EAST TRENT CHURCHES
Besthorpe, Clifton, Collingham,
Girton, Harby, Holme, Langford, South Scarle, Thorney, Winthorpe
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EAST TRENT CHURCHES
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the lamp to return to the Q & A Room Tell us about the Eucharist
The
Eucharist There
are two particularly important items of furniture in our churches:
one is the font, where baptisms take place;
the other is the altar (note the spelling!), the holy table at which we
celebrate THE EUCHARIST. Eucharist
is one of several titles used to describe the central act of Christian worship,
the most familiar being probably Holy Communion and the Mass. Eucharist
has become increasingly popular in modern times. It is a Greek word, which means
"thanksgiving".
It is a thanksgiving for the life of Jesus, from His lowly birth in the
stable at Bethlehem to His bitter passion and cruel death, His mighty
resurrection and ascension, and the sending of the Holy Spirit. And we give
thanks because we want to - naturally! - but also because Jesus commanded us to.
So it is an act of loving obedience as well as thanksgiving. The
history of what we do lies deep in the mists of antiquity, with its roots in a
solemn memorial meal called the Passover. It
commemorates God's deliverance of his ancient people the Jews from their slavery
in Egypt, the Exodus. It
was this Passover meal in which Jesus shared with his friends on the night
before He died on the Cross. During
the meal he took the special unleavened Passover bread, and after saying a
blessing over it broke it into pieces and gave each of his friends a portion,
telling them "This is my body which is given for you. Do this in
remembrance of me." At
the end of the meal he took a cup of wine, which he blessed and passed round for
each one to drink from, with the words "This is my blood of the new
covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." Notice
he used the word 'new'. In
doing what He did, Jesus fulfilled all that had gone before and invested it with
a whole new significance. And
this is what the Church celebrates and gives thanks for every time we meet at
the altar. And will continue to do
so. This is how that great
leader of the early Christian church, St Paul, puts it:
"For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim
the Lord's death until he comes" (1 Corinthians 11, verse 26). The
altar and the font stand at opposite ends of the church; a reminder of the place
where our Christian life begins and the place where it is sustained.
In the Eucharist we are fed with the precious Body and Blood of Jesus.
Just as our mortal bodies need frequent nourishment, so too do our
immortal souls. So we have a
celebration of the Eucharist in all our churches every Sunday, on Tuesdays and
sometimes on a weekday when there is a festival.
We also reserve some consecrated bread and wine in a special cupboard
(known as an 'Aumbry' which is Latin for "resting place"), so that we
can take Holy Communion to a person who for some reason is no longer able to get
to church, or who is sick or in danger of death.
What Jesus did He did for everyone:
no one must be left out!
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Our Priest in Charge of East Trent Churches & the Editorial Team thank our 93,712 page-visitors for supporting us up to beginning of September, 2010 Find a page > > > Contents If you quote or print anything from this Web-site please add a link to AnglicanCollinghamChurches.org in your Website. Thanks. Webmaster and Editor Dr J Eric Ashton To e-mail the Priest in Charge of the East Trent Churches Click : Priest in Charge
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