www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology The DL: renewal of only the sacrifice or of entire life of Christ

What does the Divine Liturgy in fact renew; only the Sacrifice of Christ, as a theology much known insists, or the entire life of Christ, particularly his Resurrection? If the second, where is it founded?

In the words of our Lord "Do this in memory of me." ~ Luke 22:19

Yes

The Liturgy itself provides the answer: we give thanks for all that Christ has done for us--"the cross, the tomb, the resurrection on the third day, the sitting at the right hand, the second and glorious coming".

Could you please conect more what you both have said with the question? I didn't see the precise link.

https://www.byzcath.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=67276&page=260&fpart=3

Philipe:

Christ is in our midst!!

Sometimes questions like yours have had extensive discussion on the forum in prior years. There is a good thread of some years ago above. You might also like to do a search of the forum for similar topics because there are many of them in the archives.

BOB

Dear Bob,

I imagined that, but the search engine is too difficult! I don't know how to search a term AND another, it searches one or other... By the way, what is "Display name search"?

I'll read carefully the topic. Thanks.

That's a good question in the initial post and a good link to the discussion in an earlier thread.

I had written a “stream of consciousness” type reply that became rather lengthy. Here is a summary (which unfortunately has also grown) of what I’ve concluded (for the present).

Describing what the Liturgy is should not simply be equated with the rite/ritual, with what is between the front and back pages of a liturgicon; and it should not even be equated with that ritual being done, even done piously and properly, in isolation. That rite/ritual has a context in which it takes place and that is essential, and it is necessary to include the context for a complete understanding. The Divine Liturgy / Mass is what is done in the totality of that context.

The ritual is (to me) clearly and essentially a memorial-sacrifice that is eaten. This is not especially surprising or novel as ritual. What is very novel is the context of the ritual and what is memorialized. So I think that the theology that looked at the rite/ritual and sees the Cross has it right. The Cross is re-presented but not as an isolated event. There is the broader context of what is being done. Though it may not be explicitly stated or there alluded, that the ritual takes place in particular on Sunday, the day of the Resurrection, as an event that constitutes the church, the churches and The Church – this is also part of the whole, the Tradition. (This latter part is basically saying that church denotes a Eucharistic community and communion.)

So a theology that speaks of the Sacrifice of the Mass does not have it wrong and has it very right. But there is more that must be said to complete the theological explanation. And this has been done though sometimes a single emphasis may dominate and appear to be the sole feature. It is good and proper when the theology is explicit as, for example, the Kingdom of God, the eschatological dimension, the Resurrection (Sunday troparia) in the Byzantine Liturgy. None of that changes the essential aspect of the memorial-sacrifice or is a substitute for it, but it does properly put it into its broader and proper, and therefore also essential context. The words are important but ultimately this is an experiential, an existential context: The community “knows” by what it does (words and actions), that which is handed on and received, more so than by what it may or may not know purely intellectually or by what is explicitly said.

I do not see in that full context the Liturgy being an allegorical representation, or otherwise, of the life of Christ. I do see the memorial-sacrifice that is eaten and all that its context entails: worship, Pesach-Pascha, redemption/salvation, the Resurrection commemorated, the constituting as church, koinonia/communion, the eschata, and sarkosis-theosis.

ajk:

Christ is in our midst!!

I think it's always necessary, too, to remember what words mean and how they have changed over time. The very use of "memory" and "memorial" always needs to be a time of catechesis. We need to return to what the word meant in times past when it approximated the Greek "anamnesis": the re-presenting of the whole Mystery with the understanding that it is not repeated but that we are made part of the actual event itself. In that context, I've always been taught that we enter that eternal context whreein time, space, distance, and eternity open together and become one in a way that makes us presnt-tense participants in the Saving Events of the Mystery by which Jesus Christ bridged the gap between the Father and the fallen human race. When we forget that and toss the words around, we often get into the Protestant-Reform error that says that this is simply an event in the far-distant past that we remember, something like remembering a particular Christmas party when we were young but that is no longer much more than that--memory.

