Rudolf Frieling

The Eucharist

Floris Books
First published as The Metamorphosis of the Eucharist
by The Christian Community in New York in about 1954.

© The Christian Community 1954, 2011

Third edition 2011 revised by Jon Madsen

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may
be reproduced without the prior permission of
Floris Books, 15 Harrison Gardens, Edinburgh
www.florisbooks.co.uk

British Library CIP Data available

ISBN 0-86315-221-X

Printed in Scotland
 Contents

1 Introduction 7

2 The New Testament 9

3 Early Christian services 10

4 Archetypal structure 11

5 Pre-Christian mysteries and the eastern Church 13

6 The western Mass: an act 15

7 The Reformation 17

8 The Act of Consecration of Man 19

9 Gospel and Offertory 20

10 Transubstantiation 21

11 Communion 23

5
 1 Introduction

On Maundy Thursday, the eve of the event on Golgotha,

Christ Jesus celebrated the Last Supper together with his dis-
ciples. He offered up bread and wine and with them his ‘body’
and his ‘blood,’ and he charged the disciples, ‘when you do
this, do it in remembrance of me.’ It is from this Last Supper
that the Eucharist has evolved, the ritual of the Mass. In The
Christian Community it is now celebrated in its new form,
still containing the four main parts: reading of the Gospel,
Offering, Transubstantiation and Communion.
The question is sometimes asked, is this elaborated ritual
actually founded upon original Christianity? Is it based on the
New Testament? The Protestant Church, for instance, tried to
adhere closely to the letter of the New Testament, and rejected
everything which in the further course of Christendom seemed
to have been added to the text of the New Testament.
Without doubt the New Testament is the fundamental,
classic book of Christianity. But we must not forget that for
the first generations of Christendom the New Testament did
not yet exist. The Epistles of St Paul were apparently written
beginning about ad 50, the first three Gospels not before ad
60–70 and St John’s Gospel not until ad 100. And it was not
until the end of the second century that these writings were
combined into what we now know as the New Testament. The
canon of the New Testament was not fixed definitively until
ad 393 by the synod at Hippo Regius in North Africa.
In this bringing together of the twenty-seven writings
which constitute the wonderful spiritual organism of the
New Testament, we venerate an act of divine guidance and
providence, an act of inspiration. It is, nevertheless, the case
that the first Christian generations had to do without these
writings. Instead, they had the apostolic nearness of the Christ
event — and they had the Eucharist. For a period of time the

7
Christian Church lived without the New Testament, but from
its very beginning it never lived without the Eucharist. The
first mention of the Eucharist is in the Acts of the Apostles,
after the experience of the Holy Spirit at Whitsun, ‘they broke
bread in the houses with spiritual rejoicing’ (Acts 2:46). This is
the first Eucharist after Maundy Thursday, and already a first
metamorphosis is apparent: the Last Supper was celebrated in
a mood of leave-taking, overshadowed by the events to come.
After Whitsun the mood was jubilant. The Greek word used
here — agalliasis — means more than ‘joy’; it is, rather, a kind
of spiritual enthusiasm and exaltation. The Last Supper had
been a farewell meeting. After Pentecost the meal was like a
first dawn of his second spiritual coming.
Even at the very beginning of Christianity, the Eucharist
was never merely a repetition of the Last Supper. Rather, it
was like a seed which now began growing. One cannot hold it
against a growing plant that it is different from the seed: there
is identity, but there is also metamorphosis.
The Last Supper, on Maundy Thursday, is a kind of
anticipation, a prophetic summary of the event on Golgotha.
It reveals what Christ and his deed mean for man: that
Christianity is not only ‘doctrine’ and ‘ethics,’ that Christ is
not only a teacher and an example, but that he, a divine being,
descended to earth and there, by passing through death and
resurrection, transformed his divinity into humanity. He
transformed the ‘wave-length’ of his divinity into that of
humanity and thus became accessible and ‘communicable.’
Now we are to ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ him spiritually in order to
become ever more permeated by his heavenly substance —
this is the essence of Christianity. Christ offers himself to his
followers: ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ me, take me into your whole being.
What was demonstrated in advance at the Last Supper was
fulfilled through Golgotha, through death and resurrection;
after this fulfilment the Eucharist is no longer the anticipation
but the substantial emanation and raying forth of this great
deed.

