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CONFRATERNITY OF THE NATIONAL FESTIVAL SATURDAY 28 th MAY 2016 HOMILY PREACHED BY ROBERT LADDS

… there came by the holy of the Precious Blood all manner of sweetness and at once they were both healed and gave thanks unto Almighty God. “O Jesu” said Sir Percivale, “what may this mean that we are thus healed?” “I know well” said Sir Hector, it is by what is within this holy Chalice that we are most blessed; the Holy Blood of our Lord Jesu Christ”.

So runs Mallory’s Le Morte d’Arthur in that epic story of the Quest for the Holy Grail; the legendary Dish or Chalice in which S Joseph of Arimathea is supposed to have safeguarded the Blood of Jesus flowing from the Cross.

Romantic legend this all might be, yet the image, concept and symbol of the Chalice touches into an absolute truth and a vital reality. For us as Catholic Christians, the very word “Chalice” is beautiful music and a deep joy.

Throughout Scripture and in the culture of the ancient Near East, the poterion , the wine cup or chalice, functions as a metaphor for a person’s fate or God-given destiny. We see this in Psalm 16 when the Psalmist sings how God has assigned him his “portion and cup”. In Psalm 23 the abundant life given by God is likened to an overflowing cup and in that most Eucharistic of references in the , the psalmists raises the cup of salvation as a thank offering to God (Ps 116:13).

By the time of Jesus, the Rites of the Passover Supper involved the Four Cups of Wine. Each time the cup is filled a differing symbol. The Passover Seder begins with the Cup of Sanctification. The Second Cup is that of the Plagues that preceded the Escape from Exile of God’s People. The Fourth Cup is that of God’s Praise.

Most significantly, in his reference to the and to the Chalice of the , it is the Third Cup on which Saint Paul focuses our attention: The cup of Redemption or of Blessing: “The Cup of Blessing which we Bless, is a with the ” (1 Cor 10:16). The Chalice of the Eucharist is, for us, the Cup of Blessing; the Cup that seals our Redemption through the Precious Blood of Christ.

In giving retrospective poetic thought to a Paper he gave to the S Paul’s Lecture Society in 1910, Father E E Holmes, Canon of Christ Church Oxford and of the Royal Chapel of S Katharine, writes:

The song of the Chalice is the Song of the Church and never sang melody half so sweet. Most surely, the “Song of the Church” is at its fullest and its “melody most sweet” when she worships as her Lord has commanded her. When she sings that song of songs which is the .

This sense of a “sweet song” and that song being “the song of the Church” is picked up by the power and beauty of the language of the most ancient of the Eucharistic Prayers. As the takes up the Chalice from the he recites: accipiens et hunc praeclarum Calicem.

While in the older translation this was given us simply as “He took the cup”, we now have the altogether more glorious image before us, as we hear Jesus “took this precious chalice in His holy and venerable hands”.

The more usual translation of the Latin might give us the word “excellent” or “beautiful” relating to that Chalice. But no, we are blessed with the word “precious”, It is a “precious chalice”.

And “precious” in such a context, can only have sense if it refers to something far greater than monitory, artistic, historic or cultural significance and value.

But still deeper significance is given by another word given us at the Consecration of the Chalice. It is “ this precious Chalice” that the Priest takes into his hands. Reference is to a definite object, to a particular Chalice.

Yet at each Mass a different Chalice may be taken. And it is clearly not the case that the Chalice we shall later use on this , here, in this Church and at this time and place, is the actual one that Jesus took “into His holy and venerable hands”.

And yet we shall say that the Lord “took this precious Chalice into His holy and venerable hands”.

What clearer indication could we have than that of the mystery of Christ’s continuing presence in the world and, especially at the Altar, through the Sacred Priesthood of the Church!

The great Saint and Mystic, S Teresa of Avila writes:

Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours, yours are the eyes through which Christ's compassion is to look out to the earth, yours are the feet by which He is to go about doing good and yours are the hands by which He is to bless us now. At the Altar, the Priest stands in loco Christi – in the place of Christ – the Ministry and Priesthood he exercises never his own but the Ministry and Priesthood of a living Christ Jesus.

