“The liturgy has become an institution in itself. Commercialization and consumer glamour is quite a common feature of our liturgical celebrations.”

Subhash Anand

Subhash Anand

Why did you think of writing a book on the Eucharistic liturgy?

I begin by questioning the question: “Nego suppositum!” The Christian community, by and large, is the victim of an almost irremediable original sin: the belief that Jesus inaugurated a new liturgy. The sharing of food with people, especially with the needy, was a prophetical gesture. Liturgy presupposes an institution with its tradition, which becomes more and more centralized and communalized; more and more patriarchal and oppressive. A prophetical gesture is always subversive. This explains the conflict between the priests and prophets. This explains the execution of Jesus: the Good News was subverting the official religion of Israel; the Good News will always be subverting institutional religion. This also explains why some theologians are silenced even excommunicated. The soteriological explanations are post-Easter constructions to deal with the embarrassment faced by the first disciples: how could a good man die in such a horrible way?

My concern in writing a book on the Eucharist was precisely to show that neither with the historical Jesus, nor with the earliest believers, was the breaking-of-bread an act that called for a clear creedal, cultic and canonical frame. The Last Supper was meant to symbolize the gathering together of all, not by sharing a common creed, cult and code, but by loving, caring for and sharing with each other as much as we can. This is the clear message of the washing of feet and the discourse that follows it. We will come together if we really believe that God first loved us. Hence at the Last Supper Jesus gathers the twelve for the last time: one would betray Jesus; the second would deny him, and the other ten would abandon him. Only the disciple who believed that Jesus loved him and some women would be with Jesus. No amount of symbolic activity, however solemn, can replace real sharing. Real sharing does not call for priests, ritual texts, cultic garments, holy days and places; all these can be convenient alibis. Much less do we need heavy missals and lectionaries, carrying which the poor undernourished sacristan may need surgery for hernia. Rituals can be very comforting placebos. Real sharing is a genuinely universal sacrament and the uniquely salvific sacrifice. As far as my knowledge goes, God expects no other sacrifice from us.

Your research on the topic based on the texts makes you less sure of “do this to remember me” and “the institution words”. What is the point you want to drive home?

I wish to clearly distance myself from the belief that the Eucharist, as understood by the Roman Church, was instituted by the historical Jesus. What I find very disheartening is that even young priests are not familiar with the current discussion on the historical Jesus, and its theological and pastoral significance. They do not seem to be comfortable with an open discussion of questions that are actually in the minds of some of our educated laity. If they do not come to us for answers, it could be because they think that we are not competent or we are closed. Some of us are convinced that ignorance is bliss. It definitely ensures us the money the official Church always seems to need.

“Pope Francis has often lamented that arrogant clericalism is the major problem of the Church. Without radically rethinking our worship, there can be no salvation from clericalism. The Eucharist should make us more and more humble, open, loving and caring.”

I have a suspicion that most of us, while we emphatically reject Doceticism, we construct our theology mostly on Doceticist presuppositions. Jesus was God. He knew everything; he could do everything! But Jesus knew as much as or as little as John the Baptist knew about his future. Also for almost the first three centuries, we have the Eucharist commonly celebrated without the words of institution and the anamnesis mandate.

Studying the history of Eucharistic celebrations in different liturgies, how do you understand the Thomistic transubstantiation as a theological explanation of the traditional belief or as a philosophical imposition?

I believe that the Risen Lord is now present to the whole universe. This is the faith of the ancient Church. This presence becomes salvific for humans when they meet in his name, in love. He, the whole reality of Jesus the Christ, is present to them as the Risen Lord,. The coming together of people in love makes that presence real. It becomes an interpersonal communion. We become the one body of Christ. The Eucharist does not bring about a metaphysical miracle, but serves as a hermeneutical reminder. The Risen Lord is the bread that was broken for humans. This breaking was not a reference to Jesus’ passion and death but the actual praxis of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus could not have spoken of his passion and death as an actual realty but only as a probability. The remembrance becomes real when we become the bread broken for our needy neighbours. That is the only sacrifice acceptable to God. That will happen when we are transubstantiated. Our liturgy cannot actualize that. Only the experience of God’s love will transform us. We need to shift from cult to contemplation.

The imposition of the dogma of transubstantiation was a pastoral disaster. Earlier, the Church, as body of Christ, meant a community. The focus was on person-to-person pastoral care. Now that is being neglected. The pastor is much more in the church (building), presbytery—waiting for people to come to meet him, and sometimes supervising the gardener. Now he is less with the Church—the People of God; he is less a part of their life-struggle. As a result, people are leaving the Church.

