Autor: Sokolowski, Robert

Buch: Christian Faith & Human Understanding

Titel: Christian Faith & Human Understanding

Stichwort: Eucharistie und Inkarnation; Phänomenologie d. Eu.; Verschränkung: geschichtliches Ereignis - Opfer Christi ewig gegenwärtig dem Vater (Vater als Adressat d. Kanons); Abendmahl: Vorwegnahme d. Todes; Sanctus, Epiklese

Kurzinhalt: The reenactment of Calvary in the Eucharist enters into the presence of Calvary to the Father, and the real presence of Christ in the sacrament is that of his glorified Body and Blood eternally presented to the Father.1 It is because God is so ...

Textausschnitt: Phenomenology of the Eucharist

79b Phenomenology can also be used in a theological reflection on the Eucharist, where it can help us clarify how the Eucharist, and the redemptive action that is performed in the Eucharist, appear to us. I would like to use the term "theology of disclosure" to name this kind of reflection, because the more obvious term, "phenomenological theology," is so cumbersome. This theology would bring out the appearances that are proper and specific to the Eucharist and to Christian things generally. It would bring out the patterns and structures of appearance that are essential to the sacramental presence that follows in the wake of the Incarnation. Two particular themes deserve investigation. (Fs)

80a First, according to the faith of the Church, the sacrifice that occurs in the celebration of the Eucharist is the same sacrifice that was achieved by Christ on the cross. There was only one sacrifice that redeemed the human race and made it possible for man to become adopted into the Sonship of Christ; it was the sacrifice on Calvary. Each Mass is also a sacrifice, but it is so not by being a separate, independent action. Rather, it reenacts, it makes present again, the one sacrifice of Christ. But how can this occur if the death of Christ occurred centuries in the past? How can a past event, in its individuality, be made present again? Worldly historical events are fixed at their moment in history. They can be commemorated but they cannot truly be made to happen again. We can publicly remember and celebrate the founding of our nation, but we cannot make that founding occur once again here and now; we cannot truly reenact it. Time is relentless and inescapable, and it leaves events behind. (Fs) (notabene)

80b The sacrifice of Christ, however, was not merely a worldly historical event. It was such a worldly event, it happened in human history, but its true meaning, its substance, what happened when it occurred, was not just a worldly occurrence. It was a transaction, an exchange, between Christ and the Father. Although it took place in time, it touched eternity as did no other event in history. It did so because of the person who achieved it and also because of what was done. It was the perfect sacrifice offered to the Father, the perfect act of obedience of the Son, different from all the other actions he performed in his life on earth. Because the sacrifice of Christ touched eternity in this way, it was not just a historical event: it took on the kind of presence that marks the eternal moment, the moment out of time: "For Christ did not enter into a sanctuary made by hands ... but heaven itself, that he might now appear before God on our behalf" (Hebrews 9:24).1 The sacrifice of Christ is eternally present to the Father; the Lamb in the Apocalypse appears as having been slain (Revelation 5:6—12) and the wounds of the passion remain in the Risen Lord. (Fs) (notabene)

81a When the Eucharist is celebrated now, it is not turned merely to the historical past. Its primary focus is not on the past but on the eternal present of God. The entire Eucharistie Prayer, the Canon of the Mass, is directed toward God the Father. This setting is established by the Preface and the Sanctus, in which the congregation, the Church assembled at this particular time and place, enters into the company of the angels and saints in heaven and sings God's praise with them, in words taken from the beginning of the book of the prophet Isaiah. The Eucharistie prayer then continues to be directed toward God the Father, and it enters into the redemptive sacrifice of Christ as it is being presented to the Father in that eternal moment. The reenactment of Calvary in the Eucharist enters into the presence of Calvary to the Father, and the real presence of Christ in the sacrament is that of his glorified Body and Blood eternally presented to the Father.2 It is because God is so transcendent, because he is so radically beyond time and beyond Creation, that the Eucharist can be the reenactment of the redeeming Death and Resurrection of Christ. The Eucharist can reenact an event from the past because it joins with that event in the eternal present of God. This contact with the eternal moment is expressed in the Eucharist by the fact that the eucharistie prayer is addressed to God the Father. (Fs) (notabene)

81b The second thing I wish to do in this brief theology of the Eucharist is to study more closely the words of consecration. The Eucharist reenacts the redemptive Death and Resurrection of Jesus, but it does so in a manner that is very complicated. It does not immediately refer to Calvary, it does not relate to Calvary in a straight line, so to speak; the Eucharist is not like a Passion Play that depicts or directly recalls that event. Rather, it approaches the death of Christ by a kind of detour, if I may use the term, by first reen-acting the Last Supper. At the Last Supper, of course, Christ anticipated his own death. He preenacted his sacrificial offering; he looked ahead to it and accomplished its substance as he instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist. Because Christ anticipated and preenacted his Death and Resurrection, the Church can reenact it afterward. The Eucharist looks back to the sacrifice on Calvary by going still further back to the Last Supper and looking forward with Christ to the sacrifice on the cross. The consecration in the Mass weaves together these forms of presence and absence; it composes the past, the present, and the future, as well as the moment of eternity, into an intricate and highly sophisticated structure, one that elevates the mind as well as the heart. These complexities in presentation help make the Eucharist into what the first eucharistie prayer calls an oblatio rationabilis, a rational sacrifice. (Fs) (notabene)

82a The Last Supper is called up, of course, in the brief narrative, the institutional narrative, that introduces the words of consecration. This narrative in turn is embedded in the eucharistie prayer. Consider how the narrative and consecration are placed within the entire eucharistie prayer. (Fs)

