The inward gift signified is the Body and Blood of Christ, which are truly taken and received in the Lord’s Supper by faith.
To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism
“We [male and female] express our interiority through the external medium of our bodies. We cannot, in fact, communicate with one another except through our senses. External actions are the necessary means of expressing inner realities.”
Leonel L. Mitchell, Praying Shapes Believing: A Theological Commentary on The Book of Common Prayer
God’s revelatory nature is through matter, the pinnacle revelation is through that of the Incarnation. This pattern of God using matter to reveal himself in ways in which humans may once again perceive Him explains why our sacraments are celebrated and practiced as embodied forms. The visible signs and liturgy help us understand and receive God’s promises so that we may be formed by the invisible grace gifted through them.
Nonetheless, the concept of invisible realities still opens many questions. For example, how is this grace manifested and received, and what exactly is grace? For someone new to the faith, and those who’ve been in the faith most of their lives, these are difficult concepts to grasp. In fact, this idea of invisible grace has been a topic of discussion in the church for centuries. While I don’t promise all the answers or definitive ones, I hope to help you explore where you might be able to experience grace through your participation in Holy Communion.
First, let’s look at grace. In its simplest form, grace is first the Holy Spirit given to us in order to effect created grace, our being. It is also God’s spiritual help in us to do what we can not accomplish apart from him. The sacraments of the church are often called effective signs of grace. This means the visible and invisible signs found in Holy Communion reveal evidence for truths we cannot see. For example, the Eucharistic liturgy teaches that Christ gave his body and blood so that our sins may be forgiven. We don’t see our sins being forgiven, but this reenactment informs us of that spiritual truth.
It also means the signs are accomplishing something in us we cannot see. For example, our corporate eating and drinking of Christ’s body and blood is unifying us as one under the headship of Christ while simultaneously inwardly fortifying our faith to serve and love others as a body. The inward grace is effectively being lived out. In the last two blog posts we will discuss how the effective grace is lived out, but for now we will focus on how we receive this invisible grace.
In the Eucharistic Rite we find this basic structure in the Book of Common Prayer:
- Thanksgiving for creation and redemption (all that God has given for life) (pp. 131-2 BCP)
- Institution narrative (Jesus instating Holy Communion and our practice of it.) (pp. 132-3 BCP)
- Anamnesis (memorial of Christ’ death and resurrection) (pp. 133-134 BCP)
- Epiclesis (invocation of the Holy Spirit upon the elements and us) (p.134 BCP)
- Doxology (glorification of God through praise) (p. 134 BCP)
The structure of the Eucharistic liturgy is inviting us into God’s story to help us enter into the grace God is offering. The grace at hand in the Eucharist is realized when we choose to enter Christ’s story, to actively participate with Christ—his body, death, resurrection, and mission. This is seen in the Trinitarian elements of the Epiclesis; the Spirit unites us to Christ as the Body in one with the Father. “The sacraments engage the story of Jesus and, thus, form a community in his image,” explains McKenna. “The Eucharist is the eschatological meal of God’s continuing presence […] at that meal we become part of Christ’s kingdom […] as his people we become part of his sacrifice […] through them (sacraments) we learn who (and whose) we are.”
The grace present within the visible sign of bread and wine is Christ. This sacrament instituted by Christ himself, is a visible reminder that Christ is present with us and in us as we consent to receive Christ into the fabric of our being.
By eating Christ’s body and drinking his blood, we are being nourished by Christ with a spiritual food (grace) that will strengthen our life with Christ so that we may be servants like Christ.
Richard Hooker points out that, “the grace we receive from the Holy Eucharist does not begin life but continues it. No one may receive the Sacrament before he is baptized because no dead thing is capable of nourishment. That which grows must of necessity first be alive.” 1
The grace offered in Holy Communion effectively feeds, sustains, and strengthens our baptismal life in Christ. Who better to explain this than Christ himself, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” (John 6:51, 53 NIV)
Participating in the very flesh and blood of Christ through the sacred meal of Holy Communion is the corporate means in which Christ unifies us into his body, feeds us by his body, so that we may be his body.
Next Week: Eucharist: The form that forms us
Footnotes:
- Secor, Philip. Richard Hooker on Anglican Faith and Worship: Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity: Book V—A Modern Edition. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. London, England. 2003. p. 280
