Carmelite spirituality as a path to a deeper experience of liturgy (continuation)
Paul Menting
Eucharist and Unity
In the missal, we would hardly find lines that coincide (literally) with the Song of Songs. Even in the expanded lectionary, which is a product of the liturgical renewal initiated by the Second Vatican Council, the Song of Songs still does not appear among the texts for reading during the Sunday celebration of the Eucharist. When we inquire about the significance of the Song of Songs for the Eucharist, we should not look so much for textual influences but rather keep in mind that the unity of love with God, which the Song of Songs celebrates, is none other than what happens during the celebration of the Mass, namely that very communio in which God and humanity live a common life in love.
The Church Fathers always saw in their commentaries on the Song of Songs a bridegroom as Christ and a bride as the Church. This clue was prompted among others by St. Paul in his words in the letter to the Corinthians: "For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ" (2 Cor 11:2).
Since the times of Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), the bride in the Song of Songs has also been identified with the soul of the individual person who loves God. Parallel to this, a very personal Eucharistic piety emerged. This tendency further prevailed in the Middle Ages. For example, Thomas à Kempis (1379–1480), an important representative of the Devotio moderna movement, describes in the fourth part of his main work, The Imitation of Christ, how every believer can be a mystic: in the sacrament of the altar, each one unites with God.
What is celebrated in the Song of Songs finds its echo in the celebration of the Eucharist. The believers leave their own four walls and set out on a journey. It is necessary to gather strength, to walk a piece of the way in order to receive love and to give oneself to it. The believers allow themselves to be moved by God's call, they let themselves be gathered and then gradually connect in unity with each other and with God through communal singing and prayer. Putting oneself in the background during the confession of sins (act of penitence) further strengthens this dynamic process, in which the self is no longer filled with itself but makes room for the Other. Whoever seeks God's love must be willing to continually leave behind what is theirs and focus on God's impulses, thus drawing closer to love. This occurs in the liturgy of the word. The believers listen to God's word, which shows the way, encourages them to continue their journey, strengthens and uplifts them, for it accompanies us. In the prayer "I believe," the believers explicitly commit themselves once more to this journey, agreeing that they will continue on the path of love.
The unity of love of the believers with Christ and among themselves is the explicit goal toward which the entire drama of the Eucharistic celebration is directed. In the second anaphora, it is summarized very clearly: "And in humility we ask you: May the Holy Spirit gather and unite all of us who share in the body and blood of Christ." Thus, all, filled with love for God, open themselves to God's self-giving to us and unite in a very intimate way with each other and with Christ. In the sign of peace (and the kiss of peace), it is expressed through gestures that this is not merely a spiritual event but something that translates into hands, feet, and faces, and which will have consequences that exceed the duration of the liturgical celebration.
Love calls us to embark on a journey, to come together, to grow into unity, and to preserve the bond of love even after that brief time we were together. What holds true for the communion of the bridegroom and bride, man and woman, is equally true for the communion of the gathered assembly: that true unity can only be spoken of when love is its foundation. The more intense the love, the stronger the unity. Those who get stuck in the external or internal fulfillment of duties will not experience the same as those who let love awaken within them.
What we are talking about here will be more palpable in a community where people do not pray anonymously and indifferently next to each other but are intensely connected in a living communio. The spiritual climate of a religious community has certainly been (a valuable) help for many Carmelites and Carmelite nuns. Daily community in liturgical celebration supports and motivates individual efforts. Together, it was possible to feel the attractive power of divine love more profoundly in reading Scripture, in prayer, and in meditation and to better allow oneself to be drawn into it. A community that is capable of living commitment, perceiving love, opening itself to others, to "the others", such a community is almost indispensable for entering the deep mystical dimension of the Eucharist.
