Sacrament: an Economy of Gift David N

Louvain Studies 23 (1998) 143-158

Sacrament: An Economy of Gift David N. Power, O.M.I.

Gift is a common enough word in sacramental language and in sacramental theology. Often however, both in practice and in theology, it seems to take second place to the language of causality or of priestly and community action. Of late, it has been suggested many times that this metaphysical language obscures the nature of sacramental gift and the life that flows with and from it. Hence, the intention of this article is to take up this image and set it within a sacramental economy that is gift through and through.

Sunday Communion Services Without a Priest

The need and possibility of thinking about sacraments as gift comes sharply to the fore in face of a contemporary reality of sacramental exchange. In current liturgical practice, where there is no resident ordained minister, on Sundays communities often have resort to the celebration of communion services, led by a designated lay person. The Holy See has even provided an order for such celebrations, which dif- ferentiates clearly between a Mass celebrated by a priest, with community participation, and these celebrations.1 Problems have been raised about this practice, on the one hand by Roman authorities, and on the other by some liturgists. Though the motivations are diverse, the two groups coincide in disparaging the practice, finding in it something incomplete and perhaps even prone to misapprehension. That communion services may take place on week- days is no great issue, since this has been done since time immemorial, but letting them take the place of the full Sunday celebration is looked

1. Congregation for Divine Worship, Directory for Sunday Celebrations in the Absence of a Priest (Washington, DC: USCC, 1988). 144 DAVID N. POWER at askance. The Roman authorities note that this is not a complete Eucharist or memorial of Christ’s sacrifice, because there is no priest to renew the sacrifice in Christ’s person. The liturgists object that a communion service lacks the elements of sacrifice, which go with the offering and sanctification of the people’s own gifts of bread and wine, and hence does not give the proper context for Sunday communion. The practice has even been scathingly compared to taking bread for a meal from a bread bin with some previous day’s leftovers.2 James Dallen, to take one example that has received much notice in the USA, opines that this is not the proper celebration of the paschal mystery, and that it risks reducing the sacrament to the presence of Christ in the bread and the wine. Hence he asks whether communion services can truly generate a eucharistic ecclesiology.3 Those who find the Sunday practice faulty, advocate that when there is no ordained minister, it is better to be content with a liturgy of the word, lest erroneous conceptions of Eucharist be bolstered. The resolutions offered to this situation differ. The Roman authorities advocate that people should go as far as possible to where a priest celebrates.4 The liturgists suggest that the local community gather as a community on the Lord’s Day for a celebration of the word. In the meantime, they can adopt an advocacy position in favor of adopting ordination procedures that would give such communities their own ordained ministers, much as today they can provide their own lay ministers. In this, liturgists give primacy to the reality and gathering of the local community, while Roman authorities give primacy to attending Mass. This may be celebrated, of course, with full congregational participation, but this kind of participation is not connected by these authorities with the realities of local community life. The liturgical resolution is an ideal and perhaps supposes that ordination practices can be changed some time in the near future. This however seems unlikely for both ecclesiastical and cultural reasons, so that in effect a long period of virtual eucharistic abstinence is being

2. The example may not be all that effective, since many people are accustomed, some with little choice in the matter, to eat the left-overs of the meals of preceding days. They may indeed be among those who are most inclined to eat their food with thanks. 3. James Dallen, The Dilemma of Priestless Sundays (Chicago: Liturgical Training Publications, 1994). 4. Instruction on Certain Questions Regarding the Collaboration of the Non-Ordained Faithful in the Sacred Ministry of Priest, art. 7. Published in 1997, the instruction is signed by no less than eight Vatican dicasteries. See Origins 24, no. 24 (November 27, 1997) 398-409. SACRAMENT: AN ECONOMY OF GIFT 145 advocated for some communities. Instead of following the solution of Sunday gatherings for a celebration of the word, this may be the occasion to reconsider eucharistic theology and catechesis, placing the accent much more on gift than on offering or sacrifice. It also needs the exer- cise of a ritual imagination that would find ways of celebrating communion services, complete with word and common prayer, making of them indeed a celebration of the paschal mystery. The right kind of celebration can place them within the communion of churches, while still ritually marking the absence of an ordained minister and giving this its due significance. It might, in other words, be better to respond to Dallen’s question that communion services, located in particular communities, can generate a eucharistic ecclesiology, if adequately celebrated, and that they are a celebration of the paschal mystery. As Hans Bernard Meyer is reported to have said, in sacramental and liturgical matters the ways of celebrating, or preventing celebration, should not be overburdened with tenaciously maintaining accustomed offices and structures.5 The sacrament of his body and blood is a gift that Christ gives to his Church, and all should be done, even in less than ideal circumstances, to assure that this gift is made accessible to all, and celebrated in the communion at a common table. The responsibility does not belong to the Roman authorities alone, but has to be assumed, with all due recognition of existing conditions, by diocesan and particular communities.

