Wednesday, 2/11/15
The readings today are concerned with observing the law, and
holding to sacred traditions; and that prompts me to suggest we return to
making the Eucharist what it was at the Last Supper. In going strong for adoring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament,
we are missing out on why he comes to us in the form of bread.
Up until the year four hundred, we celebrated the Eucharist
as we had at the Last Supper. Christians avoided calling our table an altar,
since that was a word tied to pagan worship. We lay on the floor, imagining
Jesus beside us, asking us to become part of his sacrifice.
When Emperor Constantine died in 337 his sons split the
Empire, with the one in the east ruling
from Constantinople, the one in the west ruling from Milan in Italy. In that
century Christianity was threatened by a take-over by the Arians who insisted
that Jesus was a good man, but not the Son of God. In 350 the emperor in Milan
appointed an Arian named Auxentius an Arian bishop.
After twenty-four years Auxentius died, and Gratian, the new
emperor, ordered the governor of northern Italy to assemble the Christians and
Arians for choosing a new bishop both sides could live with. At the assembly, a
child called out, “Let the governor be our bishop.” The governor was our St.
Ambrose, and he saw that in twenty-four years under the Arian bishop the people
had lost respect for Jesus.
Ambrose hit on a plan for getting the people to honor Jesus
properly. In his daily attendance on Emperor Gratian, Ambrose had learned how
to kneel and bow to him, and how to allow only gold and fine linen touch the
emperor’s person. To get the people to honor Jesus, Ambrose ordered them to
treat Jesus in the Eucharist the way they had to treat the emperor.
Ambrose turned our churches into audience halls for the King
of Kings with ushers commanding the people to “Bow, Bow, bow!”
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