8
 There is no mention of the disciples celebrating the
Eucharist during the forty days to Ascension and the ten days
from Ascension to Whitsun, but they begin immediately after
Whitsun. At Ascension the being of Christ widened into a new
form of existence, fully outgrowing his former Jesus-existence
which had confined him to a particular location in the spatial
world. In his Ascension, his divine origin was suffused with
the humanness that he had borne through earthly life and
death; thus his resurrection body achieved its full capacity to
be omnipresent.
At Whitsun, in an act of spiritual awakening, the disciples
cast off the spell of gloom and stupor under which they had
lived through the preceding weeks. It is, after all, a remark-
able fact that the appearances of the risen Christ after Easter
had not yet been able to induce the disciples to preach their
message to people beyond their own intimate circle. However,
at Pentecost they proved strong enough to do so. As Christ
at Ascension had overcome the last confines and restrictions
of his existence, so the disciples overcame their limitations
of consciousness and will-power at Whitsun. They began to
celebrate the Eucharist by ‘breaking bread in the houses.’
Christ’s prophetic saying, that he would celebrate his meal
‘anew in his father’s kingdom’ (with which he united himself
at Ascension), began to fulfil itself.

2 The New Testament

The New Testament does indeed tell us about this celebration

of the Eucharist ‘in the houses,’ but it does not reveal exactly
how it was done. Nowhere in the New Testament do we find a
complete, detailed description of it. The reason is obvious: the
Eucharist was a living presence in each congregation, and every
baptized Christian took part in it; there was no need to describe
something which was known to everyone. As for the non-

9
Christian readers of the books of the New Testament, there was
good reason for not telling them about a ritual into which they
were only to be initiated after baptism. From the very begin-
ning the Eucharist was an intimate celebration ‘in the houses,’
it was esoteric. It was therefore not described in books available
to the general public. The New Testament contains the spiritual
message of Christ and of his deed; it was never intended to be a
compendium or text book of the Christian ritual.
Christianity not only consists of its ‘message,’ it also offers
human beings the possibility of having a mystic share in this,
its new life — to experience the reality of Christ in actual sub-
stance, and to communicate with him in intimate contact. This
sphere which extends beyond the message — the ‘thing itself’
towards which the message is pointing — is the Christian
ritual. Many Protestants succumb to the basic error of failing
to see that the Christian sacramental stream of life is older than
the New Testament, is independent of it, and that it is subject to
its own evolutionary laws and requirements of organic growth.

3 Early Christian services

The early Christians had two different types of service. One

was a public meeting which had the purpose of preaching
the message of Christ to everyone willing to listen. This pub-
lic service with its scripture readings, sermon, hymns and
prayers followed the form of the Jewish synagogue service.
The second kind of meeting was reserved for those who
had been baptized. It was held in private homes until such
times as churches could be built.
During the second century the two kinds of service co-
existed. Contemporary reports are very scarce, due to the
‘esoteric’ character of the second half of the service. In about
ad 150, Justin the Martyr gave some general indications of
how the service was conducted. The first part was completely

10
public. It was the ‘message,’ and everyone was welcome.
Justin records that there were readings from the ‘memoirs of
the Apostles’ (that is, the Gospels). Following this, all who
were not baptized were dismissed from the service. Only the
‘faithful’ were allowed to stay for the further celebration of the
sacrament, which, following the ‘message,’ was regarded as
‘the real, essential thing.’ It was experienced as at least a mysti-
cal foretaste of that life towards which the ‘message’ pointed.
In the structure of the ‘Mass of the faithful’ outlined by
Justin, we can discern the basic main parts of Offertory, Tran­
substantiation and Communion: the Offertory consisted in bring-
ing one’s gift to the altar — whereby we should not forget that
in those days the giving of material gifts insepar­ably entailed an
inner devotion and dedication of the soul in a kind of spiritual
parallelism; a rather different situation than in our more abstract
times. The Offertory is the soul’s response to the message.
This provided the spiritual basis for the great Eucharistic
prayer spoken by the leader of the congregation over the bread
and wine. According to Justin, Transubstantiation of bread
and wine into the body and blood of Christ was effected by
this Eucharistic prayer. There then followed the holy meal, the
Communion.
This structure of four main parts: the public delivery of
the Message followed by the intimate celebration of Offertory,
Transubstantiation and Communion is not accidental. It follows
deeper necessities. The sequence of these four acts is archetypal.

