Broken and shared in the Eucharist
We live in a world where some people are not comfortable with excellence; a world where good, sincere, hardworking and dedicated people are perceived as a threat rather than an encouragement. This competitive attitude has caused a lot of calamities in the world. Herod killed the innocent children just because he heard that a new […]
We live in a world where some people are not comfortable with excellence; a world where good, sincere, hardworking and dedicated people are perceived as a threat rather than an encouragement. This competitive attitude has caused a lot of calamities in the world.
Herod killed the innocent children just because he heard that a new king had been born. Jealousy and greed for power often lead to egocentrism which is the worst evil in our world today. No wonder St. Paul admonished the Philippians long time ago: “There must be no competition among you, no conceit; but everybody is to be self-effacing. Always consider the other person to be better than yourself, so that nobody thinks of his own interest first but everybody thinks of other people’s interest instead (Philippians 2, 3-4).
The attack on the places of worship in Nigeria and elsewhere today is not just an effort to wipe out Christianity from the face of the earth but an effort to prove the superiority of a sect and a religion to the others as if God is a private monopoly. On Sundays, faithful Christians go to church in some parts of Nigeria with a serious act of faith and hope that they may return home safely without the scourge of a bomb attack while many Christians still believe that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church which Christ himself founded on a rock (Matthew 16, 18).
Jesus in the Holy Eucharist is the priest and the victim who offers himself daily for the living and the dead under the appearances of bread and wine. He made himself the bread broken and shared and the wine poured forth and shared that we may have eternal life.
Jesus Christ instituted the Holy Eucharist in the context of the Jewish Passover which is also called the feast of unleavened bread (hag hamatzot) in the Hebrew Bible. The commandment to keep the Passover is recorded in Leviticus 23, 5. The Passover reminded the Jews of their slavery and suffering in Egypt. In every Passover, the Jews remembered their salvation history; that God was good to them, that he is still present with them and that he will abide with them in the future.
The phrase, “breaking of bread” appears four times in the New Testament (Luke 24:35; Acts 2:42, 2:46, 20:7). The act of breaking is not pleasant. This indicates the sacrifice of self-giving which was instituted at the Lord’s Supper and consummated on the Cross of Calvary.
In Greek language the Lord’s Supper is called (Κυριακὸν δεῖπνον) in the sense of sharing a meal together. The Greek noun for the Eucharist is εὐχαριστία (eucharistia), meaning “thanksgiving”. St. Paul testifies to this in his first letter to the Corinthians. “For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body which is given up for you. Do this in memory of me.’” (1 Corinthians 11:23-24).
The gospel of John, recounts how Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, the prophecy of the betrayal, which set in motion the events that would lead to the cross, and his long discourse in response to some questions posed by his followers, in which he went on to speak of the importance of the unity of the disciples with him and each other (John 6).
The name Holy Communion is derived from the Latin word “communion”, meaning “sharing in common”. This translates the Greek κοινωνία (koinōnía) as reported by Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians (10, 16). The Eucharist is a Sacrament in which the species of bread and wine made from flours and grapes are outward signs of the inward grace which we experience after consecration.
Transubstantiation denotes what is changed and not an explanation of how the transformation occurs. The church teaches that “the signs of bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ”. The main basis for this belief is the words of Jesus himself at his Last Supper: “This is my body” … this is my blood.” (Matthew 26, 26-28; Mark 14, 22-24; Luke 22, 19-20; 1 Corinthians 11:23-25).
In 1551 the Council of Trent definitively declared: “Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread (John 6, 51), it has always been the conviction of the church of God, and this holy council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood”.
The Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215 affirms that Jesus Christ is truly present in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine. Pope Paul VI in his 1965 encyclical letter Mysterium fidei also affirms this. In his 1968 “Credo of the People of God”, he reiterated that Christians should genuflect to the consecrated host in the tabernacle in order to acknowledge respectfully the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. So we call on all Christians not to be afraid.
In this year of faith, we pray for all those who have been killed in the process of making this offering and worship to God and to those who are afraid to go to church on Sundays, do not let your heart be troubled (John 14, 1). “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword (Romans 8, 35)? God is still faithful to his promise.
“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth” (Psalm 46, 10)
Fr (Prof) Omonokhua is the Director of Mission and Dialogue of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, Abuja and Consultor for the Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims (CRRM), Vatican City, Rome