The Eucharist: Didache

Going outward from the Biblical canon, the next “scriptural” references we have to the Eucharist would be found in the Didache (pronounced DIH-duh-kee, it’s a Greek thing).

An anonymous work written at the end of the first century or the beginning of the second, its sometimes considered the first catechism. At the very least it sets down the rituals and practices, as well as nascent Church organization. Some early Church Fathers considered it part of the New Testament. But even though it’s not part of our Bible, it is recognized and accepted by the Catholic Church as authentic.

The Didache is a relatively short document divided into sixteen brief chapters. The Eucharist is mentioned specifically in chapter 9 and in passing in chapters 10 and 14. If you wish to spend a half-hour to truly get the gist of first-century Christianity, you can find the entire document here.

Here is the text of Chapter 9 “The Thanksgiving” (which is what Eucharist means translated from the Greek).

1 Now concerning the Thanksgiving (Eucharist), thus give thanks.
2 First, concerning the cup: We thank you, our Father, for the holy vine of David Your servant, which You made known to us through Jesus Your Servant; to You be the glory for ever.
3 And concerning the broken bread: We thank You, our Father, for the life and knowledge which You made known to us through Jesus Your Servant; to You be the glory for ever.
4 Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let Your Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into Your kingdom; for Yours is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ for ever.
5 But let no one eat or drink of your Thanksgiving (Eucharist), but they who have been baptized into the name of the Lord; for concerning this also the Lord has said, Give not that which is holy to the dogs. (Matthew 7:6)

Ouch. That last verse isn’t very PC, is it? This chapter details the mechanics of the sacrament, but not the theology behind it. The next chapter, “Prayer After Communion,” goes a little more in depth:

1 But after you are filled, thus give thanks:
2 We thank You, holy Father, for Your holy name which You caused to tabernacle in our hearts, and for the knowledge and faith and immortality, which You made known to us through Jesus Your Servant; to You be the glory for ever.
3 You, Master almighty, created all things for Your name's sake; You gave food and drink to men for enjoyment, that they might give thanks to You; but to us You freely gave spiritual food and drink and life eternal through Your Servant.
4 Before all things we thank You that You are mighty; to You be the glory for ever.
5 Remember, Lord, Your Church, to deliver it from all evil and to make it perfect in Your love, and gather it from the four winds, sanctified for Your kingdom which You have prepared for it; for Yours is the power and the glory for ever.
6 Let grace come, and let this world pass away. Hosanna to the God (Son) of David! If any one is holy, let him come; if any one is not so, let him repent. Maran atha. Amen.
7 But permit the prophets to make Thanksgiving as much as they desire.

Here, in the third verse, the early Church recognizes that we are fed spiritual food and drink, and through it gain life eternal, through Christ.

The Eucharist is again mentioned, in passing, in the fourteenth chapter, “Christian Assembly on the Lord’s Day”:

1 But every Lord's day do ye gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure.
2 But let no one that is at variance with his fellow come together with you, until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be profaned.
3 For this is that which was spoken by the Lord: In every place and time offer to me a pure sacrifice; for I am a great King, says the Lord, and my name is wonderful among the nations.

This seems to establish the Church teaching that one must be pure, i.e., unaware of conscious mortal sin, before receiving the Eucharist. If not, one must partake of the sacrament of reconciliation. It also appears to establish the practice of taking the Eucharist at weekly mass.

But what I’m looking for is more theory, more doctrine. Perhaps the early Church Fathers have something to say on the subject …

The Eucharist: Biblical Evidence

First, the linking of Jesus (His body) with the sacrificial, saving meal of Passover:

John 1:29-30 – The next day he [John the Baptist] saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. He is the one of whom I said, ‘A man is coming after me who ranks ahead of me because he existed before me.’”

John links Jesus with the victorious apocalyptic lamb who would destroy evil in the world; the paschal lamb whose blood saved Israel. This ties in with Moses, who says in the 12th chapter of Exodus that the flesh of the sacrificial paschal lamb had to be eaten by Jews on the first night of Passover.

Agreement, and further development, from St. Paul:

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 5:7 – “… for our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed.”

Also, in 1 Corinthians 10:16 – “… The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?”

And further, in 1 Corinthians 11:23-29 – “For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying “This is the new covenant of My blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes. Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.”

How about back to the gospels? What did Jesus say to his disciples at the Last (Lord’s) Supper?

Mark writes, 14:22-25, describing that night in the Upper Room – While they were eating, He took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, and said, “Take it; this is My body.” Then He took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it. He said to them, “This is My blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many. Amen I say to you, I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God.”

