Eucharist: Gift of Love

Images of Love and their Archetype

What would you do if you loved another person to the point that you would give him everything that lies within your power? Let us suppose that your love is pure and free from all egotistical ulterior motives that often enough cloud, even unconsciously, love in human relationships. No, you truly have nothing else in mind besides your beloved. You are not content with affectionate thoughts, which do nothing for the other; you desire to give. Words are not enough, flowers and other things that can please him are, at best, signs of your love, but not love itself. There is the embrace, the kiss, but though they may bring such a deep joy to both people, they remain in the order of signs. Thanks to the wonderful provision of God, there is in human nature the sexual union of man and woman, in which the two “become one flesh,” as the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments say. And when this union happens without selfish concupiscence, it is probably the greatest gift that people are able to give to one another. But there are limits that remain even here: the ecstasy of oneness is intrinsically short, and, as always, nature speaks up, quietly but unmistakably. This union, as Franz Werfel says, is a ruse in order to ensure offspring, and if one brings this insistent voice to silence by artificial means, so sneaks in, consciously or unconsciously, a guilty conscience of having deprived love of one of its essential dimensions. For total love is more profoundly ecstatic than the merely sexual sense. Love strives to go beyond itself, and if one wants to imprison love in the mere I⁠-⁠thou relationship, one clips its wings. Another poet, Rudolf Borchardt, begins his impassioned poetry with these words:

Love already suffers when it refuses children. When procreating, the parents resign themselves to the imperfection of the sexual act—the bodies separate and remain lying next to one another, they cannot truly penetrate one another—the child can bring joy for a time, but then he “leaves father and mother and is united to his wife,” as Genesis says (2:24), and the elderly remain alone, perhaps grateful to have one another and being contented that human love has impassable limits. “Ad personalitatem requiritur ultima solitudo: to be a person requires a final (boundless) solitude” (Duns Scotus). Bodies are not able to entirely interpenetrate one another; souls can exchange with one another to a large extent, but I cannot give my very self to you, and you accordingly cannot give your very self to me. And yet it seems to us that love always exceeds the concept that we have of it: it intends something that it cannot accomplish. It remains, even in its most intense forms that exist in the world, only a pale reflection of that which it would be in its plenitude.

Christianity (and no other religion) allows us to believe in and to catch a glimpse of the perfect archetype. We are told that “God is love,” namely the essence of love and nothing else but love, and this is because he succeeds where the world always fails: the infinite abandon of one to another, so that nothing that the Father is or has is withheld from the Son, whom he generates in love, and the Son returns and makes available everything that he is or has to his beloved Source. And this love is not an infinite “pair of egoisms,” but in their reciprocity they bring forth the Spirit, who at the same time is the epitome and the witness of their mutual love. And the three are not, as human persons, side by side, but so much within one another that they form one single self⁠-⁠consciousness, one identity and one love. In short, one single God. You will say that this is inconceivable, and you will be right. In fact, we would have no possibility of such a notion, which exceeds every conceptualization, if something like this were not made known in our world. It is also at the center of Christian faith, of which we are assured by the fact that the ideal of boundless love that is realized in God has broken into our ever⁠-⁠limited existence. Thus this astonishing passage: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son (for you), so that the world would be saved through him” (Jn 3:16⁠-⁠17). It is here asserted that God has embraced the world with the same boundless love with which he loves his Son in his absolute gift of self, and that the Son in gratitude (thanksgiving, as in the Greek eucharistia) for the paternal gift of self does the same: “This is why the Father loves me, because I give over my life. Nobody takes it from me, but I give it over freely” (Jn 10:17⁠-⁠18).

And now it is plain to see that in this paternal gift of the only beloved and in the consent of the Son to that gift occurs exactly what we humans long for, without being able to attain it: the realization of absolute love within our limited world. This is that miracle that exceeded worldly limits without thereby shattering the world and humanity along with it. How could this come about? Not only by the witness of love from Father and Son carried out with the crucifixion of the Son—which we will discuss later—but through a particular work attributed to the divine Spirit of love, which we are accustomed to call the Eucharist: the Spirit is able, from the truly fleshly man Jesus, a limited man like ourselves, to form not a bodiless spirit, but a “pneumatic flesh” (1 Cor 15:44). This flesh is thus “life⁠-⁠giving” for us (ibid., 22), and is now able to completely enter into us, to penetrate us, and is capable of absorbing our boundaries into his immensity. And this is not in order to conjure up something in front of us, but as the realization of absolute love within our relative, and thus always finite and weary, forms of love.