The Economy of Gift

It is the meaning of Eucharist as gift that needs to be placed to the fore in these practical discussions. This will be the case only if we think through the entire redemptive and sacramental dispensation as an economy of gift. The English word economy is taken in the sense of exchange, or sharing in what is communal possession. It roughly corresponds to the French échange, the Italian scambio, the Spanish intercambio, or the German Wirtschaft. If economy is here preferred to exchange, this is by way of a play on words which points to an entire order which is built up on an exchange or a sharing in gift. It is an attempt to translate the Greek oikonomia, or the Latin commercium.

5. “The Church has the freedom [Meyer is reported as saying] to draw from tra- dition, and in responsibility to it, offices and structures for itself … On no account should problems of offices and structures be allowed to burden liturgy.” As reported by Benedikt Kranemann in Studia Liturgica 27 (1977) 248. 146 DAVID N. POWER

Commercium A look at some early liturgical use of the Latin, commercium, as found in the Sacramentarium Veronense,6 whose texts originate in the Roman Church, may help to register what is intended. The Mass texts of this collection indicate clearly enough that the congregation of the time brought gifts, probably both the bread and wine for the Eucharist and offerings for the needs of the poor and of the clergy. Using the vocabulary of offering, whether this be oblatio or munus, the texts include these things brought, and also the offerings of prayers and thanksgiving, in the act of celebration. It is in this context that there is an illuminating use of the term commercium to name the mystery being celebrated. The term is taken from the world of commerce, where trade and exchange are practiced, in order to refer to the redemptive mysteries enacted in sacrament. What it names there is the exchange between the divine and the human that takes place in the Word made flesh and is celebrated in the sacrament, to the benefit of humanity and in the liturgy of those who participate therein. This is the true exchange or economy of sacrament. From the earth, the Word takes human nature, but brings it into an exchange with the divine, and so sanctifies it by the gifts of grace. A collect for the Ascension of the Lord expresses the nature of the exchange: “ let us engage in this glorious exchange: we offer what you gave, that me may deserve to receive you yourself.”7 Here the notion of the people offering what God has first given, but receiving back more, namely, God himself, is included in the exchange. This is said however in relation to the exchange of natures in the Word made flesh, that is celebrated in the preface of the same Mass. It is a wondrous exchange which greatly exceeds the gift of creation, given in the beginning of time. In other words, whatever the people have to offer in this exchange pales in face of the wonder of the incarnation. In the preface, the celebrant thus prays: “even though immense is the wonder of what is given in the beginning with the gift of human nature, much more wonderful are the works by which not only have you brought back to life that earthly and mortal thing which had been extinguished, but have made it divine.”8

6. Sacramentarium Veronense, edited by L. C. Mohlberg (Rome: Herder, 1956). Referred to henceforth as Ver. 7. Exercemus, domine, gloriosa commercia: offerimus quae dedisti, ut te ipsum mereamur accipere. Ver 69. 8. This is how this is expressed: Quondam licet inmensa sint omnia, quae initiis humanae sunt conlata substantiae … longe tamen mirabiliora sunt opera, ut terrenam mortalemque materiam non solum vivificaris extinctam, sed efficeris et divinam. Ver 90. SACRAMENT: AN ECONOMY OF GIFT 147

