The Mystery of the Church

Eucharistic Church

The Greek theologian Christos Androutsos wrote about the Church as the center and organ of Christ's redeeming work;... it is nothing else rather than the continuation, and extension of His prophetic, priestly, and kingly power... The Church and its Founder are inextricably bound together for... The Church is "Christ with us."

We can say that he, who sees the Church as she is, sees Christ Himself. For she is the sacrament of the sacrificial Christ and His Body. We must think of her in sacramental terms, as the Body of Christ; i.e. the Eucharist. But her outward organization, however important, is secondary to her sacramental life.

We regard the Church since her foundation, as a Eucharistic society, and she will continue to be so through all generations since she is Christ's body, and on the altar she sees His sacrificial Body.

The Eucharist is the center of her life and the cause of her existence. Through it, the Gentiles estrangement was destroyed, as the apostle says, "Now therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints and members of God's household." Thus, the Church enjoys her unity with Christ and her existence as the Living Body of Christ.

Ecclesiastic Eucharist

Since, the Church has found her existence through the Eucharist, the Eucharist is considered the sacrifice of the Church too, which is offered by Christ, Who is living in the midst of His Church, and who continues His original sacrifice.

The Eucharist is the sacrifice of Christ alone. He is the High

Ware: Orthodox Church. Concilium: Vol. 40.

B. J. Cooke: Christian Sacraments and Christian Personality.

Priest and the Victim also, and the Church sharing now in this sacrifice does so by this power and authority, and offers Christ's sacrifice and her life to the Father at the same time.

What does the Church offer in the Eucharist?

In Christ she offers His own sacrifice, and at the same time she offers her life crucified with Him as a sacrifice of love and obedience to Him. She enters the altar at Golgotha, and ascends to heaven to offer nothing but Christ Himself. As she offers herself and all that she received from God in the form of earthly blessings, she discovers in fact that she offers nothing but Christ alone. The crucified life of Christ, and our lives, which are, crucified with Him are one and inseparable.

Fr. Alexander Schmemann says: "We offer the world and ourselves to God. But we do it in Christ and in remembrance of Him, because, as we offer again and again our lives and our world to God, we discover every time that there is nothing else to be offered but Christ Himself, who is the life of the world, and the fullness of all that exists. It is His Eucharist, and He is the Eucharist. It is He who offers and it is He who is offered. The Liturgy has led us into the all-embracing Eucharist of Christ, and has revealed to us that the only Eucharist and the only offering of the world is Christ. We come every time with our lives to offer; we bring and "sacrifice" - i.e. give to God -, what He has given us; because every time we discover that Christ has offered all that exists and, that He and all that exists has been offered of Himself. We are included in the Eucharist of Christ in our Eucharist."

We are represented in the Eucharist, not symbolically but as the members who are related to the head, and the branches to the root.

There you are upon the Table, there you are in the chalice.

St. Augustine

The Eucharist actually consists of offering ourselves through our Head. We as members of His Body are sanctified and become worthy to offer not our gifts only, but also ourselves as a sacred sacrifice.

The Father sees us on the altar offered to Him through our Head, His Beloved Son. For what is it that is offered on the altar but the Body of Christ, that is the Church?

On the altar the Church becomes the sacrificed Body of Christ, so that every believer may become "what he has been made by Baptism and Chrism; a living member of Christ's crucified Body; and may receive the sacrificial Body and Blood of Christ so that he can grow day by day and increase in his desire to attain the "Fullness of Christ" through bearing the sufferings of the Cross. This is the Eucharistic Sacrifice, and that is its aim.

Every redeemed city, that is to say the congregation of the believers and society of the saints, is the universal sacrifice offered to God by the High Priest Who offered Himself in suffering for us, in order to make of us the body of so great a Head...

This, then, is the sacrifice of Christians that all of them may be a single body in Jesus Christ!

This is the mystery that the Church celebrates through the sacraments of the altar, wherein it is shown to her that in this thing, which she offers she herself also is offered to God .

St. Augustine

Eucharist and the Unity of the Church

When we look at the altar we see the single Body of Christ, the same that is offered on every altar however numerous. Here we discover the mystery of our unity with one another in Jesus Christ.

The work of the Divine Word of God is to bring all the cosmos into one, through the Eucharist. For the blessed bread is broken that all may share it and "we being many are made one Body" for the One Head: we have the One Father and the One Son, to be one divine Family.

Again, our Lord gives us through our one mother, the Church, His Body and Blood, to renew and nourish our vigor in His Body "the Church," that we should be drawn day by day into an ever more perfect union with the Father, the Son and with each other. St. Paul says, "We who are many, are one bread, one body, for we are all partakers of the

one bread."

He has instituted on His altar the sacrament of our peace and unity.

St. Augustine

The Eucharist and the Eternal Church

At the Last Supper, the Church received the "Kirios" which all the time fulfills and removes temporal boundaries. She entered into the eschatological world. For she accepted the Body of Christ as the eternal life, that breaks the bonds of time and carries her into heaven, into immortality.

Immediately after this Last Supper, which was an eschatological event, He spoke with His Church openly about preparing a place for her in heaven. He said, "In my Father's house there are many rooms."

For the same reason, the Church when celebrating the Eucharist, intones the hymn, which the angels eternally sing in heaven. Thus, as we travel as pilgrims through this world, we foretaste and share in that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the holy City of Heaven, in which the Lamb of God is sitting on the throne, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle.

The people who have been purified and enriched with wonderful gifts begin to walk in procession towards the altar saying, "I will go to the house of God, to God who is the joy of my youth..." They hasten to go to the heavenly banquet.

St. Ambrose

• Then each time when the liturgy of this sacrifice is celebrated, we must consider that we are like one who is in Heaven .
• By it, we, who are mortals by nature, expect to receive immortality; being corruptible we become incorruptible; instead of the earth and earthly evils we receive the blessings and delights of

Heaven

Theodore of Mopsuestia

In order that we may never become puffed up, as if we had life (eternal) from ourselves, and are exalted against God... let us learn by experience that we possess eternal life from the excelling power of this Being (Eucharist), and not from our nature.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons

The Eucharist and "Time"

Two essential themes run through the Eucharist: the sacramental representation of the sacrifice of Christ, and the sacramental participation in the heavenly liturgy. The two themes are in fact one, for the Crucified Christ is the Heavenly Christ. This explains why He Himself called his Cross "His glory."

In the liturgy, man does not submit to any temporal bonds, for he is joined with the whole Church in Jesus Christ, and this passes over into eternity through Calvary.

For this reason, man, through the Church, does not grieve over the "Past " as if it is a thing, which has been lost and ended, nor does he fear the "Future" as if it is unknown. But the "Past, Present, Future," are one and are exposed to man.

In the past man gained the crucified and risen Lord, and at present he is joined with the same Lord, and in the future he will meet the same One, face to face. The crucified and glorified Lord is our past, present and future.

Finally, we can say that the Church and her liturgy will never age at any century, but it is perpetually new, for she does not submit to temporal laws.