4 Archetypal structure

As described in medieval texts, the sequence of steps on

the soul’s mystical path follow the same archetypal pattern.
First, there is awakening by hearing the spiritual message;
then follow ‘purification,’ ‘illumination’ and ‘mystical union.’
When the soul has accepted the ‘message’ (Gospel Reading),

11
‘consciousness becomes conscience.’ The soul becomes aware
that it must be transmuted in order to harmonize with the
‘message.’ A process of cleansing and purification, and an
inner uplifting of the soul have to follow (Offertory). The
soul having responded to the spirit, the spiritual world will
in its turn make its response: it can now manifest itself by
transfiguring the earthly world. The world of matter ceases
to be merely material and becomes translucent (Illumination-
Transubstantiation). Finally, man grows into the spiritual
realm with all his being, including his flesh and blood (mysti-
cal Union-Communion).
Because these deeper laws and requirements of the mysti-
cal life of the soul correspond to Christ’s redeeming deed,
we may recognize the fourfold pattern in the very structure
of his deed itself, beginning with the three years between
the baptism in the Jordan and the event on Golgotha. These
three years during which Christ preaches the message of the
presence of the kingdom of God are, as it were, the first main
part, the great Gospel. Then he goes up to Jerusalem to sac-
rifice himself on the altar of Golgotha — the great Offertory.
His resurrection at Easter and the further evolution of
his transmuted body through the forty days to Ascension
Day represent the great Transubstantiation. And finally, at
Whitsun, his deed comes to life in the souls of the disciples.
The flame of the Holy Spirit is kindled in each individual-
ity — the great Communion. In this way the Eucharist in its
four main parts shows the same structure as the sequence of
redeeming events in Christ’s earthly life, as described in the
New Testament.

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 5 Pre-Christian mysteries and
the eastern Church

The Christian liturgy evolved in different ways in different coun-

tries. Certain ceremonies which originated in the pre-Christian
mysteries found their way into Christian sacramentalism. There
is nothing wrong in principle with this influx of pre-Christian
values, since it is a kind of fulfilment of the appearance of the
mysterious magi from the East who offered their gold, frankin-
cense and myrrh to the Jesus child. Christ is the fulfilment not
only of the Old Testament but also of the old mystery religions.
Concerning the worth of the old pre-Christian mysteries, the
word of St Paul holds good, ‘all is yours’ (1Cor.3:22), provided
that the following words are felt with sufficient strength, ‘but
you are Christ’s.’ Thus gold, frankincense and myrrh were
legitimately adopted by the developing Christian liturgy.
This process of unfolding and enriching of Christian liturgy
can be compared to the growth of a plant. This is directed by
a spiritual archetype, an invisible centre of forces, which ‘hov-
ers’ above the visible plant. It is this archetype which causes
the nourishing substances taken up by the plant to ‘fill out’
the dynamic lines of the inherent structure of the plant organ-
ism. Thus the plant thrives and grows, but it does not become
something different from the archetype. Although it passes
through a series of metamorphoses, the plant is not alienated
from itself and does not lose its identity.
In a similar way, a living, divine archetypal entity hovers
above the historic development of the Eucharist. Through the
centuries the divine ideal has irradiated the liturgical ‘organ-
ism’ so that, in the main, it has unfolded in accordance with
the spiritual, archetypal structure.
There is, of course, one great difference between the
growth of a plant and anything relating to man: wherever
man comes into the picture, there enters the shadow of his

13
‘Fall,’ his alienation from his divine origin. So the growth of
Christian sacramentalism has not only been like the unfolding
of a plant, but we may also observe in it the shadow of man’s
imperfections. Alien elements crept in, and in some aspects
the original patterns were obscured. Certain elements were
adopted, although they had not been sufficiently digested and
assimilated. As we shall see later, they were not sufficiently
permeated by the spirit of genuine Christianity.
The Mass developed differently in East and West. To this
day, the Greek Orthodox Mass preserves many features of
the ancient mysteries: the altar is hidden from view behind a
screen — the iconostasis, the ‘wall of pictures.’ The priest per-
forms the liturgy largely in seclusion. Only at special moments
do the doors of the iconostasis open, for instance when the
Gospel is carried out in solemn procession, and later in the
Offertory when — still more solemnly — the bread and wine
are brought forth and then returned for the Transubstantiation.
It is only occasionally possible to catch a brief glimpse through
the central door.
This corresponds to the era of the pre-Christian mysteries,
when the priest was the initiate and the people stood outside.
The iconostasis represents the world of spirit-pictures, visionary
images seen by the inner eye; at the same time it conceals the
spiritual realities which are the basis of the visions. The mystic
heart of the Eucharist is celebrated behind the screen and is
reserved for the priest. There is too great an emphasis on the
separation between the ‘mystagogue’ behind the screen and the
layman standing outside. In this form of Christianity the pre-
Christian element has not been transformed sufficiently.
The Greek Orthodox Church also preserves reminders of
the original separation of the public and the esoteric parts of
the Mass, even if only in a formal way. Before the Offertory,
those not baptized are solemnly dismissed. Prior to beginning
the Transubstantiation, the priest calls out: ‘The doors! The
doors!’ calling to mind the early Christian times when the
doors were really locked against those who did not belong.

