Posts
Dear Parish Faithful,
With the beginning of the Church Year well underway, I like to remind everyone of the importance of the Liturgy and Eucharist at the heart of our parish life. Yet, that also means that we need to be prepared to receive Holy Communion in a "worthy manner." I have therefore attached for everyone some basic pastoral guidelines as to how we can remain vigilant in that regard. Guidelines are not iron-tight regulations, but they can direct us in the right spirit, so that we always approach the Chalice "in the fear of God and with faith." Joy emerges from just such an approach - but not from a casual approach.
On the Eucharist, Fr. Alexander Schmemann to this day remains one of the most articulate and inspiring writers on the real depths of the Liturgy, and of our continual need to renew ourselves within it, in and through the Eucharist Gifts. He stresses our experience of the ecclesia - the Church - and our membership in the Church as an essential awareness when approaching the Eucharist in addition to any personal sanctification:
It is a well-known and undisputed fact that in the early Church the communion of all the faithful, of the entire ecclesia at each Liturgy, was a self-evident norm. What must be stressed, however, was that this corporate communion was understood not only as an act of personal piety and personal sanctification but, first of all, as an act stemming precisely from one's very membership in the Church, as the fulfillment and actualization of that membership. The Eucharist was both defined and experienced as "the sacrament of the Church," the "sacrament of the assembly," the "sacrament of unity." "He mixed Himself with us," writes St. John Chrysostom, "and dissolved His body in us so that we may constitute a wholeness, be a body united to the Head." The early Church simply knew no other sign or criterion of membership but the participation in the sacrament."
We want to do our best to continue in this spirit, but also to carefully prepared.
I have also attached an outline of the history, purpose and meaning of the Mystical/Last Supper. Please read them both carefully.
Please pass on any questions that you may have.
In Christ,
Fr. Steven
