Abstract
Jesus was resurrected on Sunday morning. Scripture describes both the Last Supper and early Christian gatherings taking place close to the beginning of the day, according to the differing Jewish and Roman understandings of when this was. The resurrection is associated with light and life, and morning celebration with worshippers facing east amplifies this. Against this norm, evening celebration may be theologically or pastorally justified on particular occasions. The Eucharist makes the Church, bringing Christians together as Christ’s body into an organic spiritual unity. It engages the senses, including by means of movement and symbolism, and promotes active participation in worship and potentially in wider church and social life.
In many churches a Eucharist is the principal act of Sunday worship. In larger churches it is likely to include singing. Diversifying the worship offering by sometimes replacing the Eucharist with morning prayer or an extended sermon might seem an appealing way to grow or diversify the worshipping community. However, there are sound biblical and theological grounds for maintaining the Eucharist as the principal act of worship every Sunday and for holding it in the earlier morning. I shall consider the day and time of eucharistic celebration before addressing how the Eucharist builds the church community and both nurtures active liturgical participation and is likely to sustain other forms of service in church and society.
The day of resurrection
During the centuries immediately following Christ’s death, the Eucharist was a meal gathering similar to the sabbath meal, with little theological consideration given to when it was celebrated. Diners sometimes met on Friday evening, when the sabbath meal was taken, or, to mark the distinctiveness of the Christian meal, they may alternatively have gathered on Saturday evening. 1
There is some evidence of Sunday Eucharists during this early period. They became the norm during the reign of Constantine, as the public profile of Christianity grew. Sunday was legally a day of rest, the Eucharist became more ritually codified, and Christian doctrine developed. There was a good and obvious reason for this choice. Jesus was resurrected on Sunday, following the end of the sabbath (Matt. 28.1; Mark 16.1; Luke 23.56 – 24.1; John 20.1). Because a function of the Eucharist is to draw worshippers into gospel events, eucharistic celebration each Sunday by the whole Christian community is highly fitting. Moreover, because of the tremendous importance of the resurrection to the Christian faith, its eucharistic representation on Sunday is rightly more important than any other act of worship on that day.
The Eucharist makes newly present Christ’s living body and blood that are associated with the resurrection. 2 It evokes God raising Jesus to new life shortly after his suffering and death and the risen Jesus appearing to his disciples. In these appearances, Jesus is visible, embodied (Luke 24.42–43) and even touchable (Matt. 28.9). The disciples are assured of his living presence and belief in this transforms their lives both individually and collectively. They communicate this belief to others, faith in the resurrected Christ spreads, and before long more communities of believers are founded.
Time of celebration
In Matthew’s account, Christ’s resurrection occurs at dawn, heralded by an earthquake and the descent of an angel from heaven. The angel addresses Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, who leave the tomb to report what has happened to the disciples. Jesus then meets them and they worship him (Matt. 28.1–10). In the other Gospels, the resurrection is first discovered by the Marys and other women very early on Sunday morning as they arrive to anoint Jesus’ body (Mark 16.1–8; Luke 24.1–5) or by Mary while it is still dark (John 20.1). The Eucharist is thus associated with the early part of Sunday morning.