The liturgy has become an institution in itself. Commercialization and consumer glamour is quite a common feature of our liturgical celebrations. Building costly cathedrals, churches and chapels has become more important than building vibrant faith communities. Costly patens, chalices, ciboria, monstrances, vestments, altar decorations and lamps are given more significance than the authenticity of the faith of our pastors and people. We witness very solemn liturgies, but hear horribly poor homilies. The pastors are more and more confined to their little church, where the Eucharist is kept. They imagine themselves as the custodians of the body of Christ (Mt 27:65-66). As a result, they too fail in their task, and like the first custodians, they too become like dead men (28:4.).

How important was the epiclesis in the history of Eucharistic celebration? What is the point of it having it before and after the institution narrative?

There are two accounts of Pentecost: the gifting of the Spirit and thereby birthing the Church, the body of the Risen Lord. The first is actual, but not historical: the resurrection takes place the moment Jesus dies (Jn 19.26-30). Here, John uses the verb paradidōmi = handing over. Hence paradosis is that which is handed over, i.e., tradition. For John the resurrection takes place the moment Jesus dies, and so he is able to bestow his Spirit on his Church (7:37-39). Jesus is now constitutes the Church by gathering the disciple whom Jesus loved and the women who were close to Jesus even in his death. They are the Church that is sent (apostolos; cfr. 20:17, 21-22). His presence to the whole of creation makes it sacred space. The temple and its ministers are no longer needed.

Luke dramatizes the second account. The twelve are once again together (Acts 1:21-26). The New Israel is born. The second account serves as a hermeneutical profession: all the promises made to the Israelites have been fulfilled in Jesus. In spite of our infidelity and sin, God remains faithful; he continues to be emmanouēl: God with us. The life, death and the resurrection of Jesus is God’s transforming presence with us.

The resurrection of Jesus is his final transfiguration through the Holy Spirit. The Eucharist becomes the sign of the Risen Lord, of his vivifying presence, constituting the Church. The two epiclesis could be seen as the liturgical expression of the New Testament narratives. The epiclesis before the institution draws our gifts into the realm of symbols. The second gives the consecrated gifts the symbolic character announced in the institution. They are the true symbols of the really risen Christ. For this reason, for most of the non-Roman Churches, the second epiclesis is much more important than the institution narrative.

Have we taken away the scandal from the Last Supper and the death on the cross of Christ in our liturgy?

There just cannot be any doubt that we have taken away the scandal from the Last Supper and the death on the cross of Christ in our liturgy. Imagine a priest celebrating the Eucharist with another as concelebrant. This was something the latter did not expect. The former does not miss any chance to pass nasty remarks about the latter. Yet, before communion he piously turns towards the latter to give him “the kiss of peace.” This is happening!. The fundamental reason for this is the shift in the semantic axis of the meal-sharing of Jesus. For Jesus it was a horizontal concern: giving his best to the needy, sustained by his Abba-experience, through the hours he spent with the Father. He saw himself as a servant; he was not a ministerial priest; he could never be one. Our liturgy has a vertical concern: worshipping God in a cult made possible by a human narrative: the ministerial priesthood. Not only our liturgy but also the New Testament has lost the foolishness of the Cross, because it is largely interpreted by ministerial priests and people brainwashed by them.

I think the Eucharist is the church’s attempt to make Jesus’ body present even after his presence is taken away. What does that ‘the making present of His body’ mean to you?

The presence of the Risen Lord cannot be taken away. If the real body of Jesus is not present to us, then the Church—the body of Christ—does not exist. If we experience him as absent, it means that we do not love enough. We need to experience his presence as the Risen Lord. For that only contemplation can help. Cult, by itself, is of no avail. The Risen Lord becomes really present to the world when it experiences Christians as truly loving and effectively caring for people.

Liturgy is the enactment of the story of Jesus: His passion, death and resurrection. How do you enact it is more a local and temporal question than a fixed formula!

In the New Testament the word leitourgia (liturgy) is used twice to refer to the Old Testament temple cult (Lk 1:23; Heb 9:21). It is also used four times within a Christian frame: the collection for poor Christians at Jerusalem (2 Cor 9:12); the risk of martyrdom faced by Paul and Epaphrodite was seen as a service towards the growth of faith of the Philippians. Jesus abrogates the ministry of the Old Testament because he “has obtained a ministry (leitourgia) that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises” (Heb 8:6). I plead that in understanding liturgy we be guided more by the New Testament than by Canon Law. Only then our liturgy not only will be more meaningful, but also more contextualized. Canon Law is the acme of institutionalization. Christian worship needs to be freed of its grip. No doubt, some law and order is needed. For that we, especially those who claim to be elders (presbyter), can depend on the common sense we have. Sad to say, common sense is a scare commodity among those who have been for years brought up in a closed and protected atmosphere. When the Church is perceived as oppressive, then we face bloody anti-clericalism. This is borne out by what happened in Western Europe, North and South America. Pope Francis has often lamented that arrogant clericalism is the major problem of the Church. Without radically rethinking our worship, there can be no salvation from clericalism. The Eucharist should make us more and more humble, open, loving and caring.