For the Carmelite Conrad of St. George (who died between 1305 and 1317), holy communion was primarily an expression of unity in love between the Bridegroom and the bride. After a person has, with a humble spirit, surrendered in "offering" (i.e., that part of the Mass called: offertory, now: presentation of gifts) and after God has accepted him in love and after he has stood before God with open hands in: "Lord, I am not worthy..." he is now ready to receive God Himself. Now he can completely unite with God. Conrad puts into the mouth of Christ the words of the bridegroom from the Song of Songs, when Christ invites a person to receive His body and blood: "Come, my chosen one, and descend with me into my garden of grace..." (cf. Song 5:1 and 6:1).1
Whoever allows himself to be addressed by this invitation to love and lets himself be made beautiful by God's loving gaze permits God to heal him and to let him blossom. Conrad expresses this with the following words:
O my Friend, my Bridegroom, you are more desirable than all the beauty of this world and shine with purity in this holy Bread. I have a blood-red bundle of hyssop2 for His burning love for us. For He poured out His blood to attract all sinners to Himself.3
God's self-giving awakens in man the desire to likewise give himself in love. Thus, true communio can occur as mutual acceptance and self-giving. The love of one stirs the love of the other and vice versa. This causes them to draw ever closer to each other.
The Bridegroom does not rest but desires to be even closer to His bride. And this happens when He nourishes her with His holy body in this holy sacrament, for no one can come closer to God in this earthly life than in this sacrament in which one receives God Himself. Thus, He enters into His beloved bride and dines with her and nourishes her in her soul, for mainly for this reason He came, that He wanted to nourish and strengthen hearts that were parched for grace and desired to bring them back to Horeb, so that we might see and partake of our Bridegroom, mouth to mouth, face to face.4
The participation of a person in the act of love is to go to communion. By receiving and eating the Eucharistic Bread, divine love becomes incarnate in him: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” (John 6:56). The overcoming divine love is here received very physically: namely by eating a piece of bread, and thereby Christ enters into us and makes His home in us. Even in human relationships of love, it is true that physicality strengthens and secures the relationship. More than spiritual conversation, the expression of love between a man and a woman is their sexual communion. Physical connection firmly cements unity. This is also emphasized by the Flemish Carmelite mystic Franciscus Amelry (who died around 1550) in his treatise on the Eucharist:
And whoever receives this Body of Christ remains with Him, belongs among His household (in His house), receives food from Him, and He cares for him, as a father cares for his child. Everything the Lord has, he also has a share in it, so they are connected not only according to the soul, but also through the physical receiving of the sacrament, his body is sanctified by the Body of Christ. For just as Christ united our body with His divinity when He became man, so now, in the sacramental body, He has united His Body, which He has received from us, with us.5
Whoever accepts and assimilates God in corporeal form gives Him the opportunity to fully enter into his human being, which is a reality not only spiritual but also corporeal. For this, it is necessary that God reveals Himself not only in the word but also in the corporeal form of the Eucharist. In this way, unity with God becomes evident. Only then can there be a complete self-giving of all humanity and an acceptance of all divinity.
This, however, does not occur in a single, one-time act, but must be cultivated and continually realized, just like a human relationship. Only a living, repeatedly experienced unity can stand against the flattening of everyday routine. Precisely the corporeal form of the Eucharist can be an aid for the constant renewal of unity, as it maintains desire—like a glowing ember of fire:
In the reception of the sacrament, the heart of man is ignited with love for the One who so kindly left us a memorial. And in the sign of love, He wants to unite with His Lord not only spiritually in faith but also to accept in the sacrament the Body of his Lord with his body. Thus, the heart is kindled with greater love, so that Chrysostom refers to it as a glowing ember that warms our hearts.6
The physical form of the Eucharist, moreover, prevents a person from becoming spiritually (inappropriately) detached and fleeing into purely mental dimensions. The bodily reception of the Body of Christ redirects the gaze of a person who loves God back to his concrete everyday life. In the bodily penetration of (the receiver and the Received), it becomes visible that the communio between God and humanity relates to reality: mystical unity is not an escape from the world but an entering into it. The person emerges from this internal unity with God (as the One who is) strengthened and enriched. And not to conclude this unity but to bring it outward and transform it into an all-embracing peace.
