The Prayer Letter - Part 2

The second thing that I'd like to touch that I wrote about in my letter was the Eucharist, referred to as Holy Communion or the Lord's Supper in Protestant congregations. I can count with one hand the number of times I have received the Lord's Supper since I was baptized at the age of 9. Three times and I am now in my early 20's.

I suppose we could say that is the danger in looking at the Eucharist as only symbolic. As a child of a Protestant ordained minister, attending most services and church activities, I have had the ample opportunity to participate in those types of things. But even so, due to many reasons, I have only received the Lord's Supper three meager times, and as something entirely symbolic, on top of that.

The irregularity of taking the Eucharist/Lord's Supper has been for different reasons. But quite recently I have heard a strange reason why at my congregation we don't do the Lord's Supper every Sunday as how the first Christians did. One of the church leaders was giving a bible study on the Book of Acts, and the topic of the Lord's Supper arose. He had said, "It is very important to take the Lord's Supper, also known as Holy Communion in other churches, because it is mandated by the Lord. We are to do so in remembrance of him, symbolically. Depending on the Church, some will do the Lord's Supper once a month, every three months, and so on. We need to start doing it as well but one of the reasons why we don't do it every Sunday is so that it doesn't become a ritual."

The irony is that this congregation is staunchly Sola Scriptura. While it doesn't consider itself Protestant (due to misinformation), it is Protestant vastly to the letter. Funny how we say that our aim is to live by Sola Scriptura and live like the first Christians, and yet we don't hold Communion every Sunday so that it doesn't become a ritual?

For the Orthodox Christian, I have come to understand that the sacrament of the Eucharist is life and the center of worship. It is an extremely important part of the liturgy of the Church, which according to my reading, it is ancient and without or very little reform. For the Eucharist/Lord's Supper to not be taken with such seriousness causes much concern to me. Why are we avoiding the practice of "the breaking of the bread" every Sunday just so that it doesn't become a ritual?

"Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."  - John 6:53,54

To be continued...