Good
Friday
and the Eucharist
for me…..
What would it be like to live
without the Eucharist? While I can admit to noticing the empty altar and
tabernacle on Good Friday, I have to admit that I had never given it much
thought. A couple of years ago, as
preparation to help with the teen confirmation class adult volunteers were asked
to read what our catechism says about each particular sacrament. The then assistant
pastor is a man with a real love of
liturgy and sacrament. His dynamic approach to teaching and enacting his
ministry added color and dimension to what I read. I find this hope in Vatican
II --that that knowing your faith better adds depth to your participation in it. “through a good understanding of the rites
and prayers they should take part in the sacred action conscious of what they
are doing, with devotion and full collaboration.” (SC 47).
Good
Friday landed in the middle of my rediscovery of the sacraments. As a stop on
the “pilgrimage of nine churches,” Good Friday is an all-day affair requiring
the help of parishioners. Throughout, I kept wondering what it was that seemed
not quite right about my church. Not until the Easter vigil when the light came
back to the darkened church and a close friend was confirmed, did it dawn on me
that the Eucharistic presence was significantly missing for me. I was more
aware of it and held it closer than I thought as more than just a tenet of my denomination.
Years
ago a DRE told me “We are the see, touch, taste and do church.” She tried to see that the Sunday school and
children’s liturgies were full of those things. For my son’s first communion she
had the kids make the hosts, their own blessing cup, a pew side banner for their
family, do the readings, prayers and the songs. This is in what Chapter 5 of Cooke
and Macy says that Jesus gave us. In the Lord’s Supper he passed along the significant
symbols of his Jewish faith. In food, words and prayers he used common food and
meals to do so. He “ritualized” the remembrance of the salvation he offered by
asking his followers to repeat this meal, and come together for this renewal
and to renew each other.
I think Maxwell Johnson’s book shows
how much Christians have tried to value and enact what Jesus gave us.
Unfortunately the debates over how to cherish and reverence his gifts have
sometimes reduced us to division and dissension. What I love about his
collection of thought on the Lord ’s Supper is the look at how much careful
thought and study has been done and gathered over the centuries. Like my own
sacramental rediscovery, there is always more depth to be uncovered even in
what is that is familiar in faith. This is shown in the prayers found in
chapter 5. Though ages old, there is a heartfelt love for Jesus and what he did.
The New York voice in my head, says “Duh
Kathy. It took you that long to figure it out?” Heaven help me but yes it did. It
makes me grateful that a salvation journey is a lifelong learning process. I am
more grateful that Christianity is a spirit filled, ever revealing touch of the
divine on our lives. [From the Evangelical Lutheran Church] “We have called
this gift of Word and Sacrament by the name ‘the means of grace.’ The living
heart of all these means is the presence of Jesus Christ through the power of
the Spirit as the gift of the Father” (Johnson 270).
New York. 2005. Print.
Johnson, Maxwell E, ed. Sacraments and Worship. Louisville. Westminster John Knox. 2012.
Print.
Sacrosanctum Concilium
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