So it is, that the Great Thanksgiving of the Mass contains this most beautiful, powerful and emotive of expressions: Jesus “took this precious chalice in His holy and venerable hands”.

In giving us such a rich image, we are also taken back deep into the history of the church’s worship at the Eucharist. To the prayers she has used. We reach back beyond the words recorded in the 4th century by S Ambrose of Milan, to origins that are earlier still, we know not how far, perhaps even to S Peter and his immediate successors.

But it is most unlikely, impossible even, to imagine that the Cup Jesus prayed over and offered at the Last Supper was of any particularly tangible value. While the Jewish traditions of Passover to this day call for special vessels to be used, an itinerant teacher gathered with a circle of fishermen and others, was more likely to use earthenware or even a wooden bowl or cup.

Perhaps the Cup used at that sacred moment went on to become a relic which the early church kept and venerated. It is possible, likely even, that as events unfolded that first and Day, the very Cup used by Jesus would have been held as a link with their Lord and Master. Perhaps it was this very Cup that gave rise to the reference to “This Precious Cup” in the earliest record of the Eucharistic Prayer.

But even so, that Cup, while Treasured and Venerated, was surely not Precious of itself.

Pusey writes:

It is not credible that the Apostles, when, after Supper, they were invited by Christ to drink the Cup, did not receive some fruit from the reception.

And Pope Clement VI tells the 14th century King of France that in the Chalice of the Precious Blood we know some “greater increase of grace”.

A particularly lovely term is used in the Eastern Church for those particles of the Sacred Host that are placed in the Precious Blood of the Chalice. The particles of the Host, so Intincted with the Precious Blood, are call “Margarita” or “pearls”. A wonderful link with that parable of Jesus, when the merchant seeking pearls, finds one of “great price” and goes and sells all that he has in order to posses that one precious thing. That “Pearl of great Price” is there, offered at the Mass. I like, too, that the Biologist gives the name “calix” to the bud from which a flower blooms. Calix – Chalice. The Sacred Wine of the Chalice is a gift, a sign and a promise of the flowering and superabundance of God’s gladdening life given us in the “one, true, pure, immortal sacrifice” of Jesus; the “only offering perfect in” God’s eyes (William Bright 1847).

At this and at every Mass, as at the Last Supper, the Cup becomes “this precious chalice” because of what Jesus IS. In His Divine Humanity at the Last Supper and at every Mass by the gift of Sacred Priesthood, it is the Hands of Christ that lift the Chalice and that Cup, no matter how simple or how beautiful or excellent in earthly terms, becomes THIS PRECIOUS CHALICE by virtue of what Christ is about to do, what He has done, and what He will do for Love throughout the rest of time. That is, to fill the Chalice to the full with His Precious Blood; overwhelming us, inebriating us, with His Love and Salvation.

“This precious chalice” takes us back to the very beginning and to the very culmination also. “This precious chalice” is our Blessed Lord’s destiny as Saviour of the world and it is our destiny as those Blessed and Redeemed.

“This precious chalice” take us back to that Upper Room and to that Passover Meal, the Last Supper. Take us back to that very moment when Jesus conformed absolutely to the past and the Ancient Law of God’s people and, at the same time propelled the Blessing Cup that He blessed, into eternity and beyond all time and place. Made it one with the Perfect Sacrifice He was so soon to make on the Cross.

Whatever the Eucharist Prayer we use, for us of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, with our particular calling and charism, the new translation of the most Ancient of Prayers, has a special message – HOW TRULY PRECIOUS THAT CUP OF BLESSING, THAT CUP OF REDEMPTION, THAT CUP OVERFLOWING WITH ABUNDANT LIFE, PREPARED AND BLESSED AND SHARED BY OUR BLESSED LORD AT THAT SUPPER, AT THE INSTITUTION OF THE MASS AND AT THIS ALTAR FOR US TODAY!

Shall we, then, not say with Sir Percival:

“what may this mean that we are thus healed?” And hear again the assuring answer: “it is by what is within this holy Chalice that we are most blessed; the Holy Blood of our Lord Jesu Christ”.

Amen. Printed by Additional Curates Society