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Question 1: “How can one connect the Christian belief in the Holy Trinity and the belief in the unity of God, which is so clearly witnessed in the Old Testament, without getting tied up in contradictions?” (TR)
Answer: Please read Chap. 5, III, in the book carefully once more 1. Jesus himself grew up in his people’s belief in God. This belief was characterised by monotheism, the belief in the one God, which characterises the entire Old Testament. Jesus’s disciples, of whom 12 were made apostles, were naturally also monotheists. Christians know from the writings of the New Testament that Jesus did not announce himself only as a prophet. He claimed to act in the name of God and claimed that his actions (e.g. healing, waking the dead, forgiveness of sins) made God present. Moreover, he said that in himself God and his kingdom had come. The disciples, that is the first Christians, recognised in the power of the Holy Spirit that Jesus’s claims were not blasphemy, did not blaspheme the one God and did not attack the true teachings of God, but were the opposite: that God himself spoke in Jesus of Nazareth, God himself was present, in other words that Jesus was the Son of God. (See: Mt 16:13-20)
Step by step the disciples, that is the first Christians, realised that the unity of God was to be understood in a new and deeper way. This is what we have tried to present in Chap 5 of the book.
So, to give a brief answer: Yes. The belief in the Holy Trinity does not negate the belief in the one God but deepens and differentiates it. The teachings of the Christian church present an interpretation and a further development of the teachings of the Old Testament in the light of the events of Jesus’s life (his deeds and words, his suffering, death and resurrection) as well as in the light of Jesus’s teachings, as understood by the apostles and the early Christian community by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Question 2: “The Son of God was not created but born and nevertheless the Son is not after the Father? Is there significance and an explanation for this belief?” (TR)
Answer: Please read Chap.5, III, 2 Father-Son. Also: Read Thomas the Apostle’s profession: “My Lord and my God” (Jn 20:28)
The offence of the crucifixion was not easy to cope with. The Gospel according to John tells of how the Apostle Thomas, pulled in two directions over doubts on the news of Jesus’s resurrection, fought with himself: “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe” (Jn 20:25). The shock of Good Friday was simply too deep-rooted for Thomas to be able to unquestioningly find his way to believe in Jesus’s resurrection. We have seen the Lord, his fellow Apostles had already told him days earlier. Thomas remained cool and reserved. We have met the Lord, he is alive, they told him. However, he did not trust them. Only the encounter with the resurrected Jesus himself opened the way to belief for the sceptical Apostle: “A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Jesus came and stood among them and said. ‘Peace be with you’. Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’” (Jn 20:26-27). Overwhelmed by this encounter, overwhelmed by Jesus Christ, who lives, Thomas manages to say: “My Lord and my God” (Jn 20:28). That is some profession! And this profession to Jesus as Lord and as God is at the end of a long road paved with doubts and uncertainties, with misunderstandings and scepticism that Thomas had to journey. And not only him but also all who are followers of Jesus have to take this road to a full understanding of the Lord. After Easter, that is, after Jesus’s resurrection, they recognised him again in the encounter, only then were their eyes opened (see. Lk 24:31). Only then did they have that “knowledge” of Jesus that then condensed into profession of Him.
In his Letter to the Philippians, Saint Paul quotes a hymn that was composed shortly after Jesus’s death and resurrection, and which summarises the belief in Jesus Christ in this way: “He was ….(Phil 2:6-11). This is the fundamental creed of Christianity.
Question 3: How can the formulation of Christian teaching “one nature in three person and three persons in one nature’’ be reasonable?” (TR)
Question 4: “What are the specific tasks of each of the elements (that is, each of the three “persons”) of the Holy Trinity, according to the Christian faith?” (TR)
Answer: Refer carefully once again to Chap. 5, particularly 5, IV.
When the one God is love (mutual “self-giving”, see 1 Jn 4:7-21), then the three “persons” in one are simultaneously the “intersections” between which the rhythm of love is consummated: Giving – Receiving – Returning (Please note that “Person” in this context has a different significance to that of a person with a human personality as an “independent” in itself-centred reality). With that, all three “Persons” are one and the same love in three beings that are indispensable so that God can even be love at all, and – moreover… the highest selfless love. The one God is community, which means, he is the one loving game that takes place between the three “Persons”: Love, to be loved, to love with others.