Naturally, we have nothing more than images for this incomprehensible and enormous matter. We speak, for example, of the spiritual (or “mystical”) body of Christ that receives our persons as its living members without destroying them. We must immediately add that we are not thereby degraded to the status of unintelligent beings, but our bondage is converted into the highest, actually divine, freedom (Gal 5:13; Jn 8:32). Alternatively, we are presented with the image of the vine whose branches carry fruit that they could never produce if they did not draw their sap from the trunk, whose roots are anchored in the divine life. Finally, Paul struggles to find the words and is only able to formulate a paradox, but at the same time with the assurance that the recentering of his person required the total gift of his very self: “I live, and yet no longer (as a mere) I, but Christ lives in me. As far as I still live an earthly life, I do so in abandonment to the Son of God, who loved me and delivered himself up for me” (Gal 2:20). In opposition to other religions that promote redemption as the dissolution of the limited self into the All, we speak here above all of an exceeding of our finitude, which is not destroyed but is completed beyond anything we could hope for. So much so that our finite forms of love, nourished by infinite love, are also confirmed thereby: if marital love sees itself as an image of the love of Christ for us, it does not need any longer to be resigned (as Eph 5:21⁠-⁠33 shows in detail), and the same applies to every friendship, every form of human affection, or mutual service.

That, and nothing else, is what we celebrate in every celebration of the Eucharist, however modest and perhaps only humanly disappointing its outward appearance may be. Perhaps we would prefer to celebrate the mystery all alone rather than with the human surroundings that only bother us by their banality and smugness, or at least in a small group of the like⁠-⁠minded. The latter is possible perhaps, if the group does not see itself as exclusive, for one thing is vitally important: we are only persons in the thoroughly human society, and God gives himself in the Eucharist to each individual only insofar as each sees himself as one among all, for the Lord is the One for All. One cannot have God, who is love, in an exclusive manner, but only inclusively.

In order to understand all of this, we must rectify an omission.

Love to the Utmost

“For as often as you eat this bread,” Paul tells us, “you proclaim the death of the Lord” (1 Cor 11:26). This is why we refer to the eucharistic celebration as the “memoriale passionis Domini,” as the “re⁠-⁠presentational memorial of the passion of Christ.” That which occurred in reality during this Passion cannot be predicted or reconstructed, but one must allow it to speak for itself. And what the New Testament says to us about this is the center of its entire message, which can never be explained away. It is said that he who hung on the cross “has taken away the sins of the world” (Jn 1:29), that he had so identified himself with the sins of all (and thus also with mine) that one can say that “God had made him, who knew no sin, to be sin for us” (2 Cor 5:21). How could he do such a thing? Because, as we have shown, his love is not limited and therefore he can incorporate into himself even that which is most limited and opposed to God in us, our sins. This, admittedly, still seems incomprehensible, even more unbelievable than what we said about the Eucharist. And yet the two—the cross and the eucharistic meal—viewed from two angles, are the same. Had Christ not taken on himself that which was ours, that which filled up the place in us that is reserved for him, he would not have been able to give to us that which is his own, his very self. Or, to say the same thing in a slightly deeper sense: had he not experienced our wretchedness in himself “without sin,” he would have given himself to us only as something foreign, whereas he returns to us, in himself, that which is ours, but purified, transfigured. The Letter to the Hebrews depicts this at length: Jesus knows us from the interior, “For he was tempted in all things, as are we, yet without sin,” so that he “can sympathize with our weaknesses,” and “through the power of the eternal Spirit has offered himself without blemish to God,” namely for us, “so that we may serve the living God” (Heb 5 and 9).^{Balthasar cites “Heb 5 and 9,” but the actual references are Heb 4:15 and 9:14.—Trans.} St. Brother Klaus^{St. Nicholas of Flüe (1417⁠-⁠1487), also known as Brother Klaus. He is the patron saint of Switzerland.—Trans.} prayed, “Take everything from me that keeps me from you,” which is realized fundamentally on the cross and only needs now to be made present in one’s daily prayer. This is certainly necessary because we can never feel ourselves to be so free of sin and perfect as we are meant to be as a result of the act of Christ. Therefore we must pray with deep conviction at every celebration of the Eucharist: “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.” Even the fact that we may draw near to his table is not at all our achievement and our merit, but completely his.