14
 6 The western Mass: an act

In the western Mass there is no iconostasis, so that the altar is

visible to the congregation. Yet here also the congregation is
excluded too much from what the priest is doing. This was not
the case in the first centuries, when the people stood closely
around the priest and were able to hear and understand every
word he spoke. Later, the priesthood increasingly withdrew
into a splendid but not quite Christian isolation. Latin, origi-
nally a living language, of course, was later preserved and
as it were ‘mummified’ in the Roman Church, which, unlike
the Greek Church, imposed its language upon other nations.
Furthermore, it became customary and eventually officially
decreed, that the ‘canon,’ the great Eucharistic prayer of
Transubstantiation, should be recited in a low murmur. Thus
the congregation was excluded from the most important part
and was only allowed to follow with a general feeling of devo-
tion, without being able to hear individual words.
In addition, in 1415 in the western Church the chalice was
with­­held from the laity and became the privilege of the priest. A
further element not quite in harmony with genuine Christianity is
the attitude of authority which imposes dogma and demands blind
obedience, sometimes even enforcing it with the power of the state.
Originally, the Eucharistic service — and particularly the
great prayer of Transubstantiation, the Eucharist proper — had
the character of an ‘action,’ an act. In fact, it was very often
called actio, and the corresponding verb was ‘to make,’ ‘to
do.’ We even find the formulation, ‘to do the Passion and the
Resurrection of Christ.’ Christ’s word at the Last Supper, ‘do
this,’ was understood in a deeper sense. It was not only that the
ceremony of Holy Thursday was to be repeated, but that the
whole event of Golgotha — Resurrection and Ascension as well
as Passion — was to be brought to life anew. In the Eucharist
Christ’s central deed of redemption became actual and alive.

15
 This touches upon a deep mystery of Christianity. In
everyday practical life we sometimes find that help given to
someone in need turns out not to be so helpful in the end. It
may have the effect of weakening his efforts to help himself,
instead increasing his indolence and dependence on others. In
fact, great wisdom is necessary when giving someone assist-
ance, if it is to be truly helpful.
The supreme example of this is the deed on Golgotha. It
was planned by divine providence in such a way that it could
be a truly constructive aid to man, able to stimulate to the
utmost the spiritual energy of those in need of help. Christ’s
redeeming deed does not work ‘automatically.’ It cannot
make us holy without our conscious and willing participation.
An ‘automatic’ salvation of that kind would certainly spare
mankind all its tragedies, but it would undermine man’s free-
dom and dignity. Christ’s deed has been so fashioned that it
remains a dormant potentiality so long as it is not made effec-
tive and active by our free agreement and cooperation. We are
supposed to do something ourselves in order to release the full
divine energy of this deed. When we respond, we become sen-
sitive to the spiritual power welling forth from Christ’s deed;
as Christians we grow, mystically, into the deed of Golgotha,
it becomes alive in us. Man is, then, not just a passive object
but also an active participant in his salvation. Indeed, it is pre-
cisely by joining the mystic stream of the redeeming deed that
man himself is redeemed.
It is true that the deed of Golgotha was accomplished and
completed on a particular date, in a particular place ‘under
Pontius Pilate.’ Nevertheless it continues to flow in the super-
sensory world as a continuing stream of eternal activity gener-
ated by that event in the Holy Land. We might compare this
to what happens when a stone falls into the water: it stirs up
ripples which move outwards from the centre in continuing
waves. Something like that happened in the supersensory
world when Christ accomplished his deed. It was a historic
fact fulfilled on earth once and for all, and it released a ‘wave’

