Page 39 - The Priest, Summer 2015

Eucharistic body of Christ. Pope John Paul II elaborates on this in his Apostolic Letter Dominicae cenae:
We should also always remember that to this ministerial power we have been sacramentally consecrated, that we have been chosen from among men “for the good of men.” We especially, the priests of the Latin Church, whose ordination rite added in the curse of the centuries the custom of anointing the priest’s hands, should think about this.4
In his magisterial work on the priest- hood (De sacerdotio) St John Chrysostom insists the hands of the priest have to be sacred, because they touch the Body of Christ:
What great purity and what real piety must we demand of him? For consider what manner of hands they ought to be which minister in these things, and of what kind his tongue which utters such words. Ought not the soul which receives so great a spirit to be purer and holier than anything in the world?5
The following extract from the homily
The importance of liturgical ‘externals’
The more the faithful recognize that the Eucharistic Body of Christ is the great- est sign of the sanctity and of the love of God, the more they can respond to this gift in an interior attitude of gratitude, of humility and of love. From this interior act illuminated by faith ows naturally an exterior behavior which expresses adora- tion and lovingly reverence. Therefore the exterior gestures of adoration and rever- ence in the liturgy cannot be considered secondary.
The very suggestive examples of the behaviour of the worshipping angels as described in the Bible (especially in the book of the prophet Isaiah and in the book of the Apocalypse) remain a point of reference for how the Church on earth has to worship when she desires to worship God in the Truth (in Christ) and in the Spirit. According to the teaching of the Fathers of the Church these angelic exam- ples are given in order to be imitated by the faithful. And these examples are very concrete and accessible to men.
The rst thing is this: to be interiorly orientated toward God and His glory, to- ward His Face. His Face is ultimately seen in Jesus Christ on the Cross and in the sac- rament of the Eucharist.
Then follows this: to recognize God’s majesty, God’s holiness and His love. Then comes this important condition: to ask the merciful God for the grace of interior pu- rity. From this ows the exterior act, the means to make oneself also exteriorly small: to bow, to genu ect, to prostrate.
Then follow other typical exterior acts of lovingly reverence and of awe such as: pronouncing worthy words of praise and adoration like the Sanctus of the angels,; protecting the sacred with a veil, or be- hind steps and rails (iconostasis, commun- ion rails); kissing holy objects ( rstly the altar); keeping silence during the liturgy; touching the most sacred reality (the Eu- charistic Body) with consecrated, anoint- ed hands.
The faithful have the unique privilege of seeing and touching the incarnated God in the Eucharistic mystery. There- fore they must show a special reverence
towards this unfathomable mystery. And again the faithful nd in the angels an example for imitation in their external behavior. In mentioning the reverent at- titude of the angels in front of the empty tomb of Christ, St John Chrysostom ex- horts the faithful to consider the angelic example, taking into account that in the Eucharistic liturgy there is not the empty tomb of Christ, but the presence of the living Lord himself. Consequently one’s behaviour in the presence of the Eucha- ristic Body of Christ should be even more reverent than in front of the empty tomb.
In his homily about the cemetery and the Cross he gives this explanation:
I exhort you to approach the immolated Lamb with fear, veneration and awe. You certainly know in which manner the angels stood in front of the empty tomb, even though there wasn’t more the body of the Lord. Nevertheless the angels showed great reverence towards the place which received the body of the Lord. When the angels who by their excellence exceed very much our hu- man nature behave themselves in front of the tomb with so great reverence and awe, how can we approach not the empty tomb, but the sacred table upon which has been laid down the Lamb, with noise and chatter?”7
Even though St John Chrysostom very much stresses the soul’s interior purity as the rst important condition for an au- thentic participation in the liturgy, he nev- ertheless exhorts the faithful surprisingly often about the exterior gestures of ado- ration and the reverent exterior behavior. In doing so he adduces the example of the reverent gestures of the angels to be imitated by the faithful when they enter the church and when they participate in the Eucharistic liturgy. St John calls the church building “the place of angels, of archangels, the kingdom of God, heaven itself.”8 He continues to explain and illus- trate that the church is already heaven on earth:
The church is heaven. You can imagine it in this way: if someone would intro-
7 John Chrysostom, Hom. in coemet. et crucem, 3. 8 “Topos angelon, archangelon, basileia tou
Theou, autos ho ouranos.” John Chrysos- tom, Hom. 36, 5 on 1 Cor.
Which wonder is the fact, that although you are standing in the liturgy together with the seraphim, God permitted you to touch those things which the seraphim don’t dare to touch. The prophet says: ‘Then ew one of the seraphim to me, having in his hand a burning coal which he had taken with tongs from the altar.’ That altar is the pre guration (typos) and the image (eikon) of this, our altar, in the same way as that re is the pre guration (typos) and the image (eikon) of this spir- itual re. The seraphim didn’t dare to touch the coal with his hands, but took it with the tongs, whereas you take it with your hand. When you consider the dignity of the gift which is laid down on the altar, this is greater than the contact with the seraphim. And when you re ect about the love which God has towards men (philanthrophia), then you will recog- nise that He has not despised our weak- ness when he laid down on the altar the
gift of His love.”6
4 John Paul II, Domenicae cenae. 24 February 1980, no. 11.
5 John Chrysostom, De Sacerdotio. Book VI, 4. 6 John Chrysostom. Homily on Isaiah, 6, 3.
on
of the liturgical and Eucharistic theology of St John Chrysostom:
Isaiah illustrates very clearly this aspect
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