Springtime Eucharist: From Preface to Amen
by Malcolm Cornwell, C.P.
Eucharistic Prayer is realistic prayer. It does not gloss over our weakness and our constant need for God. It boldly states that we are sinners, and that time and time again we have broken God’s covenant. Eucharistic Prayer is prayer of remembrance. It encourages us never to forget that God is a God of love and mercy.
Through this prayer, the entire church community is challenged to affirm that in Jesus, God has embraced our broken humanity, suffered for our sins, and transformed the meaning of our lives forever. In each Eucharist, we proclaim that Jesus has died, is risen and continues to send the Spirit so that, through, with and in him we might give honor and glory to the Father. Our springtime celebrations, in particular, challenge us to live the new life we profess in the Risen Christ.
The Preface of each Eucharistic Prayer invites us to affirm that God is with us, and to lift up our hearts gladly while giving thanks to the Lord our God. During the Easter season, we do this with greater joy than ever proclaiming that Christ “has made us children of the light,” and that “in him a new age has dawned, the long reign of sin is ended and a broken world has been restored.” With these phrases from two of the Prefaces of the Easter season, we prepare to sing of God’s holiness and to enter into the heart of Christ’s ministry bringing healing and hope to all.
Healing and Renewal
In his public life, Jesus exercised a ministry of reconciliation by means of healing acts, telling stories and sharing meals. Through the ministry of healing, Jesus restored people to health, and to right order within the community. Because of certain infirmities, people were not able to enjoy a normal life within the community. They were not able to seek employment and were estranged from everyone. Christ not only restored them to physical health, but renewed their bonds with the community. Their healing was truly a moment of renewal and reconciliation.
Jesus was a master storyteller. This is especially true in the Gospel of Luke which has a special emphasis on stories of reconciliation. The stories of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son are among the most memorable from this Gospel of compassion and care. Each one of these stories speaks of estrangement and reconciliation. Each story ends with joy and a call to table fellowship.
Throughout all of the Gospels, Jesus shared meals with people. The table is a place to celebrate the human bonds of family and friendship. Jesus, the itinerant preacher, often found himself at the tables of other people, the rich and the comfortable, the poor and the outcast alike. There at table, Jesus invited others to share in the blessings of God’s kingdom, blessings that were available to all. Jesus’ ministry of table fellowship was a ministry of inclusion, breaking the boundaries of social convention and religious discrimination. It was a ministry of reconciliation, hope and the promise of new life.
Prayer of New Life
With these Gospel images of meals and stories of healing and reconciliation in mind our springtime Eucharists invite us to ponder the hope of new life the Easter Season promises. In Lent, we worshiped a God of whom we say; “You never cease to call us to a new and more abundant life.” We celebrated God as a “God of love and mercy … always ready to forgive”. These phrases found in our Eucharistic Prayers for Reconciliation, prepared us for our celebration of the Paschal Triduum, and move us forward into the Easter Season where we now hear the first words of the Risen Christ, “Peace be with you”.
I believe that the image of the risen Christ has a powerful influence on our theology and thinking about life and ministry in the church today. This image is portrayed in the stories of the resurrection appearances in the Gospels of Luke and John. These stories depict the risen Christ continuing three principal ministries associated with table fellowship in his public life, namely, reconciler, peace giver and community builder. But this time the meals are not shared with people considered sinners and outcasts by Mosaic law. Jesus now risen and alive shares meals with his own deserting disciples and doubtful companions, his discouraged followers and denying friends. Whenever he finds his feeble followers - at Jerusalem, Emmaus or the Lake of Galilee, the risen Christ is ready to share table fellowship once again.
It is as risen Lord that Christ becomes mentor and model for our own ministry as reconciler, peace giver and community builder. We celebrate this belief each time we participate in and offer the Eucharist. This common faith is affirmed in the Preface of the Eucharist II, often used for the springtime celebration of the Feast of Corpus Christi. “In this great sacrament you feed your people and strengthen them in holiness, so that the family of mankind may come to walk in the light of one faith, in one communion of love. We come then to this wonderful sacrament to be fed at your table and to grow into the likeness of the risen Christ.” This likeness was given us at baptism, strengthened at confirmation, nourished in Eucharist and is the basis for our sharing in the ministry of the Church.
Amen, amen!
Our transformation in Christ the risen Lord is proclaimed in a prayer we rarely if ever celebrate: Eucharistic Prayer IV for Special Needs and Occasions. “Father of mercy, faithful God, You sent Jesus Christ your Son among us as redeemer and Lord. He was moved with compassion for the poor and the powerless, for the sick and the sinner; he made himself neighbor to the oppressed. By his words and actions he proclaimed to the world that you care for us as a Father cares for his children.” Against the backdrop of these consoling words we are challenged, “Open our eyes to the needs of all; inspire us with words and deeds to comfort those who labor and are burdened; keep our service of others faithful to the example and command of Christ. Let your Church be a living witness to the truth and freedom, to justice and peace, that all people may be lifted up to the hope of a world made new.”
The various prayers of the Eucharist and the theology they contain invite us to “grow into the likeness of the risen Christ.” Could it be that we have set our goals too low? Is not the real goal of our lives and true core of our spirituality and sharing in Christ’s ministry to become a living icon of the risen Lord himself? After all, St Paul the Apostle, whom we honor in a special way this year, reminds us that we have died and are risen in Christ to share the fullness of his life. Our Christian task is not so much to imitate the life of the historical Jesus, but to be a present manifestation of his Spirit as risen Lord. He is the reconciler, the peace giver and the builder of community. He is also the one who has said, “ Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” (John 20:21) 
Fr. Malcolm Cornwell, C.P. completed a postgraduate degree in liturgy and has served the American church community for forty years as a retreat preacher, lecturer, and author of many articles and several books.
