THE BANQUETING CHAMBER
And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need.
I think that’s the earliest description of a Mass. From the Apology of St Justin around AD 150. I hope it sounds familiar.
Of course the mysteries were kept secret then. Only the baptized were allowed in. Rather like the Warrant Officers allowed into the anteroom for a glass of sherry, but not into the Officers’ Mess, the catechumens were kept out. Even St Gregory the Great is reluctant to speak to another bishop of the Mass of the Faithful.
But it’s time for us to go into the Chamber now.
The newly baptized would have been robed in white. To show their sinlessness and their priestly state. We should be reconciled by now, not only to God but to each other.
When they put the Creed into the Roman Rite, at the end of the first millennium, it was put before the beginning of the Offertory, but I think it belongs in the chamber because it is a prayer only the faithful can make.
In the Old Rite the priest sings Dominus vobiscum and Oremus, but no prayer follows it, as it usually does. This was where the Prayer of the Faithful used to be, until it was removed around AD 500. They’ve brought it back in the New Rite, not always very felicitously, and sometimes burdening us with a torrent of words, but it has a right to be there because it belongs to our common baptismal priesthood to intercede, and it makes us think of wider needs than those of our own selves or our own group.
Then comes the Offertory. It used to be the laity’s special job to provide the bread and wine, which is why the collection comes here.
Do you like the procession of the gifts? With bongo bongo music and African dancing? Perhaps not, I think, particularly if the dancers aren’t really African and some of the gifts are somewhat unsuitable. Yet there was sometimes a procession of the gifts in the Old Rite. At a bishop’s consecration and, I think, at a Papal Mass.
Of course it’s all symbolic. But of what?
Of offering. Of offering ourselves. To be changed. As the gifts are changed. It’s as simple as that.
It’s easy to get into a muddle about priesthood. My priesthood and our common priesthood. I remember Kallistos Ware saying something about this at Oxford forty years ago now. Just one sentence: ‘One is priest, all are priests, some are priests’. In that order.
One is priest. Christ. And his priesthood offers himself.
All are priests. By baptism. Christened. Configured to Christ’s priesthood. Able to offer the sacrifice of praise. But also expected to offer themselves.
Some are priests. Ministerial priests like me. In the third place.
We’ve only just got into the banqueting chamber, and you might be enjoying a lecture on the liturgy, but we are on retreat. So it’s good to be reminded of what we’re here for.
Dom Gregory Dix saw the Mass as a renewal of our baptism. Even more so should a retreat be. A new beginning. A total commitment. An offering.
Most of us are very happy to offer part of ourselves. Our smiles and good manners. Maybe some money or some entertainment. Maybe some of our time. Maybe much more, by our ordination or profession.
But not everything. Not all. We hold something back. We won’t go all the way.
I remember the story of a man who thought of entering a monastery. But he didn’t. He got married, had a family. But he went back to the monastery every year. To see those he knew and have a short retreat. His marriage wasn’t ultimately successful. You see, he still thought deep down at the back of his mind that one day he might be a monk. It was only when the abbot finally closed that door on him that he realized that he’d messed up his marriage because he’d held something back from his commitment to his wife. He’d always had that secret escape route at the back of his mind.
I’m afraid we all do it. But it won’t do for Our Lord. As C.S. Lewis put it, what he wants from us is very simple. Everything. All of us.
The Latin word now used to describe marriage is a consortium. It’s not an easy word to explain to ordinary couples. In English it sounds like a gigantic corporation: like Google or ICI. But it comes from the word sors which means a lot. A lot that you cast. So it really means ‘throwing your lot in with somebody’. And that in English has two meanings. Not only risk – throwing your lot – but your all – your lot.
None of us are married. But we have made a commitment. Through ordination or religious profession. And a commitment not to a fallible human being but to our all-knowing Lord. So actually there’s less excuse for us not throwing our lot in.
I’m not trying to make us feel guilty. None of us is completely master of our deepest selves. We probably can’t give all of ourselves, however much we want to. But we can at least be aware that we are holding some things back.
And Our Lord knows that each of us has different needs. Different capabilities. A different path to holiness. He won’t take away from us what we need.
But perhaps it’s no bad thing to do a little inventory. To see what we’re holding particularly tightly to and ask why. To differentiate between the two words ‘need’ and ‘want’.
So the next time we see that Offertory, let’s renew our offering of ourselves. Let’s offer ourselves anew to be changed.
