Liturgy and the Parousia

“The motif of the Parousia becomes the obligation to live the Liturgy as a feast of hope-filled presence directed towards Christ, the universal ruler.  In this way, it must become the origin and focus of the love in which the Lord can take up his dwelling.  In his Cross, the Lord has preceded us so to prepare for us a place in the house of the Father.  In the Liturgy the Church should, as it were, in following him, prepare for him a dwelling in the world.  The theme of watchfulness thus penetrates to the point where it takes on the character of a mission: to let the Liturgy be real, until that time when the Lord himself gives to it that final reality which meanwhile can be sought only in image.” 
- Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life

As part of my internship this summer, I've been teaching a class on eschatology (we're calling it "The End of the World").  I have made use of Joseph Ratzinger's brilliant textbook, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, which he wrote for the Dogmatic Theology series, edited by himself and Johann Auer.  As previous posts may suggest, I have found it to be full of extraordinarily rich theological insights.

The above passage is a good example of the richness of Ratzinger's theological vision, and one that has made me look at the liturgy in a new light.  For Ratzinger, the Eucharistic Liturgy figures the Parousia and the Parousia interprets the liturgy.  That is, insofar as Jesus is present in the bread and wine, the Liturgy is an actual foretaste of the Lord's second advent.  Therefore, the Eucharistic Liturgy is an image of the Parousia, of that great Day when the Lord will return in power and glory to "judge the quick and the dead." 

The Eucharist then is not only about remembrance, anamnesis, of Christ's life, death, resurrection and ascension, but it is also a looking forward.  As one of the eucharistic prayers in the Prayer Book has it, we come to the Table (which is also called the altar because on it we remember the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ, the true Paschal Lamb, who is also the one true Priest) "looking for his coming again with power and great glory."  Before this we say, “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord,” echoing the words of the crowds who greeted Jesus as he went to the Cross, and welcoming his presence as the Host of the marriage-supper of the Lamb of which the Eucharist is a foretaste.

Coming to the Eucharist with these ideas rattling around in my head has helped me appreciate both the solemnity and the joy of it.  As Geoffrey Wainwright, in his nourishing study Eucharist and Eschatology, writes:

"In the eucharist the Lord comes to judge and to recreate; to cast out what remains of unrighteousness in His people, and to continue the work of renewal begun in baptism; to threaten the world with an end to its old existence, and to give it the promise, through the new use to which bread and wine is put, of attaining to its true destiny."  

In other words, solemnity, because if the liturgy is a Parousia in miniature, then it is also a moment of judgment.  Joy, because the heart of  Christian hope is expressed in the cry, "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!" (1 Cor 16:22; Rev 22:20).