Lord's Supper

“ The "great supper" is the divine banquet of Holy Communion, in which we receive the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. On another occasion our Lord said: "I am the bread that came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever, and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world." The parable of the "great supper" is, therefore, very appropriately chosen as the Gospel for this Sunday in the octave of the magnificent and triumphal festival of Corpus Christi. ”

“ Supper means a meal; therefore, one does not "eat the Lord's Supper," unless he eats a full meal; for, if baptize refers to the quantity of water, supper refers to the quantity of food and drink in the other sacrament. He then seems to exult, and says, "I am glad that I am not in conscientious subjection to any mode of doing anything in religion, as being essential to the thing itself." ”

“ After the Spirit was poured out, as well as before, while they were waiting for him, they continued instant in prayer; for prayer will never be superseded till it comes to be swallowed up in everlasting praise. Breaking of bread comes in between the work and prayer, for it has reference to both, and is a help to both. The Lord's supper is a sermon to the eye, and a confirmation of God's word to us; and it is an encouragement to our prayers, and a solemn expression of the ascent of our souls to God. ”

“ It is a day of worship, not necessarily a day of rest. Neither rest nor work should be allowed to interfere with a Christian’s worship on the first day of the week. We have met today to eat the Lord’s supper by the authority of the Scriptures cited above and not by the authority of any church. Christians were eating the Lord’s supper on the first day of the week several hundred years before the Roman Catholic Church came into existence. I hereby challenge the Sabbatarians to furnish even one word of Bible authority for eating the Lord’s supper on Saturday. ”

“ They have changed the Lord’s Supper into an offering for the living and the dead; they conjure the bread with five words,176 and persuade the people, that the bread is changed into flesh, and the wine into blood. ”

“ Sunday is nowhere observed with more strictness. The community seems to be a very orderly and thrifty one, except upon solemn and stated occasions. One of these occasions is the celebration of the Lord's Supper ”

“ On this love alone depend the law and the Word; and if "thou shalt love the Lord thy God and thy neighbour," this is the celestial festival in the heavens. But the earthly is called a supper, as has been shown from Scripture. For the supper is made for love, but the supper is not love (agape) ; only a proof of mutual and reciprocal kindly feeling. "Let not, then, your good be evil spoken of; for the kingdom of God is not meat and drink," says the apostle, in order that the meal spoken of may not be conceived as ephemeral, "but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." ”

“ For this sacrament was instituted by our Lord at the supper. But when the supper was ended our Lord gave the sacrament to His disciples, as is evident from Luke 22:20, and from 1 Cor. 11:25. Therefore it seems that we ought to take this sacrament after receiving other food.
Obj. 2: Further, it is written (1 Cor. 11:33) : "When you come together to eat," namely, the Lord's body, "wait for one another; if any man be hungry, let him eat at home": and thus it seems that after eating at home a man may eat Christ's body in the Church. ”

“ A Representation of Our Union with Christ.—The Supper represents the death of Christ not as a mere drama, remote from us, but as a death on our behalf. In the Supper we do not merely witness the breaking of the bread and the pouring out of the wine; we partake of the bread and wine ourselves. ”

“ Moreover it may be said, that the paschal lamb was eaten in their families, whereas the outward supper now is celebrated in public places for worship. We find, that the apostles, “Breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart;” which implies an usual meal or eating. And certainly they do well, who daily at meals remember Christ and his sufferings: for the spiritual supper, which is the thing required, ought to be partaken of by every true Christian ”

“ Our company gathers at the welcome sound; the monks form a procession; the pilgrims trail on; all moving with a hungry solemnity to the crypt, where we find the long tables groaning, as at dinner, with the pound of black bread, the salt sprat, the onion parted into four small pieces with a knife, and the copper tureen of quass. Our supper is the dinner served up afresh, with the same prayers, the same bowing and crossing, the same bell-ringing, and the same life of saint. The only difference is, that in the evening we have no barley-paste and no stale milk. ”

“ We cannot help seeing that the supper means the rich banquet to which all of us are invited, and which has been commemorated in the great solemnity of Corpus Christi, through which we have just passed. God himself is the master of the house, and he has invited all of as his friends—that is, all of us who have come by holy baptism into the fold of his church—to come to this great feast, the feast of his own Body and Blood. ”

