When Time Stands Still

Abiding in the Eternal Presence of Christ

The Holy Mysteries empower our participation in the eternal. Despite being one of the most spectacular Christological and sacramental realities, this glimpse of eternity too often goes unnoticed or underappreciated. Jesus Christ is the living Word of God, who has been with the Father from the beginning of time, who came down to earth at a particular moment in time, who subsists in the Holy Trinity for all time. Three chronological events forever converge in the person of Jesus, distinct yet always functioning as a whole. Christ is not only an icon of eternal life but Eternal Life himself. It gets better. We are members of the Church, the Bride of Christ. As our bridegroom, Christ mercifully and miraculously offers himself to us in the Blessed Sacrament, both guiding and aiding us in our journey home, our journey back to Him. So, by receiving Christ in the Eucharist, we not only remember his life, death, and resurrection: we intimately participate in the eternal victories of past and future made present in his sacrifice. In Holy Communion, we mystically partake of the eternal presence of Christ. 

We previously explored how a deeper understanding of sacramentality illuminates parallel planes of reality. Now we can see that it also reveals multiple dimensions of time that converge in singular moments. To say heaven meets earth is no exaggeration: God both sanctifies and elevates the mundane in the Sacraments. This mystery culminates in Holy Communion. In the time after Christ, nothing brings us closer to the glorious Incarnation than the Eucharist. Our partaking of the Eucharist facilitates our mystical participation in the Incarnation by physically receiving Christ’s Precious Body and Life-giving Blood into our own. This intimate relationship comes into focus when considering the past, present, and future realities represented in the Sacrament: rooted in Christ’s Incarnation, realized in our reception of the Eucharist, and perfected in the beatific vision. Through the Holy Sacraments, we attain eternal life by becoming one with Christ. The “nuptial mystery” plays out on at least two levels: it is the wedding of Christ and the Church and the wedding of Christ’s Passion and the sacramental life (Daniélou, 207). Through this marriage, we truly become members of the mystical Body of Christ. The Blessed Sacrament is both our wedding ring and a sample of the feast to come. 

To better understand the nuptial analogy, let us turn back to Daniélou, who elucidates the dual dimensions of Bouyer’s sacramentality by clarifying exactly how they intersect in the Sacraments. Bouyer sketches an overarching worldview; Daniélou fills the outline with detail. Both add plenty of color to our picture of the sacramental life found in Christ. The unique value we are being offered here — an offering that was highlighted by Bouyer and further explained by Daniélou — consists of a new scope through which to see the world. All that is around us comes into greater focus. Novel connections abound. The familiar takes on new depth. Life itself swells with meaning. This is most profoundly on display in our quest for theosis. Starting with our participation in the Sacraments of Initiation, the journey to become “little Christs,” as St. Cyril describes it, is facilitated by the sacramental life and fulfilled by our entry into heaven, by God’s grace. Christ gives his Body to us — both through his death on the cross and in the Blessed Sacrament — so that we might enjoy theosis. Again we see the convergence of past and future in the present moment. The Sacraments pierce the very fabric of time by placing the infinite into the finite. The Eastern Churches rightly refer to them as Holy Mysteries, for indeed they are both holy and mysterious, heavenly acts of transcendence, gratuitous gifts of grace, eternal signs of our mystical union with Christ. 

Daniélou harmonizes these reflections on Communion by categorizing the sacrifice of Christ into different “modes”. The sacramental life we now enjoy as Christians depends entirely on the sacrifice of Christ, given once for all. This paradox begins to make sense when we consider that “the sacrifice of Christ subsists under three modes. It is the same priestly action which took place in a precise moment of history; which is eternally present in heaven; and which subsists under the sacramental appearances” (Daniélou, 138). Indeed, that time-rending reality is precisely what we see materialize in the Blessed Sacrament. When we receive Christ into our bodies, we remember how “the Son of God became man that we might become God” (St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation). Active participation in the sacramental life is how we abide in him. That is how we become one body — the Body of Christ!

My Christocentric analysis has shown how the sacramental life both mirrors and paves the way for the life to come. In all of the Holy Sacraments, the heavenly and earthly combine in miraculous fashion to produce something altogether transcendent. With Holy Communion in particular, past, present, and future uniquely come together. More precisely, time takes on new layers of meaning when we participate in the sacrifice given once for all. When we meet Christ in the Eucharist, we partake of the eternal Bread of Life himself, an encounter which was typified by the miraculous manna from heaven, foreshadowed by the feeding of the five thousand, and fulfilled on the cross. Each and every day, in countless Divine Liturgies across the world, time stands still as Christ transcends our reality, mercifully and miraculously offering Himself to us. By receiving His Precious Body and Life-giving Blood, we get a taste of the eternal feast for which we long, strengthening us for the journey ahead. 

I would like to conclude by pointing back to the timeless words of St. John Chrysostom that Daniélou shares with us, which are especially worth pondering in light of our sacramental reflection:

“But do we not daily offer the sacrifice? We offer it, but in making the anamnesis of His death. And this is unique, not multiple. It was offered once, as He entered once into the Holy of Holies. The anamnesis is the figure of His death. It is the same sacrifice that we offer, not one today and another tomorrow. One only Christ everywhere, entire everywhere, one only Body. As everywhere there is one Body, everywhere there is one sacrifice. This is the sacrifice that we now still offer. This is the meaning of the anamnesis: we carry out the anamnesis of the sacrifice.” (LXIII, 130)

Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!