Luke writes similarly, in 22:14-20 – When the hour came, He took His place at table with the apostles. He said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, for, I tell you, I shall not eat it again until there is fulfillment in the kingdom of God.” Then He took a cup, gave thanks, and said, “Take this and share it among yourselves; for I tell you that from this time on I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” Then He took the bread, and the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body, which will be given for you; do this is memory of Me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which will be shed for you.”

Matthew, in a somewhat surprisingly concise telling, also writes, in 26:26-28 – While they were eating, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to His disciples said, “Take and eat; this is My body.” Then He took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you, for this is My blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins.”

But perhaps the strongest biblical evidence for the Eucharist is found in the very words of Jesus Himself, in the sixth chapter of the gospel of John, verses 22-58 (kinda lengthy, but stay with it and read it slowly …) –

When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor His disciples were there, they themselves got into boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus. And when they found Him across the sea they said to Him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”

Jesus answered them and said, “Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for Me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give You. For on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.”

So they said to Him, “What sign can You do, that we may see and believe in You? What can You do? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

So Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

So they said to Him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to Me will never hunger, and whoever believes in Me with never thirst. But I told you that although you have seen Me, you do not believe. Everything that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to Me, because I came down from heaven not to do My own will but the will of the One who sent Me. And this is the will of the One who sent Me, that I should not lose anything of what He gave Me, but that I should raise it on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.”

…

“Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise Him on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood remains in Me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent Me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on Me will have life because of Me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.”


Rhetorical question: Now, if these are the very words of Jesus Himself, how else are we to interpret them if not the way that the Church has?



Also, note the proliferance of the double-Amens in John 6. It seems to me that this is His way of grabbing us by the shoulders and shaking us up: this is truly something we need to listen to, to understand, and to grasp.


[Thanks to Where Is That In the Bible? by Patrick Madrid...]

The Eucharist

The Eucharist is the central sacrament of the Catholic Church. It is the reception of a consecrated host and, at the participant’s discretion, wine, that we believe is the body and blood of Jesus Christ through a process called transubstantiation.

I must admit up front that this still baffles me and I do not completely understand it.

However, it has had an incredible “pull” on me, beginning, oh, sometime around 2002 or so.

Despite regular attendance at Sunday School during my youth, up to CCD in 8th grade in preparation for Confirmation, despite four years at perhaps the prominent Catholic high school in New Jersey, despite growing up in a family of about 97 percent Catholics, of which maybe half attended mass weekly, despite all this, I don’t think the Eucharist was ever explained to me. Or if it was, it was done in a way that didn’t “stick.” Probably the latter, but I’m having a hard time of drawing up even a single memory of someone talking about the sacrament all those years ago.

But that is beside the point. I don’t want to argue how poor modern catechesis is (see how I just subtly argued my point there?). That’s the subject of a different post. I want to spend a couple of days trying to figure all this out for myself.

I have agreed to be an extraordinary minister of the Eucharist for my parish. That means, basically, that I will take the Eucharist to hospitals and give it to those who are stuck there, like I was nearly four months ago.

One of the highlights of those seemingly endless days of hospitalization was the daily visit from the Eucharistic minister. Some were chatty, some just gave me the sacrament and left. Either way, I believe whole-heartedly that I derived strength and comfort from it. Because it is the Real Presence of Jesus.

I recall back to 2002 when I was working IT in NYC. I had plenty of enforced free time so after exhausting all the used book stores in lower Manhattan I began attending daily mass at noon. It started accidentally during a visit to St. Patrick’s, but I soon found I liked it, and alternated between two churches, St. Anne’s and the Church of Our Savior. The highlight was receiving communion. After I got laid off and began working back in NJ, I attended Holy Trinity in Fort Lee periodically, but often around the time of the birth of my first daughter. It was at that parish where I felt the Real Presence in the Eucharist.

There was a visiting priest, a chubby bearded man with what sounded like an Australian accent. I was two pews back from the far right, kneeling, watching him hold up the host to consecrate it when everything seemed to fade away. I remember all sounds, the traffic outside, the coughing and shuffling of parishioners, the priest’s prayers, all sound faded out to complete silence. And my peripheral vision shut down; I was focused solely on that rounded piece of unleavened bread that this man was holding aloft. It held my complete, ultimate attention in a way nothing either had before or has since. It was strange, but oddly it did not seem earth-shattering or mind-blowing. Just pleasant.

So every now and then I try to read something theological to try to make some sense of what exactly this Eucharist is. Next Sunday I’m meeting with my priest to actually officially go over this. The following Sunday is another “training” session. I’m very curious as to what they are going to tell me, and I don’t want to go into it blind. The next couple of days I’ll try to post some stuff on our blessed sacrament, more to make sense of it myself than to pass along anything of value to you.