That is why we pray (as seen in the various liturgical forms) that the Lord would integrate us, despite our weakness and laxity, into his sacrifice for us. This always remains the precondition for receiving him into our house, our “I,” despite our unworthiness. If we consider the matter correctly, it could become difficult for us to grasp that he takes upon himself all of our failures. It would be no surprise if we recoiled from such a deed, but we should not hinder him and step in the way of the absolute love that he wills. We must let absolute love carry out its plans, but not because of our own egoism (because we are pleased that someone lightens our burden), but only out of love.

Now we can see the immediate consequence of all of this. The love that one takes into oneself, that one has in oneself, means that one must demonstrate this love. Every gift of God necessitates a mission: to give away what one has been given. The entirety of the Farewell Discourse drives this point home for us. “As I have loved you, so must you also love one another.”^{Jn 13:34.—Trans.} “If you keep my commandments”—the commandment of love—“you remain in my love as also I remain in the love of my Father, as I have kept his commandments.”^{Jn 15:10.—Trans.} This becomes more serious and manifests the total gift on the cross: “This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you. No one has a greater love than the one who gives his life for his friends.”^{Jn 15:12⁠-⁠13.—Trans.} John draws the conclusion: “This is how we recognize the love (of God), that he (Christ) has given up his life for us. Therefore we must also give our life for the brothers” (1 Jn 3:16). The Eucharist presupposes the cross of Christ, but the Eucharist has as its goal our total, crucifying gift. How many of those who go forward for Communion realize that? However, to follow this and say that it would be better to not draw near would be false. For where could we accept the love that the Lord demands of us unless he first gives us his own love? He, who has carried all of our burdens, may command us: “Bear one another’s burdens” (Gal 6:2). Whoever does not receive the opportunity to carry the burden of others as a principal gift easily becomes like the Pharisees: he intends to be able to do everything by himself, and he attributes everything to himself as his own merit.

The Wedding Banquet: Who is Invited, Who Invites?

The parables of the Lord often compare the eucharistic celebration with a great banquet that a king prepares for the wedding of his son. “Everything is prepared,” the tables are overflowing, as one imagines a royal reception to be. We recognize the two events which follow from the “invitation of many”: first, that all of those invited bring forth an excuse, because in their estimation they have something more important to do; second, that among the guests who are eventually picked up from the street there is one who is dressed in a garment inappropriate for the occasion. That is to say, he does not know how to distinguish a royal feast from an ordinary dinner and is therefore thrown out by the host.

Next, let us begin to consider these two episodes. First, “all those invited” (Lk 14:24) bring forth an excuse for their absence. Everyone has something more sensible to do. The recently purchased plot of land must be urgently visited, the five yoke of oxen must be examined before the payment is due. Both make their excuses. The third, who had just married, does not even make an excuse, thinking the fact of his marriage to be excuse enough. We have no recently purchased plot of land, but with the others we have arranged our escape. It would be discourteous to cancel our plans on account of a Sunday Mass. We have no oxen that have been acquired and that must be examined, but some “latest device” that absolutely must be tried out. There are hundreds of Sunday Masses (which also happen to be boring), during which unique opportunities arise. We have not just married, but there is the young lady who awaits us, who naturally cannot be left to wait. While the king is anxious to have the hall filled, we care very little whether the Church be half empty. However, perhaps it should give us pause that the parable finishes with these words from the king: “But I say to you: none of those who were invited will taste my feast.” We remain far off. We had not thought that we would be barred from the Lord on account of this.

