Mystical Supper

As I am sure all of my readers already know, Jesus, before He was crucified, created a ritual that became the new way of worshiping God. His act of saying that bread and wine can be His very Body and Blood through the power of the Holy Spirit, made it possible that He could, for all eternity, continuously offer an unbloody sacrifice to His Father in cooperation with His Church and find a way to be present to His followers until the end of time. His command to repeat this ritual also provided His followers with a means of offering their very lives, together with Him, to the Father. By His actions He created a new, personal way to worship God. He revealed to humankind that the worship of God is not by offering and destroying something you own but spiritually offering your life to God in thanksgiving for life. Food (i.e., bread and wine) is a perfect symbol of life. The offering of one’s life is the ultimate act of worship, especially when joined with the spiritual sacrifice of Jesus.

So the ritual that we use during the Divine Liturgy uses symbols of life and offers them to God in thanksgiving. Now the important thing is to make this offering personal – make it something that you intend and went to do. This takes thought! This requires intention! This means that we intentionally want the bread and wine to represent our very life and that we desire to offer our very life to God in thanksgiving for the gift of life in union with Jesus.

This ritual action also requires something of us. It requires that we psychologically make sure that we are in union with the community with which we worship. Why? Because in order to be in communion with Christ, we must first be in communion with others, especially those who worship with us. If we are not in communion with others. This communion with others, however, is not limited to only those with whom we perform this ritual.

This all makes perfect sense when you think about it. If, indeed, God is the life-force within all humans, then to be in communion with God means to be in communion with all others. This is why the symbols of bread and wine are so very perfect. It takes many grains of wheat and many grapes to make bread and wine. One grain of wheat or one grape doesn’t work! In order for bread and wine to be produced, the grains of wheat and the grapes must be crushed to form dough and wine.