988

Some years ago on a similar occasion Archbishop Alexis van der Mensbrugge said to me: 'I can't understand how it is: I am a learned theologian and I need a lot of preparation before I give a talk. You know nothing and you are always prepared to talk.’ And he left the question open. Well, this is the situation at present. I am not going to speak on Bishop John's subject, but I want to say something about the Church as a eucharistic community, because it is a term which is very widely used and which I believe is fraught with great risks and leading to great misunderstandings. Partly as a result of the theology of St Sergius in Paris, partly because of the growth of the practice of frequent Communion in the parishes, the term of eucharistic community has come to mean in the minds of most people that the Church can be defined as the gathered community around the eucharistic celebration. And up to a point this is true. The Church is the only body in the world that is possessed of this mystery of communion of our mystical union with Christ through his Body and Blood. But this conception of the Church as a gathered community, and more especially as a community centred on one of the sacraments of the Church, has, to my mind, serious consequences and very unsatisfactory ones.

Ecclesiological Notes by Fr Alexander Schmemann

Ecclesiological Notes
by Fr Alexander Schmemann

1. One of the greatest "ecumenical" difficulties the Orthodox Church has is that her thought forms and "terms of reference" are different from those of the West. And, since the ecumenical movement was shaped primarily by Western theological presuppositions and antecedents, its Orthodox participants were, from the very beginning, forced to express their positions and points of view within a theological framework alien to, or at least different from, the Orthodox tradition. This is especially true of ecclesiology. The Orthodox East has not been challenged either by the politico-ecclesiological controversies typical of the Western Middle Ages or by the Reformation. It remained free, therefore, from the "polemical" and "definitional" ecclesiology which underlies the Western De Ecclesia, whether in its Roman Catholic or Protestant form, and which conditions to a great degree the ecumenical debate on the Church. 

The Aim of Liturgical Reform

"The aim of liturgical reform is repentance and conversion of the Christian who hears God inviting him or her to be a priest in his service. The Christian accepts this invitation and spends the rest of his or her lifetime claiming it and attempting to learn how to interiorize it. The transformation of the Christian into a Christ, an anointed one in God’s service, does not occur instantaneously. It is instead a gradual process requiring the participant to hear and receive the invitation to be a priest over and over again, and to actively participate in the liturgy. As the participant attempts to embody these qualities taken from Jesus’ humanity, he or she fails, only to return to the liturgy again, to begin the process of rehearsal anew. The reality of the human participation in the liturgy is such that at any point, a participant can reject the divine invitation to be a priest in his service, or simply ignore it while focusing on other matters.

Evaluating the success and impact of liturgical renewal will always be a tricky matter because the point of renewal is to create a clear path for God to communicate his invitation to serve the Church and the world in the liturgy; today, there is very little pastors can do to ensure that people will heed this divine invitation beyond joyously welcoming them.

Attempts to coerce people through the threat of ecclesial interdict or personal humiliation is a gross violation of free human will to engage the liturgy, and it is this human will which requires the creation of a custom evaluative matrix for liturgical reform."

+ Nicholas E. Denysenko, "Liturgical Reform After Vatican II: the Impact on Eastern Orthodoxy"

Jean Vanier on Death and Vulnerability

Jean Vanier on CBC Radio One's "As It Happens" on Thursday 26 May, 2016

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-tuesday-edition-1.3609214/jean-vanier-founder-of-l-arche-urges-caution-on-doctor-assisted-dying-law-1.3609219

or

https://youtu.be/fzsLEFQuOPw

Transcript:

Introduction:
The deadline is looming, parliament is under pressure to pass legislation governing assisted dying by June 6th. The Supreme Court gave it 16 months to craft the bill, some now say that wasn't enough time to get it right. Even within the liberal party, critics complain the law is too restrictive, it's legally flawed, and to those who still oppose the idea, completely unacceptable.

With the clock ticking loudly, anyone with an opinion is fighting to be heard, and one voice that has been consistently, quietly urging caution belongs to 87 year old Jean Vanier. He is the Canadian founder of the L'Arche foundation, which is a network of communities that supports people with intellectual disabilities. We reached Mr. Vanier in Trosly-Breuil, France.

Priesthood and Active Participation in the Divine Liturgy

"A vibrant liturgical life has two primary pillars. First, it depends on this renewed notion of priesthood. A body of people who encounter God through Christ the high priest can be transformed by God into people made worthy of representing him in and to the world.

Ordained priests who celebrate liturgy in such a way that it informs people of their priestly identity perform the ministry of building up the body of Christ by enabling the people to exercise their priesthood.

As faithful become aware of their own holy vocation, they are drawn to the liturgy as the source of divine grace that gives them the gift of the Spirit needed to exercise priesthood. Second, active participation in the liturgy is a natural consequence of exercising the lay priesthood.

The reverse order of this relationship is equally powerful: as people actively engage the liturgy, they are informed of their priestly identity a fortiori.

In other words, the two pillars of priesthood and active participation in the liturgy are inseparable; one cannot thrive without the other, and a diminishment of either pillar results in the impoverishment of the liturgy."