Then the fellow wearing street clothes, perhaps also unwashed and unkempt, seats himself. He has no idea where he actually is: in the great hall of his king, at the wedding feast of the king’s own son. Should “the Church” not be joyful when someone just comes in, even if he happens to be inwardly unprepared? Many do habitually plod forward with “the rest of the herd” to receive Communion: if one is already invited, one should at least receive something. The one who is accustomed to sit around in a tavern, or to rapidly scarf fast food, will be quite astonished when the king’s servants throw him out for what seems like no reason at all.

Let us now turn back to the essential concern after these two intermediary issues: the king (who stands here for the divine Father) has prepared a wedding feast for his “son” (who stands here for Jesus Christ, who marries his bride, the Church). “Everything is prepared,” that is to say, arranged according to the directive and taste of the king. This seems to be inadequate or bothersome for many of the guests. And thus they will consult among themselves: “How will we form this banquet? How are we going to ‘form’ divine service tomorrow?” They have a feeling that without their “form” the progress of the feast will bore rather than delight. They want to experience something and to think about what they would like to experience. We know the Bible, we can find a more interesting reading: Who has an idea? The perpetually ancient songs are so banal and unmodern: What should we sing and play? We are progressively becoming fed up with the two⁠-⁠thousand⁠-⁠year⁠-⁠old Credo: How do we experience the faith today? Some of us should get together and formulate something new. Above all, the Mass should speak to us today: that old parish priest has no clue about the modern world with his outdated theology and ethics. We, the youth, would speak entirely differently and could thus liven up the place.

And even if that were the case, do we yet know who the actual host here is? Certainly not the parish priest or the chaplain, but someone else entirely. And what lies on the prepared table? Certainly not just a bit of bread and wine, but something else entirely. And what is required of me as a guest? Certainly not that I form the feast myself—it is certainly not my feast—but that I receive what has been formed by the king (and in union with him, his bride the Church): not passively, but in “active participation.” “Christians should not be present at this mystery of faith as outsiders or silent spectators; rather, through the prayers and rites they should come to inwardly understand the mystery and take part in the sacred action conscious of what they are doing, with devotion and full collaboration. They should be instructed by God’s word and find strengthening at the table of the Lord’s body; they should give thanks to God (eucharistein) and offer the Immaculate Victim, not only through the hands of the priest, but also with him, they thereby can also offer themselves” (Sacrosanctum concilium, 48). God is the first to form: through his Word, his gift of self to us. Our active co⁠-⁠forming consists in that we allow him to form us through this Word of God and this gift of self: that will have more of a claim upon us than our tiny degree of autonomous “forming.” For what is essential is that, through our being⁠-⁠formed, God accomplishes what he set out to do—and not that we cobble together something to satisfy ourselves, and then charge it to God’s account (putting him in our debt).

Gifts cannot be taken

The king, as we have seen, is the one who invites. Not only the wealthy, but also the beggars. In all of the versions of this parable, the king sends his servants out in order to invite (even to compel) the beggars to come to the banquet hall. But this does not mean that the beggars invite one another: “There seems to be plenty of room in there, so come along!” Just as we do not form the banquet, so we ourselves do not decide who shall attend it. We do not offer a “eucharistic party,” only to be able to seal, as it were, our friendship and camaraderie, our experience of our commitment to one another. Though many, out of well⁠-⁠meaning ignorance, think that they can and that they should do this: a shared eucharistic celebration among “separated brethren” should not only be a sign that we feel united “in all the essentials” in our common faith in Christ and in a common baptism, that we can push aside as irrelevant whatever divides us, but also that we claim that this sign of union that we establish has the power to supply any lack to perfect unity. Public opinion, authenticated by famous theologians, confirms us in this practice, which faltering, antiquated churchmen must learn once they finally overcome their inhibitions and anxieties. The fact of this custom, especially if it is an expression of love, overhauls the mere theory and shows the way forward. After all, it seems to be generally accepted today. What then still separates us? These old quarrels from the sixteenth century, about whether the ecclesial office comes from above, from Christ through the apostles and their successors, or whether the office is inherent in the Church so that each community can decide for itself who is able to preside at the Eucharist: Can such trifles really prohibit intercommunion?