After the Offertory comes the Eucharistic Prayer. The prayer of thanksgiving, because that’s what ‘eucharist’ means.
And the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen;…
St Justin isn’t telling us everything, of course. He wouldn’t want to reveal too much to the pagans he was writing to.
Gradually the Eucharistic Prayer became formalized. Different places had different Rites and different prayers.
The Roman Canon is probably the oldest one still in widespread use. We know it goes back before Gregory the Great because we know how he tweaked it. Apart from seasonal inserts it wasn’t touched from his time until 1962. Fortescue suspected that some of its prayers were originally in a different order, but we don’t know.
We now have several Eucharistic Prayers. Prayer II is a bowdlerized version of what claimed to be the prayer of Hippolytus but came to us through long transmission via Ethiopia and was very likely altered on the way. Prayer III is an amalgam of different prayers from Eastern sources. Prayer IV is modern.
The newer prayers have an explicit prayer to the Holy Spirit to change the gifts and to unite us. The Roman Canon doesn’t, possibly because it is so old that the idea of invoking the Holy Spirit hadn’t arisen yet.
We know the prayers were originally chanted aloud. We know that this stopped, after Gregory’s time I think. One reason we know this is that there survives a story of children playing at priest, and being struck by lightning. ‘Well,’ said the bishop, ‘if the canon is that dangerous it will be best not to say it aloud.’
When the English bishops were asked about making the Canon audible, just before the Reformation, they argued that this would be a bad thing because it would prevent the people from praying.
Doesn’t this sound odd to us today? Used, as we are, to noisy Masses and active participation.
I think they had a point.
Later on I’m going to say something about meditation. Because you’re bound to it.
It would be a strange Christian that didn’t pray. Yet I wonder how many of those who go to Mass on Sunday ever pray during the week. Morning and Evening Prayers. Rosary. Angelus. Even Grace before Meals. Everything seems to have gone.
Oh don’t get me wrong. I’m all in favour of liturgical prayer. I’m prepared to admit that Low Mass was never designed for congregational use and only became general because of historical accidents and, maybe, pietism and laziness. But at least in my parents’ day, because of the silence, you did learn to pray at Mass. And so you were able to pray at other times too.
When the changes came we were told rather high-handedly that you could say your prayers after Mass. As if a family with babies or small children could do that.
So I want to say something about praying during Mass. And mention a very old way of doing this.
But first I need to say something about space and time.
We believe that the Mass is a sacrifice. But it is not a new sacrifice but the sacrifice of Calvary mystically represented. Theologians argue about exactly how this happens.
I think the simplest view is to say that when we say that Prayer we break the bonds of time and space and are at Calvary again. We don’t just remember the past, we make it present again.
Twenty years ago I went over and visited a friend in America. We went to his church which is Russian Catholic. They kindly let me concelebrate, even though I know almost no Slavonic and hadn’t concelebrated in that Rite before. In fact the priest was very welcoming. He kitted me out in all their vestments and we went into the sanctuary before the doors were opened and the people could see. As we went in he said, ‘Remember, Michael, we are now stepping outside time.’
Last time I said something about allegory and types. I said little about the Epistles and nothing about the Epistle to the Hebrews. But it’s from there that the liturgical theology that St Thomas Aquinas used comes. Via a Greek Father.
The Temple had many spaces. There was the outer Court of the Gentiles. Then the Inner Court of Israel, with notices at the doors warning any Gentile that the penalty for entering it was death. Then there was the platform with the altar of sacrifice, for the daily offerings of animals.
Then there was the Temple proper, with the Holy Place with the table and the incense, and then the Holy of Holies.
The Temple is a type of heaven. Designed to be and to foreshadow the reality. But Christ is the priest and the sacrifice and the altar, and he has passed into the Holy of Holies.
So a Byzantine Church is an icon not of the earthly Temple but of the heavenly Temple with the altar of sacrifice in the Holy of Holies. What we call the narthex is the Court of the Gentiles. What we call the nave is the Court of Israel. The area beyond the iconostasis, the sanctuary if you like, is the Holy Place. And the altar and the space in front is the Holy of Holies.
All these are icons of the real Temple in heaven. So when we are in them, the icon is activated and we are, spiritually of course, outside time.
So that’s one way to pray the Mass. To see us liked to the Heavenly Temple. To eternity. Where all God’s saving acts come together. Both past and future.