This timing might appear inconsistent with the synoptic identification of the Last Supper with the Jewish Passover meal (Matt. 26.17; Mark 14.12; Luke 22.8), which takes place in the evening (Matt. 26.20; Mark 14.17; also 1 Cor. 11.23). However, because in Jewish tradition days run from evening to morning, that is the beginning of the day. This is most obviously shown in the description of the successive days in the Genesis creation narrative: ‘And there was evening and there was morning’ (Gen. 1.5 etc.). Yet, according to the Roman and early Christian understanding of the day as beginning at sunrise, a morning Eucharist also takes place at the beginning of the day. For example, in The Rule of Benedict, the principal meal occurs at the ‘sixth’ or ‘ninth’ hours depending on the season – that is, at the sixth or the ninth hour after sunrise. 3
Early accounts describe Eucharists celebrated in the morning. The Arabic and Ethiopic recensions of the Apostolic Tradition, which date from the third or fourth century and so are not the earliest versions of this text, describe liturgical practice in a major urban centre such as Rome or possibly Alexandria. In these, the third hour is identified as the time when the shewbread was offered in the Jerusalem Temple. 4 Although this aspect of temple practice is unconfirmed by canonical Scripture, in view of the time that it would take to make, rise and bake rolls on the morning of their offering, especially during cooler seasons when rising would take longer, it is credible as a statement about Christian eucharistic practice. The pilgrim Egeria reports (c.385) the people assembling at cockcrow in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, for a service made lengthy by multiple sermons. Many priests were present, and all who wished to preach were permitted to do so. 5
Joseph Jungmann writes that ‘all through the Middle Ages’ the public Mass ‘had its appointed hour’, which was the ‘third hour’ after sunrise. 6 An hour was measured by dividing the period of daylight into 12. Because sunrise was earlier in summer than in winter, and the day was longer, the third hour was ‘later’ in winter than in summer if measured according to the modern method of equalizing the durations of daytime and night-time hours (e.g. in the British Isles, 10 a.m. versus 8.30 a.m.). 7 Eucharistic celebration was thus set within the regular cycle of the day, the week and the season. It is striking that, within the Church of England, the Parish Communion movement favoured celebration within this timespan. In his introduction to the volume of essays that launched the movement, A. G. Hebert states that it was more about ecclesiology and the contribution of liturgy to this than about holding a Parish Eucharist at around 9 a.m. 8 Nevertheless, his assurance indicates that this was in fact the time when Parish Eucharists, which were intended to bring together the whole church community, were typically celebrated.
Morning celebration is also to be favoured in church buildings that are oriented: that is, which face east. Worshippers face the altar, which to them is in the direction of the rising sun or morning light, which falls through the eastern windows when the Eucharist is celebrated in the morning. This gives a cosmic directionality, in which worshippers all face the same way, towards the light of Christ, rather than turning in on themselves as a community. 9 Church buildings that are oriented are designed to host a large Sunday morning Eucharist that is directed outwards to the wider world.
The morning celebration of the Eucharist is especially fitting on Easter Sunday, because, as already described, this marks the actual day of the resurrection. It is also highly fitting on Pentecost. On this day, seven weeks after the resurrection, Jesus’ followers gathered as a single group as the day was beginning (sumpléroó) and spoke in tongues. This is identified as a work of the Holy Spirit and is followed by an address by Peter, which he identifies as taking place at the ‘third hour’ (Acts 2.1–15). In the Eucharist, the Spirit has similarly transformative effects, with its action often invoked by one or two ‘epicleses’ in the eucharistic prayer. Depending on theological tradition and the prayer chosen, the action of the Spirit may be identified more with a change in the elements of bread and wine or more with a change in the worshippers.
Evening Eucharists
Although Scripture and church tradition both support eucharistic celebration on Sunday morning, the evening celebration of the Eucharist is theologically appropriate on particular occasions, when it may strikingly contrast with the normal practice. Maundy Thursday is the day of the Last Supper, which was shared in the evening and additionally recalls the desolation of Jesus’ handing over. This is emphatically expressed in Luke, when Jesus says to the chief priests and those accompanying them, ‘[T]his is your hour, and the power of darkness’ (Luke 22.53b). In Common Worship, the Easter liturgy is laid out as being, in origin, a night vigil for watching and waiting. 10 The darkness may be associated with Christ’s descent into hell, into the ‘lower parts of the earth’ (Eph. 4.9) to proclaim the gospel to the ‘spirits in prison’ (1 Pet. 3.19, 4.6). In contrast, Common Worship presents the ‘dawn service’ as a recent development. For the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed (All Souls’ Day), an evening Eucharist may identify the act of worship with the darkness of death and bereavement. Celebrating the first Christmas Eucharist at night identifies the feast with Jesus’ birth at night as announced to the shepherds (Luke 2.8–11).