But are these really only trifles? Every version of the parable of the wedding feast says, “The king sent out his servants.” Nobody can make himself a servant of the king. He must be appointed. By whom? By the people? Or only by the servants themselves? No, by the king himself. Just as we could not invent a Christ as the Redeemer of the world, so we could not learn of his sovereign election of the Twelve by ourselves: “He called to himself those whom he himself wished, and they came to him. He appointed twelve, that they would be with him, so that he could send them out to preach with authority, casting out demons. Thus he established the twelve and gave Simon the name of Peter” (Mk 3:13⁠-⁠16). This change of name indicates the change of a private individual into a bearer of an office. The Lord deals with Paul in an even more sovereign manner: he is thrown from his horse and blinded: “‘It is difficult for you to kick against the goads.’ Shaking and trembling he asked: ‘Lord, what do you want that I should do it?’” (Acts 9:5⁠-⁠6 [Vulgate]). One cannot take office. It is given, not just the first time, but always. At Easter, the words “I absolve you of your sins” are put into the mouths of the disciples. Who among you would dare to utter these words to your fellow man, even to those who are most dear? And if the office is only given, never taken, then that which is mediated by the office—the Eucharist and absolution, for example—can always only be received; no one can dispose oneself. This is a wonderful guarantee: what we receive is truly the gift of Christ himself. Not once does the gift depend upon whether the ministers are worthy, less worthy, or utterly unworthy. Where could we go as Christians if, before receiving the divine gifts, we had to first verify whether the one who offers them to us is worthy enough? “The King sent out his servants”: they only have to carry out what has been assigned to them; their state of mind, the mood they happen to be in, or their talents are not asked about. These are the things that we should reflect upon a little more deeply before we transform the liturgy into a party or casually transgress the organizing rules of the office that Christ instituted.

The Least Perceptible is the Most Precious

God, even in his revelation in Jesus Christ, in whom he could not reveal himself as the God of love more profoundly, remains a hidden God. The greater the love that is shown to us, the more incomprehensible and thereby hidden it is. Furthermore: this love is all the more humble because it is humiliated up to the point of the cross, and thus it remains hidden. And so also the Church, in its deepest reality, is intrinsically hidden: the saints are hidden while the unholy one beats the largest drum. The truth of the Church is deeply hidden behind the false presentations or even the slander and persecutions in the daily newspapers, on the radio, and on television. Equally hidden, and today more than ever, is the wonderful holiness that is veiled in the inconspicuous forms of our liturgy. “Adoro te devote, latens Deitas, quae sub his figuris vere latitas,” “Deeply I adore you, hidden divinity, truly veiled in these forms.”^{Thomas Aquinas, Adoro te devote.—Trans.} How could God hide himself more humbly than beneath a little bit of bread and a few drops of wine, and how better to teach us the divine humility and majesty than in this inconspicuousness? Men have always tried to glorify this mystery, as best as they were able, with the vertiginous heights of the dome of St. Peter’s and the resounding masses of Bach, Haydn, and Mozart. The grandiose, incomparably pious masses fall silent, the churches become practical “multipurpose buildings,” the celebration of the Eucharist has been shrunk down (much to the outrage of the Eastern Church) to a few essential elements that no longer offer anything exciting to the spoiled crowd, hungry for experiences.