In 1 Jn 1:3 it says: “We declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have the fellowship with us; and truly your fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.“
Everything points to unity. And here, also, it is not about a “commonplace unity”, but a unity that receives its model from the three-in-one God. It is a unity that is realised in its variety and a variety that is moving towards unity. It is communio (communion, community).
The unity that the whole world strives for, the desire for unanimity, harmony and peace that is in every one of us, yes, the “globalisation”, interconnection and universal communication, which all technology, media and culture aim for, have something in common with the Holy Trinity, with Christian belief in the one God in three “Persons.” More precisely: There should be equivalence, a similarity between the two. This confirms this thesis once more: What God is, communio, is what we can and must become. He is the beginning of all and the target of all reality. In him, we are, we live and we move in him.
When God works on us, he always work as the one, three-in-one, God.
Question 5: “According to your belief, Satan brought chaos to God’s plan for humanity. God forbid! Does that mean that the will of Satan has overcome the will of God? Would not such a view contradict the dignity and magnitude of God?” (TR)
Question 6: “Even if God created Satan and made him superior to humanity (and allowed him to lead people into temptation), God still gave human beings some powers to resist Satan. Did God really find no other way to save humanity except to become a human being himself?” (TR)
Answer: The power and powerlessness of evil spirits are made distinct in the Bible, particularly in connection with Jesus’s appearance. Particularly the Gospel according to Mark describes Jesus’s working as the battle with Satan (Mk 1:23-28, 32-34, 39; 3:22-30). However, with Jesus, the stronger one appears who conquers evil. With Him the kingdom of God dawns because He drives out the demons with God’s power (see Mt 12:28, Lk 11:18; 10:189). Because Jesus Christ conquers evil powers and tyrannies once and for all, fear of demons is unchristian. Rather: “Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith!” (1 Pet 5: 8-9).
Church teaching is fully in line with this witness to the writings of the New Testament. For if the evil that keeps humanity in captivity does not originate from an evil principle, separated from God (as dualism teaches), then it must come only from creatures that God made good but who have become evil through their own will. Thus, according to Church teaching, there is not only evil but evil people too. Thus, firstly, Catholic teaching on human experience of the darkest depths of the world, as it is given in the Bible, is upheld. Secondly, this limits the significance and influence of evil spirits: despite everything, they are only finite manifestations, created by God and thus remain dependent on Him. Their unholy reign is broken by Jesus Christ and is ever more defeated by the working of the Holy Spirit. Hope has the last word.
Who wanted to instruct God on how He was to save sinful humanity from sin. There are no limits and no rules on God’s love. We can only wonder in grateful faith at the fact that God has chosen the path that He himself proclaimed in the word of the Bible. Read once more 1 Jn 4:7 onwards and Jn 3: 16-21.
Of course, we recognise with the benefit of hindsight that God loves in such a godly way as we love, we who were created in God’s image: whoever truly loves wants to be in solidarity with the loved one. Out of love, God wanted to be fully in solidarity with the humanity that He Himself had created. In all except sin.
Question 7: “How can a sensible person understand that, in order to forgive sin, God leads humanity ever deeper into sin finally even to the point of becoming God’s killer, Do Abraham’s children receive forgiveness by killing their God? Why then does God demand prayer and obedience? Why then does God set up commandments for humanity?”. (TR)
Answer: God gave humanity commandments. As humanity, in freedom of will, increasingly defied these commandments, God decided to show His love not only through teaching but also by sacrificing His only son (read Jn 3,16 onwards).