In a prayer over the gifts in a Christmas Mass, the offering of the people is again subordinated to the exchange of the human and the divine in the mystery of the incarnation: “May the offering of this day’s feast be pleasing to you, o Lord, so that with the pouring out of your grace, we may through this sacred exchange be found in the form of him in whom our nature abides with you.”9 The preface for another of the formulas for a Christmas Mass glo- rifies this exchange even more pointedly: “It is right to give thanks … because this wonderful exchange by which we have been redeemed has shone forth, when from the old human creature a new human creation came forth, mortal being healed of mortality … and from the odious generation of sin a whole progeny should arise that is free of all sin; and not only is our fragile nature, taken up by your word, made eternally worthy of honour, but us also he has made eternal by making us partakers of this wondrous fellowship.”10 A Christmas postcommunion prayer crowns this imagery of exchange by reversing the use of the language of gift employed in prayers over the people’s gifts: “God, who touch us by this participation in your sacrament, work the effects of its power within our hearts, so that we may be made fit to receive your gift through the gift itself.”11 It is God’s gift and giving which makes the sacrament, not the people’s. The gift given by God is not a return for what the people have brought or offered, but a reversal of the order of giving, placing it totally, like the incarnation, in the gratuitous initiative of God. The commercium initiated by the taking on of flesh by the Word is celebrated in thanksgiving, and communi- cated in sacramental reception. Whatever gifts the people may bring, they are taken up into the celebration of the wonderful exchange between God and humans enacted by the incarnation and fleshly mysteries of the Word. Hence, these gifts give way to the one wondrous gift, which is the sacrament and its transforming grace. From this it transpires that the fundamental reason, befitting this economy of exchange, why the Church brings its gifts is not to offer something to God, but to present them to God so

9. Grata tibi sit, domine, quaesumus, hodiernae festivitatis oblatio: ut tua gratia largiente per haec sacrosancta commercia in illius forma inveniamur, in quo tecum est nostra substantia. Ver 1249. 10. Vere dignum … quoniam magnificum nostrae commercium reparationis effulsit: cum de homine veteri homo novus exsisteret, curatus mortalitate mortalis, … et de obnoxia generatione peccati totius peccati nescia proles exoritur, ac non solum nostra verbo tuo suscepta fragilitas perpetui fit honoris, sed nos quoque mirando consortio reddit aeternos. Ver 1260. 11. Deus, qui nos sacramenti tui participatione contingis, virtutis eius effectus in nostris cordibus operare, ut suscipiendo muneri tuo per ipsum munus aptemur. Ver 1256. 148 DAVID N. POWER that they might be taken up into the celebration of what God has given, and gives, in the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, and in his sacraments. The economy of redemption is initiated by the assumption of fragile human nature by the Word, endowing it with the grace that comes from its union with the divine. It continues in the celebration in which the offerings which this redeemed humanity may bring are transformed through the thanksgiving for the divine exchange, and totally replaced by the gifts which God gives in the communion in the flesh and blood of the Word Incarnate.

Martin Luther on the Mass We can place this sacramental language of offering, gift and exchange in the larger context of divine gift, as the liturgy itself suggests. When Martin Luther objected to rites and practices of the Roman Mass, which so strongly accentuated the offering of the Church, he showed some quite effective insight into this reality of exchange.12 The blessed Martin allowed for gifts to be brought by the people, especially for the poor, and even allowed for them to be presented in Christ, but he made the point that the Mass or Lord’s Supper is of its institution a testament, a proclamation and a gift. It is Christ’s testament (as the word is used in speaking of last will and testament) to the forgiveness of sins given through his death on the Cross. It is a proclamation of this forgiveness, through the words of the Gospel, and it is the gift of the body and blood of the Lord, which is then the seal and pledge of this forgiveness. Catholic doctrine may prefer to place more emphasis on the gift of grace that transforms those who receive the gift, but it does this without setting aside the act of God’s forgiveness, given in the death of Christ on the Cross. This perception allows some useful play on the language of gift. The gift of grace having been refused, it is “forgiven.” That is to say, the sin is set aside and the gift is given in more wondrous form and plenty in the giving of Christ’s blood for us.

