K
KjetilK
Guest
Pardon my way to long post.
I agree with you, and one thing that is important to note is that when Jesus said “do this in remembrance of me,” that was NOT a reference to the meal. We only find that phrase, or variations of that phrase, three times, in two places, and not once is it a direct reference to the meal itself. These texts are Luke 22:19 and 1. Corinthians 11:24.25. Consider them:
Luke 22:19: And he took bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
1. Corinthians 11:24: and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
1. Corinthians 11:25: In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
The reference of “do this,” is not the sharing, the consummation of communion, but the actions of Christ. Note what I have underlined. This is a reference to the meal. But note that he doesn’t say that we should “do this, by drinking it, in remembrance of me” but “do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
What he says is to do what he did. He did some things, then said “do this in remembrance of me.” To reference liturgical scholar Dom Gregory Dix,**** these actions, in their ‘bulked up’ four-part version, are (1) taking/offering/preparing bread and wine – what developed into the offertory; (2) blessing, giving thanks (the Eucharistic prayer); (3) breaking the bread (the Fraction); and (4) distributing the elements. Note that the last part is not the meal itself. It is the distribution. The meal comes as a consequence, of course, but that doesn’t mean that the command of Christ – “do this in remembrance of me” – is a reference to the meal as such. We consume the elements in answer to the remembrance, but this is not the remembrance in itself. The remembrance is to do what Christ did.
The question then becomes: When Christ uttered these words to the Apostles (“do this in remembrance of me”), was he addressing them as Apostles or as Christians? The former is the interpretation commonly favoured by Catholics (including, but not limited to, Roman Catholics and Orthodox), and it ties to the question of when a Eucharist is a Eucharist. Is it a Eucharist when it is ‘performed’ by someone who is not ordained? That is an important question. I would say no.
We see this quite explicitly in the writings of Sts. Justin Martyr and Cyprian of Carthage. In his First Apology, chapters 65-67, Justin Martyr writes about the early Church’s celebration of the Eucharist.[II] Fr. Timothy, Finigan, a Roman Catholic parish priest of Our Lady of the Rosary in Blackfen, part of the Archdiocese of Southwark, England, has made the point that «the translation [of Justin] most readily available on the internet and in libraries betrays a Protestant bias.»[III] The reason for this is that it translates the Greek sentence εὐχαριστίας, ὅση δύναμις αὐτῷ (evcharistías, hósē dynamis avtō) as «he gives thanks to the best of his ability» rathar than «he offers the Eucharist according to the power which he has» (which is the more literal translation). Most translations available make it seem that Justin has in mind a priest ‘doing the best he can.’ In a Norwegian translation,[IV] Justin writes that the presider offers prayers and thanksgiving «of all his might» («av all sin kraft»). In Norwegian usage, this suggests an image of the priest almost shouting out the prayers. What seems to be suggested by the greek text, however, is that the priest offers this according to the power he has as a priest; the authority given to him in his ordination.
This is even more explicit in the writings of St. Cyprian of Carthage,[V] which is pretty close to what I have outlined above on what Christ meant by “do this in remembrance of me”:
For if Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, is Himself the chief priest of God the Father, and has first offered Himself a sacrifice to the Father, and has commanded this to be done in commemoration of Himself, certainly that priest truly discharges the office of Christ, who imitates that which Christ did; and he then offers a true and full sacrifice in the Church to God the Father, when he proceeds to offer it according to what he sees Christ Himself to have offered.
- Dom Gregory Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy* (Second ed. London: A&C Black 1945, reprint 1975): 48-50.
[III] Fr. Timothy Finigan, Sacred and Great. Traditional Liturgy in a Modern Parish (2008):9.
[IV] Justin, Første Apologi, trans. Jostein Garcia de Presno (Oslo: Solum 2004): 106.
[V] Epistolae 62:14, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 5., ed. Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers 1995):362 (orig. 1886). See Finigan, Sacred and Great, p.9.**
