A Meditation for Lent and Holy Week:

"Prayer and Eucharistic Consciousness"

Have you ever thought of prayer as empathizing with God? If you haven't, then Lent is a good time to begin. If prayer is our attempt to identify with the heart and mind of God, then prayer is nothing less than human/divine empathy, and Lent calls us to renew our participation in this great work. Lent calls us to participate in the sacrifice of Jesus on his cross, the supreme instance of human/divine empathy.

Throughout the Bible, prayer is understood as a form of sacrifice - and sacrifice as a form of prayer. The two become clearly one in the most perfect act of prayer that has ever been offered, or may ever be, offered to God - the sacrifice that Jesus offered on Calvary. And all our own prayers are a sharing in that perfect prayer and perfect sacrifice, that perfect expression of empathy.

An Anglican priest and theologian, has this to say about our Lord's sacrifice:

"His self-giving reaches its climax on the cross, which itself can be most helpfully understood as intercession - the self-offering of the Eternal Son to the Eternal Father on behalf of mankind from the midst of the extremities of human sin and suffering" (Tom Smail in "The Giving Gift").

This intercession continues to be our Lord's work as our Great High Priest (Romans 8: 34; Hebrews 7: 25; 1 John 2: 1). And we are called to participate in this priestly work of Jesus (Romans 12: 1; Ephesians 5: 1-2; Hebrews 13: 15-16; 1 Peter 2: 4-10; Revelation 5: 6-10). Our Lord's Heavenly intercession draws all our prayer into itself, completes it and perfects it.

Throughout the Christian year we re-enact the great mysteries of our faith. In so doing, we are engaging in much more than the commemoration of past events. Time does not simply 'march on' in a straight line, as we are apt to think. As we become increasingly aware these days of the interconnectivity of all things, so we are encouraged to re-discover the ancient realization that everything that happens influences and involves everything else. Or, as the quantum physicist might put it, "The whole is contained in the part". There is a real sense therefore in which every event is contemporaneous with every other event.

The profound implications of this should be treated with utmost seriousness for our celebration of the Eucharist. It means that when we celebrate the Eucharist the sacrifice of the cross is 'made present' (re-presented) and we are made 'players' in the drama of redemption. The Eucharist is the church's own sacrifice, a memorial sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, in which the sacrifice of Christ is made present, and in which he, as High Priest, unites us to his once and for all offering of himself. As another Anglican theologian expresses it:

"Although his death took place at a moment in history long ago, in this Eucharist we are making it present and entering into it" (Prof John Suggit in "Invitation to Life").

This understanding is captured for us in the root meaning of the biblical word for 'remember'. It means, quite literally, 're-member' - to bring together those 'members' that belong together. The opposite is 'dis-member'. So when Jesus said "Do this for the remembrance of me", he was saying in effect "Do this and have me with you" or "Do this and be with me".

Because our Lord gathers us into his one offering of himself, the consecration of the bread and the wine includes the consecration of "ourselves, our souls and bodies" and that means our worship, our service and our praying. Just as Jesus, our Great High Priest, never despises the humble and cheap elements of bread and wine, neither will he despise our prayers, however well or badly we pray. All our prayers are consecrated, made holy and acceptable to God, in the offering of the Eucharistic sacrifice. Our Lord's words "This is my body . . . this is my blood" are spoken not only over the bread and the wine but over our entire earthly being, and whatever else these words may be taken to mean and imply, they certainly mean - "These things belong to me". We are his 'body' and his 'blood'. In the Eucharistic sacrifice Jesus lays claim to every part of our lives, including our prayers.

Although we cannot always be present in church ourselves, participating in a specific celebration of the Eucharist, we nevertheless can legitimately regard every moment of our time as being truly a part of the Eucharistic offering. The wonderful fact is that our entire life is lived out in the context of the perpetual Eucharistic celebration that resounds in the Courts of Heaven (Revelation 4: 1 - 8: 5). Whenever we pray therefore, we are joining in that Heavenly Eucharist, "with Angels and Archangels, and with all the company of Heaven".

Lent offers us a wonderful opportunity for developing a comprehensive 'Eucharistic consciousness' and imaginative approach to prayer, as we once again undertake our annual pilgrimage of accompanying Jesus to his cross, his resurrection and his Heavenly work of intercession. To pray is to participate in the whole drama of our redemption. So, whenever and wherever and however we pray, formally or informally, alone or with others, we may imagine ourselves as truly gathered around our Lord on his cross, sharing in his self-gift to God. In prayerfully empathizing with Jesus on his cross, we join him in empathizing with God, as God in him empathizes with us. And nowhere is this more true than in the offering of the Eucharistic sacrifice.

[Ted Celiz]

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