Mystical Supper

After we have praised the Father and remembered the words of the Son, we ask the Father to send down His Spirit and change the gifts which represent life and Jesus. We pray the EPICLESIS:

Moreover, we offer to You this spiritual and unbloody sacrifice, and we implore, pray and entreat You: send down Your Holy Spirit upon us and upon these gifts lying before us and make this bread the precious Body of Your Christ… and that which is in this chalice, the precious blood of Your Christ…changing them by Your Holy Spirit.

The word Epiclesis is from the Ancient Greek πίκλησις (invocation or calling down from on high). This prayer highlights Eastern Christianity’s understanding that the Father accomplishes all things through the Son in the Holy Spirit.

There is, after the Epiclesis, a wonderful short prayer that the priest says silently which all should become aware of. The priest prays:

That to those who partake of them (the two gifts – bread and wine), they may be for the purification of the soul, for the remission of sins, for the communion of Your Holy Spirit, for the fullness of the heavenly kingdom, for confidence in You and not for judgment or condemnation.

Indeed, this summarizes why God, in the Person of Jesus, did what He did

on the night before He died.

I know that it is difficult to believe that somehow the bread and wine that we use, after we pray over them, are somehow transformed and that Christ is truly present with us. In more recent days I have come to realize that, if we think of the gifts are transformed only into His Body and Blood, that we fail to recall that it is Christ Who is present to us in these consecrated gifts. Indeed Christ is not just His body and blood but also His very person. So we believe in the REAL PRESENCE – we believe in Christ’s presence with us.

At the same time, if we truly join ourselves to Christ and offer ourselves together with Him to the Father in thanksgiving for life, then we too are transformed – are changed – into the anointed of God.

The Holy Eucharist – wherein Christ is truly present – is not an easy idea to comprehend. It is a mystery. Christ told His apostles, and therefore us, that He would be present with them. He achieves this by the Holy Eucharist.

I would ask you to think about this!.