Made from dust, we eat dust, that our souls may live. I'm chewing thoughtfully, this profound collection of essays on feasting, fasting, fellowship, and food.
This is the most profound description of communion I have ever heard or read.
And since God has created the world as food for us and has given
us food as means of communion with him, of life in him, the new
food of the new life which we receive from God in his Kingdom is Christ
himself. He is our bread-because from the very
beginning all our hunger was a hunger for him and all
our bread was but a symbol of him, a symbol that had to become
reality.
He became man and lived in this world. He ate and drank, and this means that the world in which he partook, the very food of our world became his body, his life. But His life was totally, absolutely Eucharistic - all of it was transformed into communion with God and all of it ascended into heaven. And now he shares this glorified life with us. "What I have done alone-I give it now to you: take, eat...."
We offered the bread in remembrance of Christ because we know that Christ is Life, and all food, therefore, must lead to him. And now when we receive this bread from his hands, we know that he has taken up all life, filled it with himself, made it what it was meant to be: communion with God, sacrament of his presence and love.
Essay by Alexander Schmemann in The Spirit of Food, 34 Writers on Feasting and Fasting Towards God
No comments:
Post a Comment