Tuesday, November 24, 2009

The Eucharistic Jesus, Time and the Communion of Saints

Sometimes I wonder at the uniqueness of the Last Supper and it's affect on human history.
That first mass, cleaving time to make Jesus doubly or rather fully, and transcendentally present. I imagine Jesus both present and timeless in the bread and wine.
Time creates the illusion of a fragmented soul, the past self, the present self and the future self. However the soul is a single entity. Christ became present fully; his whole self.
His future crucified and resurrected self, his past infant and child self, this whole divine man was there in that first Eucharist. But as a soul cannot be divided by the progression of time, perhaps time itself must part for the God-man. I think about how for 2000 years we have been taught that the Eucharist is the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ.
He has been present at every mass in every corner of the globe since the Last Supper.
The miracle, the wonder of the undivided Christ is staggering. Perhaps there is only ONE Mass perpetually ringing out through time. Perhaps when the words of consecration are spoken, we welcome heaven, timeless as it is, to flood our sanctuaries. We enter a mystical cathedral in which the church militant from all of time pray as one. The power of every mass ever offered throughout the whole of time becomes manifest and unified with the presence of Jesus on our altars. If we listen closely can our hearts hear the murmured prayers of multitudes of souls at mass? Is that Peter I hear? Is that Michelangelo, Tolkien, or Mother Teresa praying there beside me in that eternal moment? Is that Joan of Arc's battle standard we hear snapping in the wind? Are we attuned enough to hear the dripping of blood off of Love's cross on the hillside at the center of time?
-Anna

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