16
in the higher worlds. These ‘waves’ can be received by means
of that mystic ‘instrument,’ the Eucharist. The spiritual guides
of the world wait for us to go out towards that deed and join
with it.
This active participation in Christ’s deed through the cel-
ebration of the Eucharist was experienced vividly in the first
Christian centuries. But because of the lack of real esoteric
insight this feeling (‘whenever we celebrate the Eucharist, we
do Christ’s death and resurrection’) could not be expressed in
clear concepts. This meant that in the western Mass the basic
idea of the Mass as an ‘action’ and a ‘sacrifice’ was misunder-
stood increasingly— with fateful consequences.
Without this insight, the conception of the Eucharist as a
repetition of Christ’s deed is in danger of being understood
less and less, and this is actually what happened in the Roman
part of the Church. In time, the idea that the Church had been
entrusted with the tremendous privilege of ‘repeating Gol­
gotha on the altar’ became a means of exerting power. Human
egotism entered in. In the Roman West (not in the East) it
became customary to use this spiritual power for purposes
so mundane that the Eucharist was debased to the level of an
article to be bought and sold. A wealthy man, for instance,
could have a hundred Masses celebrated for his personal ben-
efit — something not available to the poor! Thus that wonder-
ful institution, the Mass for the Dead which, from the earliest
times had been used to accompany and help departed souls,
became embroiled in sordid commerce: a real, tragic disaster.

7 The Reformation

It is no wonder that this fateful development, the profanation

of the Mass, called up the great reaction of the Reformation.
The tragedy was that this powerful reform movement lacked
esoteric knowledge of the mysteries of Christianity and so was

17
bound to miss the mark. The reformers saw the commercial­
ization of the Mass, but in their opposition they went too far
and ‘threw the baby out with the bath water.’ To their under-
standing, the Catholic priest pretended ‘to repeat the event of
Golgotha on the altar,’ (that is, spiritually). They could only
think of Christ’s deed as a historic fact; they had no knowl-
edge of the continuation of the mystic stream released by the
original historic event. Thus they were unable to apprehend
the way in which the deed of Golgotha comes to new life every
time the Eucharist is celebrated. They were therefore bound to
think it a sacrilegious presumption to place this sacramental
action alongside Christ’s unique and all-sufficient deed. They
could not grasp the mystical relationship between that deed
and the altar. Ultimately, when they saw the growing com-
mercialization of the Mass for the Departed, they rejected the
Mass in its entirety as being sacrilegious and idolatrous.
The reformers tried to get back to the original sources of
Christianity, but they knew no other source than the Bible,
which they approached without any esoteric understanding.
It did not enter their awareness that the sacramental stream
of Christianity is older than the New Testament and devel-
oped independently of it. It was therefore inevitable that they
should be unable to succeed fully in their attempt to fashion
a communion service exactly along the lines of the Scriptures.
The result was that the Protestant service consists mainly of
what in the Eucharist was the first part (the public service),
with readings from Scripture, hymns, prayers and sermon; to
which, now and then, is added the Communion, the fourth
part. The Offertory and the Transubstantiation are omitted.
In this way, the wonderful overall structure of the Christian
Mystery has been lost.

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 8 The Act of Consecration of Man

The Act of Consecration of Man, the Eucharist as it is cele-

brated in The Christian Community, can be regarded as a kind
of ‘reincarnated’ Mass, born anew in our modern age. The
supersensory pattern and archetype which ‘hovered’ above
the evolution of the Eucharist through the centuries comes to
outer expression once more. In the Act of Consecration of Man
the four main parts are clearly articulated. The aim is not to
imitate exactly the ceremonies of the first Christian centuries.
That would be to negate the inherent purpose of the progress
of time; attempts to replicate bygone ‘golden ages’ usually
end up by creating caricatures. We have to be Christians now,
in our own century, though this does not mean, of course,
that we must involve ourselves in the materialistic errors and
excesses of our times. But, despite its shadow side, our epoch
— like every other — also has a divine potential of its own.
The language of the Act of Consecration of Man is modern.
It contains formulations of thought which were not yet possi-
ble in the liturgical vocabulary of the early Church. It speaks,
for instance, in quite a new manner about the mysteries of
the cycle of the year. This cycle also comes to visual expres-
sion through the considerably enlarged number of liturgical
colours.
The cyclical year, experienced spiritually, can bring us into
contact with the living Christ who wields in the realm of the
forces of life (the etheric forces). The insight that the earth is
a living organism can be comprehended by the modern mind
with the help of anthroposophy — thanks to which other eso-
teric wisdom has also become accessible — and it has found
its way into these modern liturgical texts. They speak in a new
way of sun, stars, rainbow, clouds, air, and of the breath of the
earth.

