Once we reach to point in the Liturgy wherein we hear this exhortation – Let us stand aright. Let us stand in awe. Let us be attentive to offer the holy oblation in peace – we enter into the ANAPHORA. The Anaphora is the central core of the Eucharistic Liturgy. It is at this point that we actively remember and join ourselves to the actions of Christ when He established the way that He can truly be with us,

We must remember that the early Church understood the presence of Christ in the Eucharist in a literal way, preached it and wrote about it. At the beginning of the second century, St. Ignatius, the martyred bishop of Antioch, wrote to the Church of Smyrna: “The Docetists abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ that suffered for our sins and that the Father, out of his goodness, has raised from the dead.” If the Christians had believed that the Eucharist was only a symbol or appearance, the Docetists would not have been heretics. To the Christians in Philadelphia (not the one in the United States), Ignatius wrote: “Be careful, then, to have but one Eucharist, for there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ and one cup for (demonstrating) the unity of his blood.”

Some fifty years later, Justin Martyr explains the doctrine of the Eucharist to Emperor Antonius Pius, the Senate, and Roman people: “Not as ordinary bread and common drink do we partake of them, but just as, through the word of God, our Savior Jesus Christ became incarnate and took upon himself flesh and blood for our salvation, so, we have been taught, the food which has been made the Eucharist by the prayer of his word…is the flesh and blood of this Jesus who was made flesh.”

As we celebrate the Anaphora, we prayerfully call upon our Triune God to make present the Second Person of the Trinity in His humanity – in His flesh and blood so that He might be truly present to us. This is expressed in the second prayer offered by the priest at the beginning of the Anaphora: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the communion in the Holy Spirit be with all.”

When Jesus promised His disciples that He would be with them until the end of time, He made His promise real by giving us the Eucharist – by giving us Himself.