With God in the World: A Series of PapersBrent, Charles Henry
Religion
With God in the World: A Series of Papers
Brent, Charles Henry
Christianity
The various titles of the sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood suggest
its various aspects,[26] one of which, and that the one that happily is
most common in our Church, we shall consider--the Holy Communion. This
title indicates the view of the sacrament which most readily appeals to
the human heart. The Holy Communion means, of course, "the Holy
Fellowship"--not "a" but "the," that fellowship which above all others
is holy, the end of which is to make all who participate in it holy. It
is fellowship with the Father in Christ--not merely with Christ; that is
not the whole of it, for Christ, the Son of God and the Son of Man as He
is, is the "Way" to the Father. Nor is it an ordinary fellowship, of
which the fellowship of mere men is a complete image. Ordinary
fellowship allows two lives to intertwine; but here so close is the
relationship that "Christ _with_ us," "we _with_ Christ" is inadequate
to describe the intimacy, and "we _in_ Christ," "Christ _in_ us,"
phrases which no one dare to apply to any other friendship, can alone
tell the tale. And "we in Christ" not "Christ in us" is the grander and
more frequent phrase. "In Christ" tells of the unmeasured wealth of
fellowship, divine and human, which is the Christian heritage; it is the
whole parable of the vine and the branches in two syllables.[27] This is
the Godward aspect of the sacrament. And in this connection three things
are to be noted:--
§ 1. Every fresh communion is a new point of contact with God in Christ
through the working of the Eternal Spirit; each last communion means
more than any of those which have gone before, as even in our
association with a human friend new qualities and untried depths of
familiar characteristics are revealed in each successive act of
intercourse. Friendship is taken up day by day on a higher level than
formerly, because of these new glimpses of the inner recesses of life
which are caught from time to time as friends meet. And frequent
repetition of the sacrament ought no more to impair its value, than
frequent meetings the reality of friendship.
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