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 9 Gospel and Offertory

The first part of the Act of Consecration of Man, the Gospel

reading, is based upon a new understanding of the Scripture.
The second part, the Offertory, has as its basis a new under-
standing of the meaning of sacrifice. One might object, how
can we give anything to God since everything belongs to him
in any case? It is true that everything originally belonged to
him: our souls, too, were at one time with God and belonged
to no one else. But God himself gave to man the privilege of
freedom and independence. It is not due to our merit, nor is it
by our doing that our self can exist as an independent being. It
is the greatest gift of God that he sets us free as individualities,
but of necessity this greatest privilege brings with it the great-
est risk and danger: the highest mountains have the deepest
chasms. We can make wrong use of our independence and so
cut ourselves off from our divine origin — which, to a degree,
is what has happened. We tend to take it for granted that our
‘self’ and the faculties of thinking, feeling and will are our own
absolute property; but we shall not find our salvation unless
we acknowledge that our ‘self’ with its faculties is entrusted to
us by God. We are expected freely to unite our gift of freedom
with the divine aims. Is there, then, anything that a human
being can give to almighty God?
The answer is yes; but how is this possible? As regards our
human freedom, it is a result of God placing limits upon his
own omnipotence — in our favour. To each individuality he
has given a share of his own creative privilege of freedom, and
he expects us to make the right use of it.
It is not just some dogma but a fact of everyday experience
that my ‘self,’ poisoned as it is by egotism, is not one with God.
Although the ‘self’ originated in God, it has taken on traits
which have alienated it from its original owner. The religious
act of offering, therefore, means trying to place the ‘self’ with

20
its faculties at God’s disposal again. The more we try to do
this, the more aware we become of how difficult it is. Yet as,
week by week, we seek to offer our inner activity to Christ,
we can experience some progress. This is the inner path along
which we are led in the Offertory of the Act of Consecration.

10 Transubstantiation

In the first centuries, the Christians had no doubt that the

Eucharist was more than a symbol. As Justin the Martyr said
about bread and wine, ‘For we do not receive them as ordi-
nary food or drink, but as by the word of God, Jesus Christ
our saviour took on flesh and blood for our salvation; so also,
we are taught, the food blessed (literally: eucharistized) by the
prayer of the word which we received from him, by which
through its transformation our blood and flesh is nourished,
this food is the flesh and blood of Jesus who was made flesh.’
Here we find the conviction that through the recitation of cer-
tain words of prayer, bread and wine become something more
than merely things of nature. Throughout eight centuries of
Christian life this was never in doubt. No special doctrine or
dogma was needed, because there were still people who had a
certain degree of clairvoyance; they had immediate, first-hand
experience of a real, spiritually visible happening during the
service. When the host (the bread) was elevated at the altar,
they beheld it within a sunlike aura which radiated a spiritual
light.
As time went on, this natural clairvoyance gradually faded,
especially in the western part of the Church where intellectual
thinking was developing more strongly than in the East; for the
abstract intellect worked destructively upon the natural, inborn
clairvoyance. As a result, the first conflicts and doubts about
the reality of the Eucharist arose in western Europe in the ninth
century. Eventually, in order to protect the Church against the