Question 8: “Would it not be more appropriate if, instead of God himself (in the form of Jesus Christ) fighting Satan, he would leave this to humanity?” (TR)
Answer: Every Christian is called to fight against the power of Satan. However, every Christian knows that he can win this battle, at the end of the day, only with God’s strength. This strength from God is given to each Christian, through Jesus Christ, who acknowledges the “true God from true God” and who also believes that “For us and for our salvation, He came down from Heaven. By the power of the Holy Spirit He was born of the Virgin Mary and became man (the Nicene Creed). A Christian receives the strength to fight Satan’s power through the devout listening to the Word of God and by receiving the sacraments. In this way, the resurrected Lord is effective and powerful in the faithful by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Question 9: “Life’s order in this world is based on humanity taking responsibility for its deeds. Is it not strange that salvation for all people should be accomplished by one person’s suffering for all?” (TR)
Answer: God offers all people salvation in and through Jesus Christ. I deliberately write: offers. Man is free to reject the offer. If he accepts, he will need to gather all his strength so that the gift of salvation will be realised in him. He will bid Jesus Christ to take his whole person, to transform his contrariness into obedience so that, through the power of the Holy Spirit, he will come to resemble Christ more and more and will please God. In other words, he will be completely „saved.“
Question 10: “Let us assume that every person carries sin within himself since birth. Will not God, the merciful Lord, not simply forgive him of this sin? ” (TR)
Answer: See the second half of the answer to question 5 and 6. Once again: It was God’s decision not to acquit humanity simply by simply exercising His authority. Rather, He wanted to save humanity by becoming man Himself and becoming like us in all except sin. At the same time, He wanted to enable us, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to become His sons and daughters for all eternity, the brothers and sisters of His son, Jesus Christ.
Question 11: “What is there to say about the belief of the early Christians, who were not familiar with the formulation of the dogma of the Holy Trinity. Was their belief recognised as legitimate?” (TR)
Answer: One has to differentiate between the theological formulations, which have given rise to the expression of Christian faith over the course of time, and the content of the Christian faith.
At the beginning of the Christian faith is the fact that people had discovered, in a very „revolutionary“, way for them that in Jesus of Nazareth and in the power of his spirit, God Himself had come down to His people. Through them God had not shared something of Himself with them but literally Himself. In Jesus Christ, God comes into the world personally. Our world is now also His world; He assumes our destiny and in doing so creates the most intimate cohabitation between Himself and humanity. That means, however: In Jesus Christ and – in other ways – in the Holy Spirit sent by him we meet emissaries that only point to God (just as prophets or holy people also refer to God) behind whom, however, the deity remains elusive from humanity in hidden, unending transcendence for ever. No, in the Christ event God brings Himself into the game. Whoever has dealings with Jesus, His word, His bearing, His suffering, whoever experiences the spirit in themselves and working around them is dealing with God personally. If it were not so, Jesus, who comes as God’s final valid word and as the unsurpassable embodiment of divine love, would stand in contradiction to Himself. He would then not be the final intervention between God and humanity which, however, He claims for Himself: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” (Jn 14:9). And also the Holy Spirit, which fills Jesus, led us to the reality of Christ after His homecoming to the Father and opened up the direct access to the Father. He would leave us in the realm of the creatural, if He were not God Himself. See also Book 5, III, 7
Question 12: “Let us assume that Christians do not believe in three Gods? But where does the divinity of the Messiah come from? Can a man – developed in the womb of a woman, breast fed like every child, raised like every child – become or be God? Is this compatible with God’s greatness and transcendence?” (TR)
Answer: Can we humans dictate to God where His actions are fitting for His magnificence and transcendence? When we say: Allāhu Akbar, does that not then mean that God is greater than all our perceptions. If God is all His infinite mercy decided to become man so that we humans can partake of His divine life of love, can we forbid Him to do this? Please read Chap. 2, IV of the book.
Question 13: “Two thousand years ago, Hz. Isa (Jesus)did not exist. Can one add something to God later? Is God also so weak and helpless that He can be crucified by humans? Also, there are verses in the Gospels that show that Jesus was not willing to be crucified. (see Mt 27:46)” (TR)
Question 14: “The term ‘Holy Trinity’ causes also the following problem: How would it have been possible for one of the three divine persons to leave [the Holy Trinity], to enter Maria’s womb, to mix with this mortal world and to assume the human form? For, if God were a trinity then it would not be possible for only one of the three of the trinity to come down to earth separately.” (TR)
Answer: Chapter 2 (Incarnation) and Chap. 5 (God, the three-in-one) have shown that in Jesus, the Messiah, the uncreated son of God became man a long time ago. Read: Heb 1; Eph 1; Col 1:12-20; Phil 2:5-11.
Read also Chap. 3, III, 2 and 2.1
Question 15: “If the crucifixion was the will of your God, should He then not thank the Jews and Pontius Pilate? What do the terms, such as ‘peuple déicide’ (people that killed God), ‘peuple maudit’ (cursed race), ‘peuple reprouvé’ (thrown out of grace) that fill the entire Christian history show? What is the main reason why the term ‘déicide’ has found a place in Western language?” (TR)
Answer: First of all, read the following passages in Chapter 3 once more carefully: Cross, Sin, Redemption. III, 2.1; 2.2; 2.3 and the section in IV, that begins with The Crucifixion of Jesus.
