When we discuss the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion or the Eucharist, we come into an area in which there is real doctrinal conflict in the Church. The church term for the conflict is in the area called “valid sacraments,” or sacraments that live up to the teaching that they connect us to something beyond everyday life.
Of course anyone can get together and have a communal meal. Eating and drinking is a primal animal activity, and it takes place in “lower” animals just as it does in human communities. Who gets to eat first is determined by many pecking orders, from chickens to elephants to human beings.
But the Church maintains that in a valid Eucharist, the priest who blesses the bread and wine is using the words of Jesus to lift those elements into a higher reality. There is no way that we can validate this, but the idea is based on the Apostolic Succession.
The transmission of the Priesthood from generation to generation is passed down through the laying on of hands at the ordination ceremony of a priest. At least two Bishops are required to be present to guarantee that the succession passes from the ordaining clergy to the new ordinands.
Jesus is written to have blessed and breathed on the Apostles before he left this earth. In the Gospels he is recorded as saying, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” That has been taken to mean that, as the Apostles did the same thing, the Holy Ghost, in whatever form, actually passed from person to person down to the present day, in the priest at your neighborhood church.
This Apostolic Succession was broken with the Protestant Reformation, and now exists only within the Catholic denominations. But, as we believe (in the words of C. S. Lewis) God is “not a tame Lion,” and no one can say that a particular minister or priest has received, lost or preserved the Holy Spirit. For that reason all Christians treat the Communion with the same reverence.
The power of the Eucharist can be estimated in part by the attention it has received from those who mock and oppose Christianity. It seems that the worship of evil powers is inseparable from Christianity, because they insist on perverting the Mass rather than coming up with new types of ceremonies. I’d actually be more impressed with the exaggerated depravity of Black Masses if they were more original, but that has not been forthcoming so far.
In a typical Communion service, the celebrant repeats Jesus Christ’s words of institution and then the bread and wine (in teetotaling churches, juice) are consumed. Some prayers and Scripture readings are used to open and conclude the ceremony, and it is over.
This brings up the point that I reviewed in writing about an evangelical preacher who felt that church services should be interesting. By that he meant that the order of worship ought to be varied so as to keep the congregation alert and paying attention. That is the very opposite of the cycle of prayers and readings used in the typical Mass.
The strength of the Mass is in the fact that it will be much the same whether you attend in Tucson, Phoenix, Great Britain, Africa, or in a Catholic, Episcopal or Orthodox Church. In my case I’d have a hard time with a prayer book in Greek, but just by looking at the priest on the altar you know what is happening.
When everyone gets up for Communion, you just fall in line and go through whatever it is: in an Episcopal Church bread and wine will be offered, in Catholicism just the wafer of bread, and so on.
It used to be quite popular to read the opening verses of the Gospel According to John after the Communion, and I remember that from my father’s services. After participating in a Communion service, the communicants have in some sense participated in the same Last Supper that Jesus began at his last meal with his Apostles.
The Roman Catholics go a bit farther, with a doctrine called Transubstantiation. It asserts that in some way that is not seen or heard, fortunately, the bread and wine become actual flesh and blood. As an Episcopalian I see no reason for this; Jesus did not offer flesh and blood to his company, but bread and wine. However, I see no harm in believing it, other than that it may seem repulsive to non-Catholics who would not consume flesh and blood under normal circumstances.
Holy Communion is the very heart and soul of Christianity. It is the Sacrament that was instituted by Jesus himself, who also enjoined his people to repeat it in his memory. Baptism is considered the other original sacrament, but there is no record that Jesus ever baptized anyone; on the contrary, it seems to originate with John the Baptist, who baptized Jesus.
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