21
inroads of intellectual doubt, Transubstantiation was made an
official dogma of the Roman Catholic Church in 1215.
Although Luther had an indistinct sense of the Eucharist
as being something more, the Reformers broadly speaking
regarded the Eucharist as merely symbolic. In this connection
it is interesting to note that in 1673 the English Parliament
passed the ‘Test Act’ which made it obligatory for anyone aspir-
ing to public office to declare on oath that he did not believe in
Transubstantiation. The dispute between Catholicism, holding
fast to the dogma of Transubstantiation, and Protestantism
which denied it, ended in a stalemate. Neither side had an
esoteric understanding of the problem in question.
In our days, anthroposophy can offer a new approach, a
modern way of grasping that ‘body’ and ‘blood’ are not only
material substances. It is certainly due to the physical matter
within it that we have a body that is visible, but the body as
such is a spiritual structure, a field of formative forces. The
spiritual organism that permeated the body of Jesus, and which
manifested itself to the disciples after the Resurrection, can be
transferred, mystically, to those who bring their inner life into
harmonious relationship with the living Christ. Similarly, his
blood can be transferred to us, not as material substance, but as
the streaming power of burning spiritual love which permeated
the blood of Jesus. The body and blood of Christ are not mate-
rial substances, but neither are they mere symbols. They are real
supersensory forces which are needed in the development of
the inner nature of man; and they are within our reach.
At the same time, it is not by chance that it is bread and
wine that are central to this most important act of Christian
worship; they both have a long history behind them of cul-
tural and ritual application. Bread and wine are substances in
which the earth approaches the spiritual quality of the body
and blood of Christ most nearly; this gives them a special
capacity to become the earthly bearers of the heavenly body
and blood of Christ. Bread and wine are related to body and
blood with a kind of predestined affinity, and are brought

22
together through the spiritual power of the Eucharist. When
the Eucharist is celebrated with sincerity, devotion and inward
energy, the awareness of the presence of the living Christ can
be so strengthened and concentrated that his spirit and soul do
not only weave in the spiritual atmosphere of the sacrament:
they are able to work into the sphere of body and blood by
descending into the life forces of the bread and the wine. This
is, incidentally, one reason why non-alcoholic wine is used in
the Act of Consecration of Man.
Perhaps the foregoing has been enough to show in what
way the third part of The Act of Consecration of Man, the
Transubstantiation, can be understood as a spiritual reality. It
is not a matter of a new dogma; a dogma is a truth which is
thought to be on principle beyond human insight, and which
is therefore imposed by an authority, to be accepted with blind
belief. But as soon as a spiritual truth can be approached with
free insight, it need no longer be a dogma — rather it becomes
ever more an experience. Thus it is left open to members and
friends of The Christian Community to decide for themselves
to what extent they wish to engage with these new concepts
that are being offered. It is a matter for each individual to what
extent he or she wishes to grow into the experience of the
supersensory reality in the Eucharist.

11 Communion

When Communion, the fourth part of the Eucharist, is pre-

ceded by a true Transubstantiation in which bread and wine
become bearers of higher forces, it, too, becomes something
more than a symbolic act. Without the three preceding steps
— hearing the Gospel, the inner activity of Offering and the
response of the spiritual world in the Transubstantiation —
Communion by eating bread and drinking wine would be a
rather trivial thing. True Communion is the climax of a process

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in which the activity of the Spirit draws so near that it touches
our whole nature, including our flesh and blood, inwardly
restoring even our body to its pristine purity.
The best preparation for Communion is to give one’s utmost
attention, devotion and inner effort to everything that precedes
the Communion itself. No one is excluded by a foreign language
or by the priest’s inaudible murmur, and that makes it possible
to enter with all one’s spiritual energy, including thinking, into
what is taking place, and to take an active part in it. Indeed, the
active inward participation of those attending the service can be
a significant element in its spiritual quality.
These, then, are some of the elements which show how, in
the Act of Consecration of Man, the Eucharist has undergone
a metamorphosis which reveals its divine archetype. The
sterile stalemate and fruitless dispute between Catholicism
and Protestantism is overcome by taking a third step which
transcends both of them, whilst yet including the real values
of both: the Act of Consecration of Man brings together the
mystic depth of Christian sacramentalism and the freedom
and independence of the human individuality.
Its name, the Act of Consecration of Man, is new. The old
name, Eucharist, means ‘thanksgiving.’ The new name sug-
gests that man must do something himself; it indicates that
the real thanksgiving which we owe to Christ is to make an
active response to his redeeming deed, and that we should
open ourselves to receive his hallowing influence. We human
beings have not yet reached our full human stature, nor have
we reached the goal expected by God; but through this inflow-
ing power of Christ we can be transfigured ever more towards
becoming ‘the image of God.’ Thus our true Eucharist, our
great thanksgiving for Christ’s deed, is to strive toward the
goal of becoming truly human through the Act of Consecration
of Man. Every human being can discover this if he sets aside
the necessary time, week by week, year by year and learns to
unite his own being with that which works through the Act of
Consecration of Man.

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