Corpus Christi, COVID-19 and the Presence and Blessing of God

Today in the Church calendar is sometimes kept as the Day of Thanksgiving for the Institution of Holy Communion (also known as Corpus Christi), which this year falls at a time when Holy Communion and all public worship is still suspended due to COVID-19. Holy Communion was of course instituted at the Last Supper on what we now know as Maundy Thursday, but the events of Jesus' death and resurrection often, rightly, are our focus that day, and so the wonderful gift of Holy Communion is overlooked. This Day of Thanksgiving gives us the opportunity to celebrate this gift.

Jesus' Last Supper was a Passover meal. The Passover celebrated the Israelites being spared from God's judgements and also them being set free from slavery in Egypt (Exodus 12) and the start of their journey to freedom in the Promised Land. While on the journey, God told them that if they sinned they had to sacrifice certain animals before they could be forgiven. The Passover meal reminds them of these things. Jesus used the Passover meal, and in particular the bread and wine, to illustrate that his death would be the real way that sins can be forgiven. Now we can be set free from the desire to sin ('slavery to sin') and be free to live as God wants us to live. Holy Communion, which Jesus commanded his followers to celebrate (1 Corinthians 11:23-26), reminds us of these things.

At the Last Supper Jesus gathered with his disciples and shared the bread and wine with them. But at the moment we are prevented from physically gathering and sharing, which is why we cannot celebrate Holy Communion. For a lot of people this is a painful deprivation, but perhaps its absence will help us to look beyond the ceremony to the deeper truths it reveals, particularly about presence and blessing.

Holy Communion is a Sacrament, which according to the Book of Common Prayer is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, so by partaking of the bread and wine with faith we are spiritually partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ. God knows that we are physical creatures who often struggle with spiritual things because they are intangible, so he gave us the physical act of eating bread and drinking wine so that we can enact our receiving of Jesus' presence and feel his presence in us. However, before Jesus ascended back to his Father, he promised us: “I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20) – we can't have more of the presence of Jesus! Just because we celebrate Communion doesn't make Jesus more present with us than he is at any other time of our life. Jesus is with us always and completely. The Communion service gives us that visual and physical aid to remember Jesus' presence with us, but it is only an aid. He is always present with us and we can always receive him afresh into our lives. Not being able to take Communion doesn't diminish his presence with us – if anything it makes us remember that reality to which Communion points, and helps us not to rely on the physical aid but instead to rely on Jesus' promise: “I am with you always”.

The BCP also teaches that those who receive Communion with faith receive God's grace and heavenly blessing, but it also teaches that all the benefits of Jesus' death and resurrection (i.e. the forgiveness of our sins and new life in the Holy Spirit) we receive by faith, not by taking the bread and wine. St Paul reminds us that God “has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). There is no more that can be gained from receiving Communion, that God has not already given us through the Holy Spirit. We have received every blessing in Christ, and we don't need bread and wine to give us more, because there is no more we can receive. He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing.

So in this time where we can't gather together, when we can't share bread and wine together, we can still give thanks for the spiritual truths that Holy Communion points us to. That Jesus is always present with us and we can receive him into our lives any time; and that Jesus has given us every spiritual blessing to get us through our life and onto eternal life with him.

The lost treasure of the Catechism

Here's my February article:

The Ash Wednesday service (for our services this year see here and here), which marks the beginning of Lent, often contains these words: “since early days Christians have observed with great devotion the time of our Lord’s passion and resurrection and prepared for this by a season of penitence and fasting. By carefully keeping these days, Christians take to heart the call to repentance and the assurance of forgiveness proclaimed in the gospel, and so grow in faith and in devotion to our Lord.” In the early days of the Church Easter was the principal occasion for baptism and so Lent also became a time when adult candidates for baptism were instructed in the Christian faith. This could often be the intensification of a process that could last two years or more.

This process was known as 'Catechesis' and involved teaching converts to Christianity about the basics of the Christian faith and practice, usually in the form of questions and answers. Although common in the Early Church, the practice of catechesis was neglected and only revived at the Reformation. Since then the popularity of catechesis has waned, ironically in part due to the rise of Sunday Schools. Although the Sunday School movement was great for familiarising children with various Bible stories, this was often at the expense of any form of grounding in the basic beliefs, practices, and ethics of the faith. As a consequence of this neglect of catechesis many people throughout the ages have grown up with a vague connection to Christianity, and may even call themselves Christians, but have little idea what that even means.

At this point I need to hold my hands up and claim a partial responsibility for this situation. In the Book of Common Prayer, written at the time of the Reformation, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer included a Catechism“An Instruction to be learned of every person before he be brought to be Confirmed by the Bishop”. And the Vicar of “of every Parish shall diligently upon Sundays and Holy-days, after the second Lesson at Evening Prayer, openly in the Church instruct and examine so many Children of his Parish sent unto him, as he shall think convenient, in some part of this Catechism.” The aim was that every candidate for Confirmation “can say, in their mother tongue, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments; and also can answer to the other questions of this short Catechism”. I have to admit I have been lax in teaching the children of the parish the Catechism (although few are sent to me for it!!).

However, there has been a recent revival in interest in catechisms, with one of the the megachurches in New York, the Redeemer Presbyterian Church, producing 'The New City Catechism' and The Anglican Church of North America also producing a catechism titled “To be a Christian - An AnglicanCatechism”. Both of these use the traditional question and answer format to teach comprehensively what it means to be a Christian.

This Lent as we are invited again to examine our faith, perhaps look up one of these catechisms and see what we may have been missing out on for years!