There we say amongst other things: Jesus was condemned to death by the people -- and crucifixion happened to be the punishment under Roman law envisaged for the action of which He was accused. Ultimately, He was given over to death on the cross because of His attitude during His life towards God and the Jewish law, the Torah. The world, such as it is, could not tolerate Jesus’s fundamental criticism of its sinful structures. Jesus was the victim of the power of evil: Hatred, injustice, envy, self-interest, separation from God’s true demand on us – all those powers that still shape the world today.
Therefore, it is also a wicked misunderstanding to blame the Jewish people as such and alone for the death of Jesus. Ultimately, the sin of each and every one of us is responsible for the rejection of Jesus and for His condemnation and execution. The Second Vatican Council says in this regard in the “Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions.“ (Nostra Aetate), Nr. 4:
"True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ;(13) still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures. All should see to it, then, that in catechetical work or in the preaching of the word of God they do not teach anything that does not conform to the truth of the Gospel and the spirit of Christ.
“Furthermore, in her rejection of every persecution against any man, the Church, mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel's spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone.
Besides, as the Church has always held and holds now, Christ underwent His passion and death freely, because of the sins of men and out of infinite love, in order that all may reach salvation. It is, therefore, the burden of the Church's preaching to proclaim the cross of Christ as the sign of God's all-embracing love and as the fountain from which every grace flows.”
Thus it is clear that the slogans and expressions given in the question do not correspond to Christian Catholic teaching. On the contrary, they are to be condemned outright.
Question 16: “In the book it says, ‘Believers of different religions should try to identify those issues on which a shared, believing witness is possible, together with a genuine search for unity, in humble submission to God’s will.(Chapter: Religious pluralism, Christian responses, at the end of the first paragraph)
I would like to ask the author: How can people who have entirely differently or even CONTRARY teachings regarding God or Gods, as the case may be, form one unity? And ignoring that for a moment: How can they obey a teaching that lacks unity, that is, that is contradictory within itself. Where does true UNITY exist?” (TR)
Question 17: “In the book it says, For believers, Christian or Muslim, human beings are the creation of ‘God’s hand’, formed after his likeness and destined to return to him.’ (Chapter: The Heart of Christianity, Christian Perspectives 2. Christianity as the Way to Human Fulfilment).
According to this sentence, all people will return to God. That undermines the clarity, for where does this return lead to: heaven or hell? The next sentence then says:’ For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (Rom 8:19–25; Sure 81; 82; 99; 101). This common vocation establishes also the fundamental equality of all people across all differences in race, social position and religion’.
Now I would ask the author, why Jesus described himself in the following verses as THE ONLY WAY. Does Jesus mean in Jn 14,6: all paths lead to God?” (TR)
Answer: According to Catholic teaching: "One is the community of all peoples, one their origin, for God made the whole human race to live over the face of the earth. One also is their final goal, God, His providence, His manifestations of goodness, His saving design extend to all men (read Wis 8:1; Acts 14:7; Rom 2:6-7; 1 Tim 2:4), until that time when the elect will be united in the Holy City, the city ablaze with the glory of God, where the nations will walk in His light." (read: Acts 21:23f.)" (Declaration on the relation of the Church to non-Christian religions: Nostra Aetate of the Second Vatican Council, nr. 1).
Regarding belief in God, the same Council says in the same Declaration, Nr. 3: "The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men.“
However, by no means does this mean that there are not substantial differences between Islam and Christianity teaching about God. The God of Christian belief is the God of the Bible and the God that revealed Jesus. It is the triune God of Church teaching.
Nevertheless, Christians and Muslims are united regarding the one God and the will to fulfil God’s will. We Christians have not been given the competence nor the task to say with certainty if and when a person has consciously really encountered the God of Christian revelation and has nevertheless freely and thus culpably rejected him. God alone knows each human heart.
The Catholic Church teaches that God wants everyone to receive salvation, and that a person only then loses this offer of salvation when he freely and consciously rejects the offer of God’s love in Christ. Jesus Christ is in fact the only way to salvation. However, this salvation is also realised outside the institution of the Church and baptism. Those who are just and seek God will attain eternal salvation, even if they do not know it themselves, through Christ’s act of salvation (meditate Mt 25:31 onwards: The Last Judgement. The just are in the poor, the imprisoned etc who encounter Christ without recognising him. See also the text of the Council’s constitution regarding the Church (Lumen Gentium) nr. 16.
"Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience."
Read once more in the book, Chapter 11, III, 4-6.
Question 18: “Is divorce forbidden for you Christians? If the love between two people is already over would it then not be an ordeal to let them carry on living together? If your religion forbids divorce, then why are the divorce rates in America and Europe so high? We read in the newspapers that every second marriage there breaks down”(TR)
Answer: According to Christian teaching marital love is fulfilled in lifelong fidelity. In this takes place an unconditional devotion of one partner to the other and a commitment to one another that does not depend on changing circumstances. The one holds fast to the other no matter what. Such behaviour signifies a high level of mutual responsibility and is a great sign of the mutual solidarity that people are capable of when, and to what degree, they really let God sustain them. Particularly in the life that comes from this fidelity, marriage becomes transparent to the love of God, who said an unconditional yes to the people and the world through Jesus Christ.
According to the Catholic faith, sacramental marriage is a bond which represents in its own way Jesus Christ’s love for his Church (read Eph 5:21-33). Christ gave himself and sacrificed himself to his Church by becoming human, by dying and by rising again. Only in this mystery can marriage be understood and lived as a sacrament . Marriage is a way of imitating Christ.
Christian marriage partners know that they are bound with Christ’s Church in their bond of love and fidelity, and receive in sacramental marriage the strength to sustain their bond of fidelity. This bond is a bond of mutual trust, a process which can also involve failure, guilt and the cooling of love. However, for Christians, this is no reason to revoke fidelity. Even when one partner has left the marriage, the other is still bound in fidelity to his or her spouse. They can consciously and devotedly carry their aloneness as their part of the cross in the succession of Jesus.
Regarding Christian life in marriage and family the Joint Synod of the Dioceses of the German republic states:
"In the bond until death the spouse brings Christ’s love, from which he cannot be separated (Rom 8:35) to the other spouse in daily intimacy. Such fidelity that spans an entire life shows the fullness of Christian existence: the belief in the resurrection, which encompasses the resurrection of the marriage partner; the hope that one partner has for the other in that he trusts in God; the love that holds one to the other, because he has said yes to the other in Christ’s love."
During crises and failures one needs the brotherly help of a spiritual director.
Question 19: “You also explain that God is unreachable for people, or transcendent. If Jesus is God, then how would God remain unreachable for people, or remain transcendent? But how, in your opinion, can Jesus as well as the Holy Spirit be God since you speak of one God and not three? Had God cloned himself?” (TR)
Answer: God’s transcendence, his superior and transcending greatness does not exclude, according to Christian belief, that God himself freely and sovereignly decided not only to be the creator and sustainer of the world as well as the God that sends commandments, prophets and holy scripts but, furthermore, in freedom and in love to make himself present with us humans in the person of Jesus Christ, to be our brother and to give us the power by the Holy Spirit to live as his cherished children. We Christians have recognised through Jesus’s message, as it is preserved in the New Testament, that God has acted in this way in his immeasurable generosity. We gratefully accept the actions of a sovereign God and respond in faith and in a life according to the faith.
Read also the answers to the Questions 1, 2 and 3+4, and Chap. 2, III; Chap. 5, III, 7 and IV in the book.
In our answer to question 1, we have shown how Christian belief understands the unity of God. The unity of the three-in-one God is the unity of God who has revealed himself to us as love. Put another way: he has revealed to us, especially in Jesus Christ, what supreme love means. However, love also means precisely relationship and community. Please read once more our answer to Question 1.
Question 20: “How can the Eucharist be God? Jesus says in the Gospels that everything that passes through the mouth (in humans) reaches the stomach and is then expelled again. How can you call something that you eat and drink as God? And do only 2 Gods from 3 remain after you have eaten the Eucharist?” (TR)
Answer: Catholic teaching does not say “God is the Eucharist.” The reader should read once more openly and critically sections III and IV in the book.
The Eucharist is one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic faith.