But the decisive matter can emerge better with these developments if the participants have an understanding of their faith. The splendor that has surrounded the reverence of the mystery may have been an expression of genuine loving devotion, and nothing should be objected to it. According to the world, a monstrance can be infinitely more precious than the host that it contains. But even this ornamentation knows that it is nothing compared with the treasure of which it wishes to be the radiance. It could be omitted and placed in a cathedral museum without any loss if only in order that the believer could appreciate the treasure all the more dearly. Preachers no longer climb up to splendid pulpits, because now one is concerned with nothing else besides being located in any room in order to gather closely around the Word of God, not distracted by anything baroque from the simplicity of the Gospel. Nothing is more precise than the Word, and it is the duty of the preacher to make it audible in its unadorned precision. The Word of God is so infinitely rich that its interpretation never comes to an end, and in the homily nothing other than the setting forth of this Word should be offered. Somehow, it has really become flesh in human language—just as Jesus said: my words “are spirit and life, the flesh (alone) is of no avail” (Jn 6:62f.). Thus the homily is, so to speak, en route toward the appearance of the Word of God, achieved in our human nature at the event of consecration, in order, as said above, to penetrate our entire humanity and to incorporate it into himself in the love feast of communion. Nothing could be more sober and also more concealed; only loving believers know what happens before them and for them. However, they also know that God in his love urges the faithful to come to his banquet. “Compelle intrare ,” “compel them to come in,” the king instructs each of his servants who have to look for guests. And Jesus himself urges even more forcefully: “Truly, truly I say to you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life in you. However, he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life” (Jn 6:53f.). Love cannot remain indifferent because it knows that love alone is salvation. Its servant⁠-⁠form cannot keep itself from this insistence. “I have come to cast fire on the earth, and how I would that it be already kindled” (Lk 12:49). But it will really only burn when on the cross the flesh will be torn, the blood poured out, the spirit⁠-⁠breath breathed out and breathed into the entire world. “It is good for you that I go,” because my death will be my true coming to you (Jn 14:28), and it will be a coming in the Spirit and a coming in the pneumatic body: Jesus is no idealist. Jesus however never remains as purely corporeal, such that he would not be permeated by the spirit: he is no materialist. That is why the mystery of the Eucharist is and remains spiritual⁠-⁠corporeal and thereby exhibits the consummation of human beings, who, at the resurrection of the dead, will be and will remain spiritual⁠-⁠corporeal for all eternity. Hence the reason why the Eucharist was also known as “pharmakon athanasias,” “medicine for immortality.”^{Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Ephesians.—Trans.}

Everything is Gift

Perhaps you think that you can go on without all of this. If you are a Christian, you might say: has Christ not redeemed me and made me a child of God? Do I not try, at least on occasion, to sincerely love my neighbor as myself? And is this not also embedded into the love of God, according to the words of Christ? “What you do to the least of my brothers…” Perhaps you help the handicapped or take care of the indigent. Perhaps you even pray occasionally and thereby have the feeling that God, who is everywhere, is also entirely and especially with you.

No one rebukes you on account of all this. But have you sufficiently considered the Word: “What do you have that you have not received? And if you have received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” (1 Cor 4:7). We accomplish much, even good things, but it seems to spring from our goodwill, perhaps from our self⁠-⁠control. And we have no idea that because of this we are already akin to the Pharisees, who want to prove to God that they “can do it.” Thus forgetting that everything, absolutely everything, is gift. My own self is given to me, all my conscientious good deeds are pure gift. One forgets this when one no longer allows the gift par excellence, the Eucharist, to be given. The Eucharist is the thanksgiving of Christ to the Father in heaven that he has given him the ability to abandon himself for all—up to martyrdom and the descent into hell. This eternal thanksgiving is given to us as the most precious gift of God.

No one can take this gift for himself—as we have already said—one must receive it from the Church, from priests. And no community, no church is able to fabricate a priest for themselves, they must allow him to be given by Jesus Christ through the sacrament of Ordination that he had established. We also do not ourselves have the power to make Christians, it was given to us in Baptism. We ourselves could not forgive our own sins by means of penance, they must be remitted by God in Confession. In all the essentials, there is no “do it yourself.”^{Balthasar wrote “do it yourself” in English in the original.—Trans.} Our technological age no longer wants to believe that in the Church praxis comes after everything that is received, including faith. For this age, only action, not the routines of the Church, can effectively change the world. However, who can effectively change you, if you are still willing to allow yourself to be changed at all? Only he who is within you and who is more powerful than your ego. And you can only receive him so that he can change you into himself.

Your own self is given to you, we have said. This is obvious because you have not generated yourself. But who you truly are and why you are is not something that you know. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door for me, I will come in to him and dine with him—and he with me!” (Rv 3:20). Do you hear the knocking? Pull yourself together and open the door.