The other ancient way to pray the Mass is linked to this eternal presence of God’s saving acts. We can see the Mass as a re-enactment of the life of Christ. With the Liturgy of the Word as his public ministry, and the Liturgy of the Eucharist as his passion, death, resurrection, and ascension, with Communion as the coming of the Holy Spirit.
There is more than one way of doing this. This is prayer, not exact theology, so it’s a question of whatever way works best for you. Nor am I saying that this should replace liturgical prayer or active participation. But if you want an alternative to noisy liturgy and don’t want to follow everything in your missal, you don’t have to.
What the Eucharistic Prayer should make us into is witnesses. Witnesses of the passion, death, and resurrection. And the Greek word for witnesses is marturoi – martyrs.
In the last talk I’m going to say something about living in the world as military knights and how there will always be a need for mission, explicit Christian mission. Bearing witness to our faith and hope as well as our charity. And in a sense that witness starts here. At Mass.
The next course of the banquet is the Communion Rite. We dare to call God our Father. We dare to ask to be forgiven only as much as we forgive each other. We dare to ask for God’s kingdom to come.
Then there’s the Pax. Either the stylized version at High Mass or the grubby handshaking in the New Rite. Really these are two different things.
What we’re supposed to be doing now is to share a sign of peace and reconciliation with each other before we dare to receive Communion.
I’ve already said that mutual reconciliation has to be part of our preparation. So again I stress the need, where necessary, to ask for the grace to forgive and reconcile.
The Old Rite Pax is much safer. It’s the peace of Christ coming down to each of us in turn. Not directly from the altar to each of us, but from whomever is above us. We might meditate on the meaning of that.
I won’t say much about Holy Communion itself. We consume God in order to be made God. To be made partakers in his divinity. To receive the grace to be transformed, as the elements were.
Two years ago I was asked to address a liturgical conference as a moral theologian. Since I am a bit of an amateur liturgist, I had to be careful. I found the ideas of Christos Yannaras, a Greek Orthodox lay theologian very helpful.
The Fall leaves us mortal and prone to sin. It fragments humanity into competing wills, separating us from God and from each other. We long for salvation from the necessity of time, space, passions, corruption, and death. We get this salvation only from Christ who has united the human to the divine, and we get it only through his Church.
Yannaras puts it this way: ‘The eating and drinking of Christ’s flesh and blood changes individuals into members of a unified body and individual survival into communion of life and unity of life’, i.e. the Church. So Communion is the essential means to our regeneration and salvation.
To receive communion from someone is to say we are in communion with them. Communion of doctrine and government. To receive communion with someone is to say we are one body with them in charity.
That’s one reason St Paul warns the Corinthians to examine themselves first. Because they were receiving communion together and splitting up into groups by class and theological faction.
It’s also why our Eastern brethren are still so careful who they give communion to: because St Paul says it is dangerous for us to receive not discerning the body of the Lord.
To hear some people today, you’d think that Holy Communion was a kind of spiritual sweetie, to be offered as widely as possibly. It’s true that grace is given ex opere operato provided we are properly disposed. It’s true that Communion forgives some sins and is a medicine for the soul. But you don’t give medicines to just anyone.
This is what St Justin says about what we receive: And this food is called among us Eucharistia [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.
If it’s the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ, it’s the presence of Almighty God. And I don’t see how that presence could ever be comfortable. As it says about Aslan, ‘He’s not a tame lion, you know.’
One of the hardest things about preaching a retreat is what a hypocrite it makes you feel. Of course I’m preaching to myself as much as to you. But I’m very conscious how, as a priest, it’s so easy to receive badly. To get into autopilot mode. To become over-familiar with sacred things. To lose the sense of awe. It’s worse when you celebrate facing the people. And worse still if you’ve been taught to put the people first and turn everything into a kind of performance for them.
So this is, perhaps, a time for me to ask for your prayers. Not only for me but for all the priests you come across. We need to renew our awe and wonder too.
I’ll end with a word of Latin from the Sarum Missal.
AVE in aeternum, sanctissima Caro Christi, mihi ante omnia et super omnia summa dulcedo. AVE in aeternum cælestis potus, mihi ante omnia et super omnia summa dulcedo.
AVE in aeternum, sanctissima Caro Christi, mihi ante omnia et super omnia summa dulcedo. AVE in aeternum cælestis potus, mihi ante omnia et super omnia summa dulcedo.
© Michael Cullinan 2018
Posts
