In a sense it is such an obvious question it's a wonder it hasn't been posed more often: what is the objective of the eucharist? That's the question John Chuchman poses for our reflection today: "Do the adorers seek to place God at their own disposition to reassure their identity and strengthen their determination? Or does the Real Presence seek to honor the liturgy where the community celebrates its own power in the name of God?"

What is the objective of Eucharist?

Is it an idolatry

that imagines itself honoring God

when it heaps praises on a wafer

exhibited as an attraction

brandished like a banner?

Do the adorers seek

to place God at their own disposition

to reassure their identity

and strengthen their determination?

Or does the Real Presence

seek to honor the liturgy

where the community celebrates

its own power

in the name of God?

Is the idolatrous reduction of God

to a mute thing

a vainly impotent act?

Why do the bread and wine

take on new meaning

for the community gathered?

Are the bread and wine

Welcomed as Gift

by the community assembled

because people are nourished

and brought together by it?

Perhaps the Bread and Wine

become the manifestation,

not so much of the Presence of God,

but more of the Community

becoming Aware of God

and of itself,

In Search of the face of God.

At the precise moment

of receiving the Sacrament,

the Community still seeks it

and finds nothing more of it

than what its collective consciousness

has been able to secure.

The Real Presence

is displaced from the bread and wine

to the Community.

The Community gathered must move from

Jesus, present in the bread and wine,

to Jesus present in those gathered

whose Eucharistic Action

manifests reality

under sacramental form.

Eucharist is a meal,

the sharing of which,

is a sign of Communion

of those who participate in it.

Though the theology of transubstantiation

has lost its legitimacy among most theologians;

the Real Presence remains,

not as things, bread and wine,

but in and as

the Community,

as the present consciousness

of the collective self.

The bread and Wine

serve as simple perceptible media

for a wholly representational process,

the Collective Awareness of the Community by itself.

The prayer of consecration can be as useless

as the presider saying it

if it does not bring on

Community Awareness of the Real Presence

within the Community.

Love, John Chuchman

This reflection is also published on John Chuchman's blog.

IMAGE CREDIT:
The images used to support today's reflection have been sourced from: www.emmanuelcommunity.com.au, and Christ Our Hope Anglican Church Blog, Dayton, Ohio