Eucharistic Prayer of Basil of Caesarea The flow of the eucharistic prayer itself, especially if it is considered in its eastern forms, is one that goes from wonder at the exchange, to

12. Luther’s thought on the Mass and his liturgical reforms are clearly summarized in Frank Senn, Christian Liturgy: Catholic and Evangelical (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997) 267-285. Senn points to a passage in The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, that gives a summary statement of Luther’s thought on the Mass or Lord’s Supper. In Luther’s Works 36, 37-38. SACRAMENT: AN ECONOMY OF GIFT 149 thanksgiving for the gifts given, to the reception in the Spirit of the gift of the body and blood of Christ. When the bringing to the celebration of bread and wine is indicated in the prayer, it is by way of acknowl- edging what the people have brought, but also by way of indicating that these gifts have significance only in being prayed over. God is thanked over them, and it is only in this sense that they can at all be said to be offered. They are set forth, not simply on their own account, but as antitypes or symbols of the body and blood of Christ in which God gives forgiveness of sin, the gift of the Spirit, and immortality. The Byzantine Anaphora of Basil13 refers to the bread and wine, before the supper narrative, as the memorials of his saving passion which Christ left to his disciples. As such, they have been set forth within the celebration. After the anamnesis, in the transition to the epiclesis, the prayer refers to the things set forth in remembrance as antitypes of the body and blood. In the epiclesis, it prays that by the descent of the Spirit these may be sanctified and made the body and blood of the Lord, of which all will take part in the fellowship of the same Spirit.14 All of this indicates that the bread and wine, even in as much as they are elements of creation, have significance only in as much as they are taken up into the remembrance of Christ’s pasch. The reasonable service, or offering, of thanksgiving includes the elements of creation in the thanksgiving for the revelation of the divine mystery in the gift and mission of Word and Spirit. The things of earth are preserved in the mystery of redemption, but gratitude for them is inherent to the gratitude for what God has wrought in the mission of the Word made flesh and of the Holy Spirit. This is the great gift which the Church receives, and the great gift for which it gives thanks. Any suggestion of offering is subordinate to thanksgiving, and any setting forth of the things of earth is done within the consciousness of the mystery of redemption in Jesus Christ. He took bread and wine as signs of his passion, he thanked God over them, and so the Church does likewise. The gift of creation and the works of salvation are recalled and acknowledged in the prayer. If the bread and wine are set forth as signs of the gift of creation, it is so that God may be thanked over them. In this way, there is thanks for the gift of creation also, but it is subsumed into the wonder and thanks for the gift of the new creation. From start

13. In A. Hänggi and I. Pahl (eds.), Prex Eucharistica: Textus e variis liturgiis antiquioribus selecti, Spicilegium Friburgense, 12 (Fribourg: Presses Universitaires, 1968) 230-243. 14. See the analysis in Kenneth Stevenson, Eucharist and Offering (New York: Pueblo, 1986) 39-42. 150 DAVID N. POWER to finish, from creation, through redemption, to eternal life, humans are recipients. They are not however left passive in this reception, but they are given a fellowship in and with God in Christ and the Spirit. They are made partakers of the life of glory and of divine communion, as it is already lived out here on earth.

Trinitarian Missions The gift of the body and the blood, and of the Spirit in whose grace they are received, can be set against the background of the eternal divine missions of Word and Spirit, which have been operative in the world since the dawn of creation. The giving of divine love is in their sending forth, and in and through all the historic forms in which this sending takes incarnate shape, where the visible reality of the Word is one with the invisible indwelling of the Spirit. The Word and Spirit are at work in all the actions of God in the world, from the very beginning. There is no temporal sequence to these missions, but any Trinitarian theology has to account for their simul- taneity and complementarity. This avoids the western ecclesiastical and theological tendency to posit the mission of the Spirit after the fulfil- ment of Christ’s Pasch, or to make it depend on Christ, or even on the primacy of the Word, as though in some fashion the Word was sent first. This is one of the implications of the debate about the Filioque clause in the creed, whose introduction risks camouflaging this simul- taneity and complementarity of missions. The giving through the twofold mission of Word and Spirit reveals the gift that comes from God as the gift of love, total and self-emptying love. The kenosis of Christ, taken from the letter to the Philippians, is the primary image used of his mission and work in the anaphora of Basil. While love is certainly associated with the Spirit, the gift of God within the heart, it is just as much associated with Christ, who gave his life and gives his sacramental self in love. Indeed, he is rightly said to be the icon and the expression of the love of the Father. In other words, understanding of the economy of grace and of the Trinitarian gift can be derived from the naming of God as love, a naming that occurs in and through the twofold mission, and is evoked in the imagery of Christ’s self-emptying. What is concretely given in the Word and in the Spirit are the forms in which this love fills the world, and in particular the Church, which is the communion of God in charity. To relate the twofold mission of Word and Spirit to the Father, the image and reality of gift is paramount. To begin with, the sacramental SACRAMENT: AN ECONOMY OF GIFT 151 elements of bread, wine, oil and water, are an expression of gifts received. Humans receive them from the earth, and through them they receive life and communion together. To express his own self-giving, Christ took what by creation and earth’s bounty are already gifts given. Through this medium, he gave sacramental form to his own self-giving. The gift/giving of God through Word and Spirit is continually manifested in the sacramental self-giving of Christ through the memorial of his death, and in the gift of the Spirit which works from within to allow the Church to take this memorial into the actuality of Christian community. The gift was given in the sending of the Word and the Spirit. It was given through the self-emptying of Christ in his mission and on the Cross. It is given through the sacrament left to the Church on the eve of the passion, and as a memorial of this passionate self-gift. The Eucharist is an economy of gift, where the gift is from God, of and through Christ and the Spirit, and the communion table is the central rite, not the consecration of the Church’s gifts, nor any gift made by the Church to God.

