Living Bread

O memorial wondrous of the Lord's own death;
living Bread that givest all thy creatures breath,
grant my spirit ever by thy life may live,
to my taste thy sweetness neverfailing give.

I'm not going to pretend I have a firm grasp on what happens at the alter. I can tell you what transubstantiation is. (I think firefox just told me I could spell it too and that's no small feat.) I can tell you what consubstantiation is. I can tell you I'm so unimpressed by the "just a symbol" theory on the whole affair that I can't even remember the big ecclesiastical word for it. I'm sure there is one, I just never bothered to remember it.

For one of the few things that most Christians agree is important, we sure argue about communion a lot. We even argue about what to call it. Holy communion. Holy Eucharist. The Lord's supper (this one's for the symbol people). The Elizabethan settlement served to allow people to secretly think what they want about it during services in the Church of England. I'm guessing this came out of years of irritation born of being a protestant forced to attend Roman Catholic worship services while her sister Mary was on the throne.

For those of you who weren't teenage converts to the Episcopal Church who got a teensy bit obsessed, here's the short version:

• Transubstantiation is the belief that the bread and wine blessed during communion literally becomes the body and blood of Christ. This is the were the cannibal jokes come from. (I am neither condoning nor condemning the cannibal jokes.)
• Consubstantiation is the belief that Christ is spiritually present in the blessed bread and wine.
  

Episcopalians tend to gravitate toward option two historically. There are, however, those among us who tend to gravitate toward option one. Elizabeth I combined the two in a lightening stroke of brilliance that appears in the Book of Common prayer. When a person is given the bread, they would hear these words: THE Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving.

Note how the phrasing allows for people to believe in either theory on communion. The priest tells this is the body of Christ and to feed on him in their hearts.

Talk about religious diplomacy? If you didn't think Elizabeth I was cool before, I hope you do now. Given the climate of the times, she couldn't let people have actual religious freedom. The Pope had a hit out on her. She didn't have much of a choice. She did the next best thing and tried to make people of a certain persuasion a little more comfortable.

I didn't mean for this to turn into love fest on a certain English queen. I promise. It is easier for me to give you a history lesson than tell you how I really feel. I used to have a hard time during Eucharist. I actually used to cry a little. Every week. I don't know if I've gotten tougher or better at hiding it since then. For me, this is a little like wearing a red ribbon on December 1st every year because I lost someone to AIDS. It's a little like that but it's a whole lot more. Will never asked me to wear a red ribbon. Jesus did ask us to do this. He set the groundwork for the argument that followed too. "Take, eat: This is my Body, which is given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me."

There it is. Right there in black and white (and sometimes red). This is my body and do this in memory of me.

Before I wander into blasphemy, I'm going to retreat behind Elizabeth's skirts for a minute and quote her again:

'Twas God the Word that spake it,
He took the bread and brake it;
And what the Word did make it;
That I believe and take it.


That's my story and I'm sticking to it.