82b The eucharistie prayer begins with the Preface and continues after the Sanctus. As the prayer proceeds, it gives way to the epiclesis, when the celebrant, in the name of the Church, calls on the Holy Spirit to descend on the gifts. The epiclesis gives way to the institutional narrative: "The day before he suffered, he took bread into his sacred hands.... He broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said." This narrative, in turn, gives way to the words of consecration: "Take this, all of you, and eat it: this is my body, which will be given up for you." There is an elegant sequence in the forms of speech spoken by the celebrant: we begin with prayer, the prayer gives way to epiclesis, which gives way to narrative, which gives way to the words of consecration. As this sequence unfolds, there is a striking change in the personal pronouns that are used by the priest. The first three of these forms, the prayer, epiclesis, and narrative, explicitly or implicitly, all use the first-person plural. The priest says "we" or "us" or "our," because he speaks as a representative of the Church. He speaks in the name of the Church, both the Church as a whole and the Church assembled here and now in this place. But in the words of consecration, the priest begins to use the first-person singular: he says, "my body" and "my blood," and "do this in memory of me." (Fs)

83a At this moment and in these words the priest speaks no longer simply in the name of the Church, but in the name of Christ, in the person of Christ. Both grammatically and spiritually, he speaks in the person of Christ. To put it another way, he now lets Christ become the speaker and the agent. He lets Christ take over the action that is being performed. At this central part of its most central action, the Church recedes and no longer speaks in her own name; she lets Christ take over and accomplish what he accomplished at the Last Supper. She lets him do whatever he did there, by simply allowing him to speak in his name, not her own. It is by virtue of the literary form of a quotation that the Church allows Christ palpably to take control of her liturgy. Of course, it is somewhat inappropriate to say that the priest or the Church "lets" Christ speak, as though he or she gave him permission to do so; rather, the entire liturgy is being performed under the guidance of Christ. The priest and the Church merely provide the bodily vehicle by which Christ reenacts what he did at the Last Supper, and thereby reenacts his own offering to the Father. And yet, Christ does need and use the Church and the voice and gestures of the priest to become present sacramentally in the world, as he once used the words and the body of the Blessed Virgin Mary to become present in the humility of the Incarnation. (Fs)

83b When the priest recites the words of consecration, he quotes the words of Christ. Moreover, not only the words of consecration but also the gestures associated with them—taking up the bread, looking up to heaven, bowing to show thanks and praise—are also quotational. The words and the gestures are quotations; they are not part of a drama. The priest does not suddenly perform a little play that depicts the Last Supper before the congregation. The words and gestures are quotational and not dramatic. This is an important phenomenological difference, a distinction in the mode of presentation. Quotation is a distinct form of manifestation. In quotation, we allow our voice to be the vehicle for the thinking and the display that have been performed by someone else. We allow another person to articulate the world through our voice. We subordinate our speech to the authority of someone else, to his authority as an agent of truth. This is precisely what happens at the consecration: the authority of Christ comes into play explicitly, as he becomes the grammatical speaker of the words, and he achieves what is being done. He is the person speaking. The Church expresses herself in a palpable way as the Mystical Body of Christ when she enables him to speak and to act at this central point of the Eucharist. Christ offers himself not only to us but to the Father at that moment. (Fs)

84a The presence and authority of Christ would not come to the fore in this powerful way if the priest were to understand himself as an actor in a drama, as someone who is depicting Christ at the Last Supper. If the priest were to take himself as an actor, he would assume a greater authority than he should, and he would not be as transparent as he ought to be. It would be the priest's interpretation of the drama that came to the fore, not the action of Christ. To consider the priest as engaged in a drama would also, I think, detract from the fact that even in the consecration the primary focus of the Eucharist is still toward the Father. To see the action as a drama would turn the focus toward the congregation as the audience or the participants in this drama. In the traditional liturgy, when the altar did not face the congregation, there was no tendency to take the words of consecration as a theatrical reenactment of the Last Supper. It is true, of course, that the words of consecration do also address the community at the Eucharist; the body of Christ will be given up and the blood will be shed "for you," but this is not the primary and exclusive focus, and it should not be made to override the presentation of these actions to God the Father. One could say that the priest celebrating the Eucharist continues to address God the Father, but that Christ speaking through the priest addresses the community, as he did at the Last Supper. The complexities of quotation permit these two forms of address. (Fs) (notabene)

Concluding remarks

84b Our discussion of the Eucharist has made use of many themes in phenomenology: the temporal patterns of present, past, and future, profiled against the background God's eternity; the presence and absence of the one action of Christ in these various temporal and presentational contexts; the contrast between words and pictures. We have made extensive use of the phenomenon of quotation and we have distinguished it, phenomenologically from drama. Our remarks do not counteract anything in patristic or scholastic theology, but they do add a dimension that may have been underplayed in them, one that is especially appropriate for theology in the cultural situation in which it finds itself now, whether that situation be called modern or postmodern. (Fs)

84c Finally, the fact that God became man in Christ, that he took on the weakness and suffering of the human condition, and that he even becomes our food in the Eucharist, does not diminish his transcendence and power. In fact, these acts of humility enhance his majesty. They show that God can do these things and still remain the all-powerful Creator of the world, the one who creates not because of necessity or any kind of need, but out of sheer generosity. The generosity of Creation is made more evident to us precisely by the majesty of the new Creation, which was accomplished by God in humility and suffering when he became the servant of those he created, the one who took upon himself the most painful and degrading of all human tasks. In this action of Death and Resurrection, it is not only God's power and glory that are manifested to us, but also the generosity of his own divine life, the life of the Holy Trinity. The Eucharist brings us into this action and into this life, and it displays, until the end of time, the one saving, action that is the point of the created world. (Fs)