Questo articolo è disponibile anche in: Italian English Spanish

Dear Father Angelo,

I attend Mass every Sunday and feast of obligation, I greatly appreciate the Traditional Liturgy, but also the Novus Ordo when well cared for and without abuse.

I have always held, as the Church teaches, the Liturgy as the source and summit of the life of the Church, opposing Protestants who reduce it to a mere “supper.”

However, reading information about the liturgy of the Apostolic Church, it appears very similar to that “supper,” so much so that it was celebrated during the Agape.

Can you shed some light on the history of the Liturgy and its importance?

Sorry for the confusion.

Have a good evening

Answer from the priest

Dear friend,

1. Just recently a posthumous study by Benedict XVI appeared on the Eucharist and how it was understood from the beginning.

It is true that Jesus instituted it in the whole of the Last Supper.

And it is also true that Jesus said, “Do this in memory of me.”

It is not simply a matter of repeating the supper.

2. The Church understood from the beginning that these words were not to be understood as the whole of all that Jesus did at the Last Supper, but that they were addressed precisely to what Jesus did “after he had supper” and that is to the institution of the Eucharist.

This is so true that if those words were ordained to mean the whole of that supper that replaced Jewish Passover with the Christian Easter, it should have been celebrated only once a year. For that supper the Jews celebrated it only once a year, on the 14th day of the month of Nissan, which corresponds to the middle of the March moon.

The Protestants of the first hour understood the words of the Lord in this way and that is why that supper was celebrated only once a year.

3. Here are the precise words of Benedict XVI: “In the ecclesial communities that sprang from the Reformation, the celebrations of the sacrament are called ‘Supper.’ In the Catholic Church the celebration of the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ is called “Eucharist.”

This is not a casual, purely linguistic distinction. Instead, a profound difference related to the understanding of the sacrament itself is manifested in the distinction of denominations.

The well-known Protestant theologian Edmund Schlink in a widely heard speech during the Council stated that he in the Catholic celebration of the Eucharist could not recognize the institution of the Lord. (…). He evidently was convinced that Luther, by returning to the pure structure of the Supper, had overcome Catholic falsification and visibly restored fidelity to the Lord’s command “Do this….”

It is not necessary here to discuss what is meanwhile an established fact, namely, that from a purely historical perspective even Jesus’ Supper was entirely different from a Lutheran celebration of the Supper.

Instead, it is right to observe that already the early Church did not phenomenologically repeat the Supper, but rather, instead of the evening Supper, consciously celebrated in the morning the encounter with the Lord, which already in the earliest times was no longer called Supper, but Eucharist. Only in the encounter with the Risen One in the morning of the first day is the institution of the Eucharist complete, for only with the living Christ can the sacred mysteries be celebrated.

What happened here? Why did the nascent Church act in this way?

Let us return again for a moment to the supper and Jesus’ institution of the Eucharist at the supper.

When the Lord said “Do this,” he did not intend to invite his disciples to the repetition of the Last Supper as such.

If it was a Pesach celebration, it is clear that, in accordance with the precepts of Exodus, Pesach was celebrated once a year and could not be repeated several times during the year.

But even irrespective of this, it is clear that the mandate was not given to repeat the entire supper of that time, but only the new offering of Jesus in which, in accordance with the institutive words, the Sinai tradition is connected with the proclamation of the New Covenant witnessed especially by Jeremiah.

The Church, which is known bound by the words “Do this,” knew therefore at the same time that it was not to repeat the dinner as a whole, but that what was essentially new had to be extrapolated and that for this a new overall form had to be found.” (t/n)

4. Moreover, it appears most clearly from the words used by the Lord in the institution of the Eucharist that what Jesus did was not simply a supper, but a foretaste of the self-sacrifice that he would begin as soon as he left the cenacle: “This is my body offered as a sacrifice for you.” “This is the cup of the covenant poured out in remission of sins.”

It is in reference to this sacrifice that Jesus said, “Do this in memory of me.”

5. Jesus also taught us in what way this sacrifice could be made present, namely in the manner of a banquet or supper, because the material for making it present would be the bread and wine.

6. That “do this in remembrance of me” early Christians soon began to implement them every Sunday on the Lord’s Day and indeed even more frequently, for in the Acts of the Apostles we read that “ They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers.” (Acts 2:42).

The first name by which the Eucharist was called was precisely that of the breaking of bread, the “fractio panis.”

7. “They were assiduous in breaking bread.” Therefore, they did not repeat Jesus’ act once a year or even only on the Lord’s Day and that is on Sunday. Soon it became a daily practice.

8. Hence the early Christians understood even better what Jesus had said in the Our Father prayer when he taught to say, “Give us this day our supersubstantial bread (Greek: tòn àrton epiùsion).”

Early Christians understood that the daily bread is the Eucharist.

Benedict XVI writes: “In the early Church, surprisingly, the daily celebration of Holy Mass was considered obvious very early on.

As far as I know, there was no discussion around this practice, which was imposed peacefully. Only in this way can one understand why [in the “Pater noster”] the mysterious adjective “epiousion” was almost obviously translated as “quotidianus.”

For the Christian, the “supersubstantial” is what is daily necessary.

The daily Eucharistic celebration proved necessary especially for presbyters and bishops as “priests” of the New Covenant.

The celibate form of life played a significant role in this. Direct, “bodily” contact with the mysteries of God already in Old Testament times had played a significant role in excluding marital practice in the days when the competent priest was in charge of it.

However, since now the Christian priest was dealing with the holy mysteries no longer only temporarily, but was responsible forever for the Lord’s body, the “daily” bread, it became a necessity to offer oneself completely to him.”

9. The great pope points out that it was from here that the requirement for celibacy arose. For if the priests of the Old Testament in order to carry out their function, which consisted simply in pouring incense on the altar every day, sexual abstinence was required for at least three days, such purity was required even more intensely in reference to the Eucharist was celebrated every day.

Celibacy became a requirement precisely in reference to the daily celebration of the Eucharist.

10. Here in broad strokes, with Benedict XVI’s contribution, is the meaning of that “do this in memory of me,” quite different from how the Protestants understood, or rather, misunderstood it, self-depriving themselves in this way of the most precious good that Jesus Christ left to his Church: the Eucharist.

With the wish that for you, too, Holy Mass may become the daily appointment with the Lord, the highest and holiest moment of each of your days, I bless you and remember you in prayer.

Father Angelo