From Chapter 6 of "Liturgical Reform After Vatican II: the Impact on Eastern Orthodoxy" by Nicholas Denysenko

All Sufficiency

"Therefore, as we also commemorate his holy passion, his resurrection form the dead, His ascension into heavens, his sitting at your hand, O Father, and his second coming which shall be from the heavens, awesome and full of glory; we offer unto you your oblations from what is your, for every condition, concerning every condition and in every condition."

+ From The Institutional Narrative, The Divine Liturgy of St Basil, Coptic Orthodox Rite

“Thine own of Thine own, we offer to Thee, in behalf of all, and for all”

+ Elevation of the Holy Gifts, The Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom

"Deal with us according to your goodness, O you who give food to all flesh. Fill our hearts with joy and gladness, that we too, having sufficiency in every thing always, may abound in every good deed...Lord have mercy...Remember O Lord, those who have brought unto you these gifts, those on whose behalf they have been brought, and those by whom they have been brought. Give them all the heavenly reward....Pray for these holy and precious gifts, our sacrifices and those who have brought them....Lord have mercy."

+ From The Seven Short Prayers, The Divine Liturgy of St Basil, Coptic Orthodox Rite

Believe It or Not

Believe It or Not
By David Bentley Hart
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/04/believe-it-or-not

Giving and Imparting as Mission

"I never stopped trying to exercise my missionary efforts while teaching or talking to or counselling my students. I wasn’t bent on having them join my church, but I was trying to be contagious and to instil in them a sense of faith, of trust, of beauty, and finally of joy.

My idea always was, and still is, to try to discover what is missing in a person’s vision of life, what venue to use in order to reach people on their own ground. Whenever I feel a void, I try to fill it with hope and higher expectations from real life; not career, nor knowledge, but the poetic sacred aspect of life, so often missing from people’s lives.

I insist that it is our sacred duty as those blessed with such abundant blessings from our life: our faith, our church and its services, Pascha, the beauty of nature, faithful friends, etc., to share these blessings with any and all who come into our lives, who cross our path and who dwell, if even momentarily, in our line of vision...

...Every one of us, every day has a chance to proclaim one’s faith and love in deeds and works, in compassion and love, in bringing peace and being truly grateful.

This is mission. Give unto others what we have in abundance."

+ Matushka Juliana Schmemann, "The Joy to Serve" (Montreal: Alexander Press, 2009) 78-80.

The Paradox of Tradition

Ecclesiastical tradition does not put the voice of the past in the place of the voice of the present; in it the past does not kill the present but gives it full force... Tradition must be creative and at the same time conservative. There is no contradiction between these two elements but they are essential and are indispensable to each other. Tradition cannot be conserved unless be continually developed. And it cannot be developed unless it takes place on the shoulder of the past.

“Conservatism” and “Development” are two facets of the same process, which we call holy tradition.

It is worthy to note that this development of the life of the Church is realized not by the act of individuals but the act of the Church, as a witness of the Holy Spirit who lives in the Church, and without declination from her apostolic and patristic mind.

+ Fr. Tadros Malaty, Traditon and Orthodoxy, 53-54

The Mind of Christ and the Advent of the Holy Spirit

“I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.
Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He shall guide you into all the truth:
for He shall not speak from Himself; but what things soever He shall hear, these shall He speak;
and He shall declare unto you the things that are to come” (John 16;12-13).

The new instruction of the Gospel message belongs not to those who are not yet moulded by the Spirit into newness of life and knowledge, and they cannot as yet contain the mysteries of the Holy Trinity.

The exposition then of the deeper mysteries of the faith is suitably reserved for the spiritual renovation that was to proceed from the Spirit when the mind of those who believed on Christ would no longer allow them to remain in the obsolete letter of the Law but rather induce their conversion to new doctrines and implant in them thoughts enabling them to see a fair vision of the truth.

And that before the Resurrection of our Saviour Christ from the dead, and before partaking of His Spirit, the disciples were…clinging to the legal dispensation, even though the mystery of Christ was clearly superior to it, one might very readily perceive.

[...] When, by being enriched with the grace that is from above and from heaven, they had their strength renewed, according to the Scripture, and had attained to a better knowledge than before, then we hear them boldly saying: But we have the mind of Christ.

By the Mind of Christ they mean nothing else but the advent of the Holy Spirit into their hearts, revealing unto them in due measure all things whatsoever they ought to know and learn.

When then “He,” that is the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He shall guide you into all the truth. See how free from extravagance the expression is: note the soberness of the phrase. For having told them that the Comforter would come unto them, He called Him the Spirit of Truth, that is, His own Spirit. For He is the Truth.

[...] The Spirit of Truth then, He says, will lead you to complete knowledge of the truth. For as having perfect knowledge of the truth, of which He is also the Spirit, He will make no partial revelation of it to those who worship Him, but will rather engraft in their hearts the mystery concerning it in its entirety.

For even if now we know in part, as Paul says, still, though our knowledge be limited, the fair vision of the truth has gleamed upon us entire and undefiled.

As then no man knoweth the things of a man, according to the Scripture, save the spirit of the man which is in him, in the same way, I think, to use the words of Paul, none knoweth the things of God save the Spirit of God which is in Him.

Since He is My Spirit [says Jesus], and as it were My Mind, He will surely speak to you of the things concerning Me.

+ St Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376-444): Commentary on John, Book 10 [on John 16:12-13].