“ Others, whose healthy looks would belie the dispensing physician, compound between the Church and their stomachs by adding an ounce of bread to the cup of chocolate which, under the name of Parvedad, our divines admit as a venial infraction. There is, besides, a fast-day supper, which was introduced by those good souls the primitive Monks at their evening conferences, where, finding that an empty stomach was apt to increase the hollowness of their heads, they allowed themselves a crust of bread and a glass of water, as a support to their fainting eloquence. ”

“ It redeems from the pollutions of sin. It so quickens as to raise from death to life, and it gives therefore to man a sort of new and divine nature, so that he can dwell in Christ and Christ in him.
This supper, which consists of this manna, or bread, or of this flesh and blood, may be enjoyed by Christians in various ways. It may be enjoyed by them in pious meditations on the Divine Being, in which the soul of man may have communion with the spirit of God, so that every meditation may afford it a salutary supper, or a celestial feast. ”

“ Not so to our worthy divines, who, having had their dinner at one, and a cup of chocolate at six, feel strongly the necessity of a substantial supper before they retire to bed. A priest, therefore, who, by some untoward accident, is overtaken by “the dead waste and middle of the night,” with a craving stomach, having to perform mass at a late hour next morning, may well feel alarmed at his impending sufferings. ”

“ When invited to a feast you naturally ask who are to be the guests. And being told they are distinguished individuals, you prepare accordingly for the festivity. Putting aside the old garment, you purchase, at whatever price, a new one that is up to date. To-day you have come to a sumptuous feast, to one that for many years has been awaiting you. The guests are distinguished above human title and this feast is a Passover. To sit at this table of their Lord and partake of what divine Love hath prepared for them, Christian Scientists start forward with true ambition. ”

“ Nothing can be more distinct than the statement that the last supper was the Paschal feast.... The fourth Gospel, however, in accordance with the principle which is dominant throughout, represents the last repast which Jesus eats with his disciples as a common supper, which takes place, not on the 14th, but on the 13th Nisan, the day ‘before the feast of the Passover.’”—Supernatural Religion. ”

“ Therefore Matthew says, whilst they were at supper. Here take notice that this supper of Christ was threefold. First, that of the paschal lamb, which Christ and His Apostles celebrated standing, according to the law in Exod. xii. Secondly, a common supper of other food after the lamb, which they ate reclining upon couches. For all the members of a family, especially if it were a numerous one, would not have sufficient food in the lamb alone. Thirdly, Christ added a most sacred, yea, a Divine Supper, that is to say, the institution of the Eucharist. ”

“ You need double the supply that the secular orders do when they fast, for your digestion is twice as active as theirs. Supper is now a sadly scanty meal; it consists simply of fish, bread, wine, and fruit. A miserable dish! not miserable as to quantity or quality, but because it is the solitary dish during the forty days of Lent, always excepting bread [Pg 387] and wine ad libitum. Fortunately, the friars are wise and provident; the slender supper is foreseen and provided against at dinner, which consists of four dishes. ”

“ The lord of the house then said, Go out through the high-ways, and down by the hedge-rows, and make the folks come in, that my house may be full; for none of those who were first called shall taste of my feast.
The man who spreads the feast is God. The feast is the good news—that Christ will save us from our sins. The ser-vant means those who preach, and urge men to come to Christ. Those who were first bid to the feast and would not come mean the Jews. ”

“ The supper eaten at nightfall is no impediment, as you may imagine, to the appetite's returning; above all, if the going to and from church has made the devout eaters feel some little shafts of the sharp and biting north-wind. ”

“ The meat-offerings and drink-offerings attended all the sacrifices, according to their number, after the manner. Be there ever so much flesh, it is no feast without bread and drink, therefore these must never be omitted at God's altar, which was his table. We must not think that doing much in religion will be accepted if we do not do it well, and after the manner that God has appointed. 6. Every day there must be a sin-offering presented, as we observed in the other feasts. ”

“ And the ravens brought him bread and flesh - The Septuagint, in the Codex Vaticanus, and some ancient fathers, read the passage thus: - Και οἱ κορακες εφερον αυτῳ αρτους το πρωΐ, και κρεα το δειλης, And the crows brought him bread in the morning, and flesh in the evening: but all the other versions agree with the Hebrew text. This is the first account we have of flesh-meat breakfasts and flesh-meat suppers; and as this was the food appointed by the Lord for the sustenance of the prophet, we may naturally conjecture that it was the food of the people at large. ”