Evening celebration may also be appropriate for the pastoral purpose of making the Eucharist easily accessible to those with other commitments during daytime. In the Roman Catholic Church, Saturday evening Eucharists have become common in addition to a large Sunday morning sung Eucharist. In some churches, on principal feasts, holy days and festivals that fall on weekdays, Eucharists may be celebrated around midday or in the evening.
Light and darkness are theologically significant. In general, morning celebration symbolically emphasizes the association of Jesus with light. He is the radiance (apaugasma) of God’s glory (Heb. 1.3) and in the Nicene Creed is ‘light of light’. John of Damascus portrays ‘The Lord in rays eternal/Of resurrection-light’. 11 This light is associated with life and is not overcome by darkness (John 1.4–5). In Scripture, in contrast, darkness has several negative connotations. It signifies the chaotic formlessness of the Earth before God creates light (Gen. 1.2). It is associated with death (Ps. 23.4). Darkness evokes suffering, as in the parable of the royal wedding banquet, in which the unrobed guest is bound and cast into outer darkness, which is a place of weeping and the gnashing of teeth (Matt. 22.13). Through the imagery of the darkened heart, it signifies sin (Rom. 1.21). Theologically, evening celebration sets Christ as the light and source of hope against the backdrop of at least some of these.
The Eucharist and the church community
The Sunday Eucharist may be viewed as a gathering of the scattered. In many churches it is the regular weekly occasion when the greatest number of people meet together. Imaging the grain that is harvested to make the eucharistic bread, an early eucharistic prayer reads: ‘Even as that which is broken was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let your church be gathered together’ (Didache 9). This imagery is striking for a dispersed church community that is not identified with a geographical parish, although it also evokes rural contexts in which church members are physically distant from each other as well as contexts in which they may be greatly outnumbered by people of other religions or none. The imagery of scattered grain also highlights that the church community is rooted in agriculture, technology, social cooperation and civil peace, which are all needed for bread and wine to be manufactured. 12 The sowing, growing and harvesting of grain requires settlement and the absence of armed conflict. Milling the grain to produce flour demands ingenuity and has been greatly facilitated by the invention of technologies powered by wind, water or electricity. Bread has often been baked communally, because individual ovens would have been too costly to build and fire. At the offertory, Christians present the ‘fruit of the earth and work of human hands’. In this sense, all Christians are eucharistic celebrants. The president may be viewed as a ‘typical’ Christian by imaging the work and offering of all Christians. 13
In the New Testament, both bread (Matt. 26.26; Mark 14.22; Luke 22.19) and the Church (1 Cor. 12.12–27) are described as the ‘body of Christ’. Paul justly writes: ‘The bread that we break, is it not a sharing [koinónia] in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread’ (1 Cor. 10.16b–17). He thus presents a close relationship between the Eucharist and the church community: by receiving Christ’s body and blood in the bread and wine, Christians are drawn into this community as members with each other. From the mid-twentieth century, the Eucharist has been viewed as thus making the Church. The theologian most commonly associated with this doctrine is the French Jesuit Henri de Lubac, who, in its support, cites a series of Western medieval writers. His statement about the Church being made into the body of Christ deserves quotation: Now, the Eucharist is the mystical principle, permanently at work at the heart of Christian society, which gives concrete form to this miracle. It is the universal bond, it is the ever-springing source of life. Nourished by the body and blood of the Saviour, his faithful people thus all ‘drink of the one Spirit’, who truly makes them into one single body. Literally speaking, therefore, the Eucharist makes the Church. It makes of it an inner reality. By its hidden power, the members of the body come to unite themselves by becoming more fully members of Christ, and their unity with one another is part and parcel of their unity with the one single Head.
