Time, Theology, and Technicalities

Another long gap between posts. Sorry again. Actually, I wonder if this has become my blogging norm. I don't think so, but we'll see.Not an excuse, but I've been sick. Actually, I wasn't aware of how bad I felt until I started back on Remicade and began to feel better. (For those who don't know, I have somewhat precarious health, much of which is autoimmune in origin, and Remicade is a powerful immunosuppressant drug that literally saved my life three years ago. My resistance to stuff that's catching is pretty much nothing, but I was back to getting blood transfusions, heart arrhythmias, shortness of breath, and near-fainting episodes, so ya weighs the good and ya weighs the bad and ya makes a decision.) I feel much better now. Thus I have no excuse for not going to church since Easter Vigil.

Reasons? I've been puzzling. Is it frustration at being in the congregation instead of at the table and in the pulpit? I miss my priestly work so very much. I tend to tear up at communion, with a longing of body, heart, and soul that approaches the longing of the recent death of a loved one. I think I sublimate preaching by talking about God 'way beyond acceptable norms any time I'm in the presence of adults, but nobody seems to be complaining. Pastoral care and counseling opportunities continue to come my way, just on a smaller scale.

I've been comfortable living within the mystery of the Eucharist for lo! these many years, but now I think I need to re-examine this in light of the longing experience with a more analytical bent.

Eucharist means giving thanks. Traditionally, during all the eucharistic prayers and in the memorial acclamation, we give specific thanks for the life of Jesus and the actions of God through Jesus during that lifetime, sometimes more "eternal" and "mystical, " sometimes more "environmental" and "cosmological," sometimes more "traditional" and "creedal." Sometimes we address God as Father, sometimes as Parent, sometimes as Mother. If we are orthodox, we refer to the Holy Spirit as "he." If we are heterodox (which is pretty much everyone I'm friends with), we feel free to address the Holy Spirit in the feminine form, from "ruach," the feminine Hebrew word for both spirit and wind.

A note: Anglicans/Episcopalians have three sources of authority for our faith. These are scripture, tradition, and reason (which includes the processing of our life experiences). Those of us who take this "three-legged stool" seriously must somehow reconcile scripture and tradition with our reasoning, our thinking logically. In the 1938 Doctrine Report of the Church of England (our mother church), there was a significant voice within those gathered theologians and clergy which spoke skeptically, if not dismissively, of the virginity of Mary, Jesus's mother, and also of Jesus's bodily ascension into Heaven. "Nonsense!" they cried. "There must be another more believable explanation."

Lots of Episcopalians (and Methodists and Presbyterians and United Church Christians and even Lutherans) keep their mental fingers crossed when they recite the historical creeds during worship services.

All that remembering and giving thanks is important to me as a Christian and as a priest, but what happens next is what I long for so desperately: the actual consecration of the elements--the bread and the wine--and the sharing of the meal with all the people.

The first time I celebrated the Eucharist--that is, for those of you who don't know church lingo, the first time I presided over the assembled people, said the prayers of thanksgiving and remembrance aloud, and consecrated--blessed, made sacred--the bread and wine, I was in my final year of seminary, not even a priest yet. (In our church a person must be an ordained priest to celebrate the Eucharist.) As I said the Words of Consecration (ironically referred to--primarily by seminarians--as "The Magic Words" or, more crudely, "Abra cadabra, Jesus jump in the cup"), I had a truly mystical experience. Among other aspects of this experience, I heard the sound of many, many voices saying the words along with me, and somehow I knew that I was hearing all the voices which had said those words in one form or another over the last twenty centuries or so. I also felt many hands on my head, neck, shoulders, and back. Of course, this hearing and touching was not experienced by ear or nerves, but with the inner senses that allow us to experience sounds and touch in our dreams. I felt that I was not standing on the floor of Christ Chapel, but perhaps 4-6 inches above it.

It was mysterious, to say the least. And, along with a couple of other experiences, it changed who I am.

When I related my experience to my liturgics professor, he acknowledged that occasionally, but rarely, happens in the context of practicing the rite. He asked me to respect the traditions of the Church and refrain from celebrating the Eucharist again until I had been ordained to the priesthood by the Church. I did, with one exception, my last Sunday worship service at the head injury hospital where I had served as the chaplain for the past two years. I prayed beforehand and just kind of snuck it in.

Something happens in the Eucharist, something we can't quite explain with scripture or reason or even tradition. Based on the many, many arguments of theologians and clergy over the centuries about the "real presence" of Christ at the Eucharist, I know others have had my experience and sought to explain it. Google "real presence" and "transsubstantiation" and you'll see what I mean. Whatever it is that happens, I have NEVER been alone at the table. Never.

Maybe that particular "not alone-ness" is what I long for. Maybe that's just part of it, though, because the distribution of communion has its own mystique. As I move quietly from one person to the next, giving each a morsel of the consecrated bread, I can almost palpably feel the people becoming one, coming together in a powerful, mystical way that transcends self and almost defines "The Other." What happens supersedes personalities, grudges, friendships, romance, and takes place at the deepest level of our being.

I miss it.

More tomorrow--I promise.