Taking Holy Week Seriously

How do you understand the institution of the Lord’s Supper on that Thursday of Holy Week? 

Evelyn Underhill (1875-1911) an English Anglo-Catholic writer and pacifist known for her numerous works on religion and spiritual practice, in particular Christian mysticism, wrote concerning Holy Communion.

The Eucharist is the very heart of Christian worship because it is so rich and far-reaching in its significance; because it eludes thought, eludes emotion, relies on simple contact, humble and childlike receptiveness, sense quenching soul. It mixes together the extremes of mystery and homeliness; takes our common earthly experience of suffering, love abandonment, death, and makes them inexpressibly holy and fruitful; takes the food of our natural life and transforms that into a channel of Divine Life.

One definition of the word communion is the sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, especially on a mental or spiritual level.

What is our response to this ‘Holy’ communion with Jesus.

For me, Albert Orsborn’s (1886-1967) hymn encapsulates the response I need to enact in response to the  promise of God found in the simple yet profound gift of bread and wine.

My life must be Christ’s broken bread,
My love his outpoured wine,
A cup o’erfilled, a table spread
Beneath his name and sign.
That other souls, refreshed and fed,
May share his life through mine.

My all is in the Master’s hands
For him to bless and break;
Beyond the brook his winepress stands
And thence my way I take,
Resolved the whole of love’s demands
To give, for his dear sake.

Lord, let me share that grace of thine
Wherewith thou didst sustain
The burden of the fruitful vine,
The gift of buried grain.
Who dies with thee, O Word divine,
Shall rise and live again.