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Participation, liturgy and service
Worshippers are drawn into liturgies through their senses and by active participation. Services of the Word, including morning prayer and an extended sermon, engage hearing and, to a lesser extent, sight. The Eucharist engages these senses and in addition others. When the bread and wine are received, they are touched and tasted. The wine is smelt, as is incense if this is used. Exchanging the peace is likely to entail touch. The Eucharist also intensively engages sight by means of liturgical action, which is focused on the eucharistic prayer. According to the rubrics in The Book of Common Prayer (1662), these include the president taking the paten into their hands and breaking the bread, and taking the cup into their hands. Other manual acts during the eucharistic prayer might include making the sign of the cross over the bread and the wine and elevating them. At a sung Eucharist, movement with the body and of the body is likely to take place. The gospel book may be carried in procession and read from the centre of the assembled people, with worshippers turning to face the reader. At the offertory, church members may carry the bread and wine in procession from the rear of the church up to the altar to be offered. When the time comes to receive Communion, worshippers are likely to leave their seats and walk to the altar, extending hands to receive the bread and hold the cup while drinking from it.
Because the Eucharist engages more senses more fully than morning prayer or an extended sermon and is less heavily reliant on the cognitive processing of words, it is likely to be more accessible by more people. It is also likely to be more accessible because of its use of symbolism. A gospel procession from the altar into the centre of the church suggests God’s word being taken out and proclaimed. An offertory procession connects the bread and wine presented at the altar with the productive work of worshippers and its offering to God. The extending of hands to receive the bread is likely to be associated, including by young children, with an awareness of the need shared with others for the sustenance that is given by God.
Although sensing is enhanced by the conscious directing of attention, there are other forms of participation that are more truly active. These include praying, speaking, singing, manual acts and movement from one location to another. Maximizing active participation at all costs is certainly to be avoided, especially when this may impede spiritual engagement by others, and it needs to be recognized that prayer is the primary form of such participation. In this sense, active participation may best be viewed as ‘activated’ participation – that is, rooted in and emerging from prayer and calling by God. 15 Nevertheless, the other forms of active participation just listed certainly promote spiritual engagement, and are more abundantly available in a sung Eucharist than in morning prayer or an extended sermon. Furthermore, in the Roman Catholic Church, a corollary of promoting active participation has been the use of the vernacular (i.e. the ordinary local language in its current form) as the main liturgical language. This is compatible with the selective use of an older form of the local language, or of other languages, such as for anthems. Use of the vernacular promotes accessibility and comprehension.
If worship is at the heart of Christian life, active participation in worship is likely to promote similarly active participation in the wider life of the Church. This close connection is suggested by at least two New Testament terms. Leitourgia describes Zechariah’s liturgical service at the Jerusalem Temple and Christ’s priestly mediation of the new covenant with God (Heb. 8.6, 9.21, 10.11). However, it is also applied to generous free giving to those in need (2 Cor. 9.12; Rom. 15.27) and to the sacrifices that ministry entails of church leaders and members (Phil. 2.17, 30). Essentially, in a Christian context, leitourgia designates freely given public service that benefits the community. Similarly, latreia encompasses both liturgical and non-liturgical forms of service. It includes the prophet Anna’s fasting and praying in the Temple (Luke 2.37) and Paul’s preaching of the gospel (Rom. 1.9). Yet it is also used for the unspecified free service by the Israelites proclaimed by Zechariah in the Benedictus (Luke 1.74), adherence to scripturally founded law and doctrine (Acts 24.14) and faithful moral action (2 Tim. 1.3) that respects bodily integrity (Rom. 12.1). Latreia designates acceptable service by a person who is able to offer it.
Conclusion
On Sunday morning there are very good reasons for making the Eucharist the regular principal act of worship. Scripture attests to Christ’s resurrection then and the theological association with light is given by celebration at this time, especially in an oriented church building. By means of sensory engagement, liturgical action and symbolism, the Eucharist is widely accessible. These make real the biblical and theological notion that by incorporating worshippers into Christ it builds the Church. The Eucharist thereby consecrates a community ready for service in church and world.