Ceremonies Reverencing the Holy Sacrament
(Mid-week Reflection)
Some of you have asked about the use of the sanctus bell during the consecration of the Eucharist, as well as some of the small ceremonial practices I use when I celebrate. Here is a beginning of an answer.
St. Paul, writing about 25 years after the death of Jesus, said,
“For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. (1 Corinthians 11:23-27)This early Christian saying lies behind the words of institution that are at the heart of the Eucharistic Prayer (the Great Thanksgiving). Another Christian tradition recorded about 50 years later, takes the thought further: it has Jesus saying,
“Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink” (John 6:53-55).
These sayings brought the Church to recognize the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. In both Eastern and Western traditions, many ceremonial practices resulted that sought to express faith in and reverence for the Real Presence of Christ in the sacrament: the use of incense, bells, bowing or quickly kneeling (“genuflecting”), and ensuring that the consecrated elements were consumed reverently and not thrown or washed into the trash or sewer.
The Western Church much later actually tried to define the method by which the Eucharistic bread and the wine supposedly became the body and blood of Christ: a mystical miracle where the priest used God’s power to change the elements’ philosophical “substance” (bread-ness and wine-ness) into the blood-ness and body-ness of Divinity Itself: transubstantiation. Such a definition required that the consecrated elements be treated as if they were God himself, and produced late medieval abuses such as simply observing the Eucharist but not partaking of the bread and wine, and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament as if it were God.
The Eastern Church was reluctant to define such a mystery and accept the one-on-one identity of the consecrated elements and the Almighty. Rather, it was content to simply affirm the Real Presence. The radical Protestant Reformation reacted against what it saw as Rome’s “idolatry” of worshipping “mere creatures of bread and wine,” and instead focused on other early Christian passages where the Eucharistic Meal was treated as a memorial or remembrance.
Anglicans remained in the middle (along with Lutherans), and affirmed the Real Presence and called for the reverencing of the Real Presence of Christ in the consecrated elements of the sacrament while declining to accept transubstantiation per se, on occasions preferring consubstantiation or transignification. We have been consistent in viewing the Eucharist as a sacrament where the unseen power of God is made manifest and visible rather than a mere ordinance or memorial. Many of us have preserved or revived the older traditions expressing reverence for the Blessed Sacrament while not adoring it as such. That’s where sanctus bells, bowing, and washing of vessels come in.
In all this, we have followed the lead of the young Elizabeth I, by affirming in faith the Real Presence while ambiguously declining to over-define the matter. When queried under threat of possible torture or death as a heretic by Queen Mary’s inquisitors about her belief regarding the Eucharistic elements, Elizabeth replied with this quatrain:
Christ was the word that spake it.
He took the bread and break it;
And what his words did make it
That I believe and take it.
Peace.
--Fr. Tony+
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