Holy Communion, Yet Again

SUN., AUG. 1, 1993, 6:26 AM
FARM, STUDY

On this first day and first Sunday of this summer month you shall worship and shall conclude this service with the experience of Holy Communion, the reenactment and remembrance of My last supper, as Jesus, with My disciples. It is the highest point of any worship service, when it is included. Your tradition, strong in rationality, portrays it only as a symbol and as a remembrance. This is quite acceptable, but I also like the more mystical tradition, wherein the wafer and the wine actually are transformed into My Body and Blood.

You still remember the experience of being denied the sip of wine and being offered only the “friendship bread” in Michael’s orthodox church. You haven’t been back since, and perhaps you never shall. Yet sometime in the future you may have to weigh the social nature of the church service against the importance, to you, of exclusion from this sacrament, at least the fullness of it that these Christians keep to themselves. If you do decide to go you shall have to see this as a cultural difference, and one you can simply observe. Let your spirit decide what the experience should be, to you.

Communion is a sacrament. In your tradition it is seen as rather special, not just an ordinary inclusion in every worship service. This interpretation has merit, given the human tendency to routinize what is done regularly and often. This means, however, that you must feel it as a special sacramental experience and not something you do regularly, but infrequently.

Focus, today, since you are allowing Me to remind you of this sacrament, on how this affirms, in the strongest way, that you are forgiven of all your sins. I took them upon Myself, and you need only to be true to Me. Communion is grace, directly. It is the supreme “karma-buster.” As you take this bread and drink this minute sip of juice you affirm your allegiance to Me and receive absolution from all that has not been good in My sight. Let this knowledge of sinlessness flow over and through you. This should be the ultimate communion experience.

I am not completely satisfied with your tradition. “On the night on which He was betrayed Our Savior took the bread… and the cup…” The remembrance of this is only important as a lead-in to My sacrificial death and its mystical capacity to engulf and wipe away your sins, even your sinning nature. You see, this justifies having communion less often, for if you participate fully today your sinning nature is wiped away, and you don’t need to have the experience again for two months.

Why not, then, once and for all, like unto baptism? How long does it take for your sinning nature to reassert itself, so that you are again in need of this absolution? Obviously, the churches and traditions that favor weekly or even daily communion have more faith in human capacity to sin, no matter what I did or said. Your tradition, without much consciousness, I’m afraid, affirms more the power of the eucharist experience to negate sin. Its effects just “last longer.” It is a strong affirmation of true salvation.