Transcript of Abbot Clement’s Talk on Tuesday, July 5, 2005

Since this is the year of the Eucharist, it= s important that we reflect on the Eucharist again and again but sometimes we don= t make the connection between effort of theology and our practical life.

God is present everywhere, all the time, in every dimension of our life by the simple fact that this being sustains our being. Also he knows every dimension of our being. He knows our strengths, our weaknesses, etc., he knows every thing so he= s present to us in that way too. He= s present to us also in his power.

But the Incarnation created something totally new and the possibility of communion with God starts with Christ himself. Human nature and Divine nature now can be unified in one person, Jesus Christ.

The effort of theologians was to try to understand this communion and how it made sense to us. So they finally got in the council of Chalcedon that Jesus really had two nature= s in one person. They struggled with this question because they wanted to know just how is it possible for there to be two wills and two intellects in one person. They came up with the realization that Jesus was in his human nature, in his human will, totally unified with the Divine will. The implication is very powerful it reminds us what is often said, one phrase of it is in Paul= s epistle to the Galatians, A I no longer live but Christ lives in me.@

In communion we receive the Lord and as our church teaches the food doesn’t become assimilated into us we become assimilated into Jesus. Therefore, communion is not primarily a question of simple intimacy with Jesus, it is that without a doubt. It implies that since we are the mystical body then also we are the opportunity for God to reach out to others around us. So the possibility of fulfilling Matthew= s, Chapter 25, where he talks about the goats and the sheep and they wondered how is it possible that they had done these things for Jesus, and Jesus reminded them that what they did to the least they did to him.

So communion is a powerful reality. It= s a communion not simply between us and the Lord and all the richness that Jesus brings with that. Jesus is the mediator. All the richness of God that he wants to offer to us in the Eucharist but also at the same time empower us, strengthen us. This is the food of the strong because it transforms us into Jesus and therefore enables us to bring God= s graces and powers into our life.