The Eucharist Essay -- essays research papers fc

Eucharist is the central rite of the Christian religion, in which bread and wine are consecrated by an ordained minister and consumed by the minister and members of the congregation in obedience to Jesus' command at the Last Supper, â€Å"Do this in remembrance of me.† In the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, and in the Anglican, Lutheran, and many other Protestant churches, it is regarded as a sacrament, which both symbolizes and effects the union of Christ with the faithful. Baptists and others refer to Holy Communion as an â€Å"institution,† rather than a sacrament, emphasizing obedience to a commandment. Traditionally, Jesus' command to his disciples at the Last Supper to eat the bread and drink the wine â€Å"in remembrance of me† constitutes the institution of the Eucharist. This specific command occurs in two New Testament accounts of the Last Supper, Luke 22:17-20 and 1 Corinthians 11:23-25. Older theology asserts that Jesus gave this command on this occasion to ensure that Christians would break bread and drink wine in his memory as long as the church endured. A critical approach to the Gospel texts, however, has made this conclusion less certain. The command â€Å"Do this in remembrance of me† does not appear in either Matthew's or Mark's account of the Last Supper. Consequently, a number of scholars have supposed that the undoubted experience of communion with the risen Christ at meals in the days after Easter inspired in some later traditions the understanding that such communion had been foreseen and commanded by Jesus at the Last Supper. The matter can probabl y never be resolved with complete satisfaction. In any case, the practice of eating meals in remembrance of the Lord and the belief in the presence of Christ in the â€Å"breaking of the bread† clearly were universal in the early church. The Didache, an early Christian document, refers to the Eucharist twice at some length. The Didache and the New Testament together indicate considerable diversity in both the practice and the understanding of the Eucharist, but no evidence exists of any Christian church in which the sacrament was not celebrated.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The development of Eucharistic doctrine centers on two ideas: presence and sacrifice. In the New Testament, no attempt is made to explain Christ's presence at the Eucharist. The theologians of the early church tended to accept Jesus' wo... ...s of Scripture readings, a sermon, and prayers. This part of the Eucharist, apparently adapted from Jewish synagogue worship, has been prefixed to the service of bread and wine at least since the middle of the 2nd century. The second part of the service, the â€Å"service of the Upper Room,† consists typically of an offering of bread and wine; the central Eucharistic prayer; the distribution of the consecrated elements to worshipers; and a final blessing and dismissal. This particular part of the service has its roots in the ancient traditional table prayers said at Jewish meals. The central Eucharistic prayer, the Anaphora, which is Greek for â€Å"offering†, typically contains a prayer of thanksgiving for the creation of the world and its redemption in Christ; an account of the institution of the Last Supper; the oblation, or Anamnesis—the offering of the bread and wine in thankful remembrance of Christ; the Epiclesis, or invocation of the Holy Spirit on the bread and wine and on the congregation; and prayers of intercession.Bibliography Underwood, Karen. The Eucharistic Prayer. New York: Dodd, Mead, & Co., 1985 â€Å"Eucharist,† World Book Encyclopedia (1999 edition), IV, 290-92.