1. What are the sacraments and what does it mean to receive them?
Sacraments are signs in which we Christians experience in a special way God’s devotion to us through Jesus Christ. In them finds expression what we really receive: we encounter Christ. The Catholic Church knows seven sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penance and Reconciliation, the Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony. They accompany humans throughout their entire lives, from birth to death: in Baptism we receive new life through Jesus Christ; it integrates us into the community of the Church. In Confirmation Christ strengthens us with the Holy Spirit so that we can live, no longer as children, but as responsible Christians in the world and can witness our faith. In the Eucharist we become one with Christ and with one another. In Penance and Reconciliation, Christ grants us anew, and again and again, forgiveness for our sins and our guilt. In the Anointing of the Sick, Christ stands by us in serious illness and mortal danger. In the Sacrament of Holy Orders, he confers to the beneficiary the full power to proclaim his word and to dispense the sacraments. In Matrimony, when two people say yes to each other Christ binds them to an indissoluble bond until they are parted in death.
Baptism and the Eucharist are the fundamental sacraments. Their practice is frequently testified in the NT. With the seven number of sacraments, the Catholic Church is supporting itself on a long development whose origins date back already to the life of the early Church but which was roughly finalised only in the 12th C. During the 16th C, the sacraments became a point of argument between the religious denominations. Since then, the Reformation Churches usually maintain only the two sacraments of Baptism and the Last Supper (Eucharist). However, a certain convergence over the past few years can be noted.
Receiving the sacraments belongs to those conditions that one must fulfil in order to be a Christian: Baptism first enables entry into the community of the Church, it is the basic requirement. Later in life, the Eucharist ensures the bond to Christ promised by him. Only by receiving these sacraments is Christian life really possible. Only someone who is in relationship with Christ can honour his or her vocation as a Christian.
2. The Eucharist is the breaking of bread with, in other words, being at table with, Jesus Christ and is thus an expression of unity with him and with God.
The Eucharist makes visible unity with Christ because all participants in the holy supper take part in the “body of Christ”. The bread that we break, is it not sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body for we all partake in the one bread.” (1 Cor 10:16b-17).
The Last Supper that Jesus shares with his disciples, which is handed down many times in the New Testament (1 Cor 11:23-25; Mk 14:22-25; Mt 26:26-29; Lk 22:15-20), is the last supper in what may have been a long series of daily meals with his disciples. The breaking of bread has always been the identifying mark of kinship and living together which found expression in sharing a meal.
Jesus presumably resorted to this religiously significant form of the ritually determined Jewish meal: At the beginning of a meal, the head of the household gave praise to God, the giver of the bread, over the flatbread, broke off a piece for everyone (“breaking bread”) and portioned it out. Following the shared meal, the ritual was repeated over the cup of wine.
Given this background, what Jesus did and said at the Last Supper was unmistakeably clear to his disciples. With his words, “Take; this is my body, this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many” (Mk 14:22b-23), he went beyond the usual meal ceremony, gave it a new significance, a new meaning in that he referred to himself, to his person in the bread and wine. In the light of the impending fate of death, which he accepted, he was speaking of himself as the sacrifice: Like the flatbread, so my body will be broken; like the wine that is poured out, so will my blood be poured out. Accordingly, Jesus’s suffering and dying is then signified as sacrifice and expiation for sins.
In remembrance of this Last Supper Christians celebrated and celebrate again and again this meal with one another: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” (1 Cor 11:26), writes Paul. However, this meal of remembrance is no funeral meal, but always a meal of joy due to Jesus’s resurrection (1 Cor 15), to give thanks (compare particularly Acts 2:46) for:- 1. Jesus’s sacrifice, his life and death “for us”; 2. His solidarity with us, after all “the bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor 10:16b) and 3. The hope given for his coming in glory (compare: Mk 14:25; 26:29; 22:18).
To give thanks is called eucharistia in Greek. This is why this meal of thanksgiving is called the “Eucharist”. It is the centre of each Christian community, the heart of the Church, the “bread” which nourishes the Christian believer.
In this way, the Church is the “new people of God”, an egalitarian community from the body of Christ, bound together by the bond of love: “Love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another is showing honour. Do not lag in zeal, but be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers” (Rom 12:10-13).
The Christian bond of unity and the basis of mutual Christian brotherliness and solidarity are no longer blood relations and membership of the same tribe, but the common faith, ultimately the risen Christ, who unites Christians to and with one another through the Sacrament of the Eucharist in the Holy Spirit.
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