That's why I've come to the idea of the Liturgy being a "door" by which we enter into the Mystery--the events of Christ in that time and place 2000+ years ago and into the Heavenly Liturgy that is ongoing before the Face of the Father even as we speak.

BOB

He is and always will be.

Yes, indeed. I had written in my "notes":

In the Eucharist, in the Anaphora, in the Prothesis, we recall events in the life of Christ, even in words of the Old Testament that prefigured those events. We also remember as anamnesis, as was mentioned in a previous post, particular events, special events, saving events, both past and future. Since we remember the future in that series of event, we must be remembering those event in a special way, an eschatological way. We remember in such a way that those events are, mystically, present to us.

Very well stated.

The Zwinglian notion of a "memorial meal" in which Christ is present only insofar as a communicant can muster up sufficient belief/recollection/repentance has become the dominant understanding of the Eucharist in North American Protestantism.

Recent surveys in U.S. Catholic have shown that Zwingli's doctrine of the "real absence" is even beginning to infect Latin Catholics.

All of us who teach that the Body and Blood of Christ are truly given and received--irrespective of the nuances between Catholic, Orthodox, and Lutheran--are in for a difficult swim upstream in this culture.

We need to return to what the word meant in times past when it approximated the Greek "anamnesis": the re-presenting of the whole Mystery with the understanding that it is not repeated but that we are made part of the actual event itself.

Agreed. Anamnesis is more than merely a representing, it is a recollection so intense that one mystically participates in the reality being represented. Thus, in the Divine Liturgy (among other things), we are participating in the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection of Christ (not to mention other events, such as his birth, his preaching of the Word, and his entry into Jerusalem). In the Liturgy, we do not mimic these events over and over, but enter into the divine kairos, where these events continually unfold. It is therefore the same Breaking of the Bread, the same sacrifice, accomplished once and for always.

This is possible only because the Liturgy is more than a doorway, it is a true image (ikon) of the Kingdom of God, and like all icons, it shares in the reality of that which is depicted, in this case, the eternal, heavenly Liturgy that perdures in the kairos. When we are in the Liturgy, linear time (chronos) is meaningless, and thus we are able to look back and participate in the divine mysteries of salvation already accomplished, and look forward to the second and glorious coming, in which all things will be fulfilled. It is, therefore, only in the Liturgy that the Church manifests its true nature as the communion of the People of God.

I want to focus again on the initial question and how it can be interpreted. The answer provided -- a good answer -- has two parts, the "Me" and the "this." As being done in memory of Jesus, one may say that it is done in memory of all that He did and taught. A particular ritual may also explicitly remember, as anamnesis, specific events. This is an all encompassing way of interpreting what is being "renewed." The liturgical year builds on this, the making present as anamnesis, by the often invoked sēmeron/hodie/dnes/today.

In my remarks I was focusing on the more restrictive "this." Some further things to consider:

1. The command to "Do this..." is found only in Luke and not Mark and Matthew. In Luke it is only said after the bread and not the cup.

2. It is found in Paul 1Cor 11:23-29. The wording there strongly conveys the sense of this being a sacred Tradition (paradosis). The injunction to repeat is after the bread and also after the cup. (I believe scholars interpret this as an explicit reinforcing of the Tradition from earlier accounts with no injunction, then to the one, then to the two.) Paul also provides interpretations:

RSV 1Cor 11:26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

RSV 1 Cor 10:16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?

3. A recent appraisal, Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World, 29-30:

Roman Catholics teach that we receive the "body, blood, soul and divinity" of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. How does this fit with Byzantine Theology?

We would say that in receiving the Body and Blood of Christ, we are transfigured and advance the process of our theosis, whereby we become partakers of the divine nature, sons and daughters of God by adoption, attaining by grace what Christ has by nature.

In other words, the same thing, expressed with a different vocabulary and from a slightly different perspective.