The first take of the Church is to celebrate
with joy the gift of the salvific action of God in humanity, accomplished
through the death and resurrection of Christ. This is the Eucharist: a memorial
and a thanksgiving. It is a memorial of Christ which presupposes an ever-renewed
acceptance of the meaning of his life—a total giving to others. It is a
thanksgiving for the love of God which is revealed in these events. The
Eucharist is a feast, a celebration of the joy that the Church desires and
seeks to share. The Eucharist is done within the Church, and simultaneously the
Church is built up by the Eucharist. In the Church “we celebrate,” writes
Schillebeeckx, “that which is achieved outside the Church edifice, in human
history.” This work, which creates a profound human brotherhood, gives the
Church its reason for being.
In the Eucharist we celebrate the cross and
the resurrection of Christ, his Passover from death to life, and our passing
from sin to grace. In the Gospel the Last Supper is presented against the
background of the Jewish Passover, which celebrated the liberation from Egypt and
the Sinai Covenant. The Christian Passover takes on and reveals the full
meaning of the Jewish Passover. Liberation from sin is at the very root of political
liberation. The former reveals what is really involved in the latter. But on
the other hand, communion with God and others presupposes the abolition of all
injustice and exploitation. This is expressed by the very fact that the
Eucharist was instituted during a meal. For the Jews a meal in common was a
sign of brotherhood. It united the dinners in a kind of sacred pact. Moreover,
the bread and the wine are signs of brotherhood which at the same time suggest
the gift of creation. The objects used in the Eucharist themselves recall that
brotherhood is rooted in God’s will to give the goods of this earth to all
people so that they might build a more human world. The Gospel of John, which
does not contain the story of the Eucharistic institution, reinforces this
idea, for it substitutes the episode of the washing of the feet—a gesture of
service, love, and brotherhood. This substitution is significant: John seems to
see in this episode the profound meaning of the Eucharistic celebration, the
institution of which he does not relate. Thus the Eucharist appears inseparably
united to creation and to the building up of a real human brotherhood. “The
reference to community,” writes Tillard, “does not therefore represent a simple
consequence, an accidental dimension, a second level of a rite that is in the
first place and above all individual—as the simple act of eating is. From the
beginning it is seen in the human context of the meal as it was conceived in
Israel. The Eucharistic rite in its essential elements is communitarian and orientated
toward the constitution of human brotherhood.” (Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics
and Salvation [trans. Caridad Inda and John Eagleson; Maryknoll, N.Y.:
Orbis Books, 1985], 262-63)