Communion Services Revisited If we return now to the question of communion services, it can be noted that these retain what is primary in the exchange of sacrament, namely, the gift that comes from God, through Word and Spirit. What is absent is the bringing of the things to be set forth by the people, those elements over which God is to be thanked, and which as the first gifts of God’s love are to be taken up into the gift of redemption. Imaginative ritual, however, can supply for this want, in virtue of the circumstances, and in an exchange between Churches, that support one another and together live the exchange of gift.15 On a Saturday afternoon, some representatives of the community which is to have a communion service can bring bread and wine, and other gifts, to the celebration of a service in another community at which a priest presides. When God has been thanked over the bread and wine, so that it is sacramentally transformed, the sacramental elements are brought back to the community, together with some other gifts of the sister fellowship. At the beginning of the communion service, they could be ritually received, and placed on the table during the service, so that word, common prayer, and the offer of the sacramental gift are brought together into the one celebration of the paschal mystery. At the end of the

15. See David N. Power, “A Prophetic Eucharist in a Prophetic Church,” Eucharist: Toward the Third Millennium, ed. Martin F. Connell (Chicago: Liturgical Train- ing Publications, 1997) 37-41. 152 DAVID N. POWER

Sunday service, the community could set aside the bread and wine, together with other gifts, for the next week’s ritual, praying over them with thanks for the gift of creation. This establishes continuity from Sunday to Sunday, while also incorporating recognition of the mystery of creation as present in the things taken from the community’s own experience of life. The advantage of this kind of ritual is multiple. It starts with the principle that Jesus Christ left the sacrament of his body and blood to the Church and that as gift it is to be made as accessible as possible. It also notes that communion in the body and blood is taken within the communion of discipleship. It joins this table fellowship with a communion in the Word and in prayer. It gives primacy neither to the things nor to the action over bread and wine, nor even to priestly power, but to the local community gathered in a faith by which it daily shares fellowship. It respects the symbolism of the bread and wine as symbols both of creation and of the community’s own life, but relates this effec- tively to the mystery and gift of redemption in Christ and in the Spirit. Lastly, by imaginative ritual it deals with the reality of the situation in which the community finds itself without an ordained minister, but places it within a wider community setting of communion with other communities, which are still graced with the presence of ordained ministers. Ultimately, this concern with Sunday communion services cannot be considered in isolation. It is first the occasion to give more thought to the primary analogue of sacrament as gift. Second, it is incorporated into a sacramental economy in such a way as to allow this practical and ritual priority, thus affecting the total awareness of the nature of sacramental life.

Can Gifts be Given?

The accent on the gift nature of a sacramental economy is indi- rectly challenged today by questions raised by philosophical and literary writings about the very possibility of gift. In fact, gift is the word that is most commonly used of sacramental grace, even when theology writes of sacraments as instrumental causes, and yet it may be the most intractable word in the liturgical vocabulary. It may carry too much baggage from its use in human orders of friendship and society for us to easily grasp the meaning of what scripture and sacrament say of divine gift. So burdened is gift-giving with impositions on others, and SACRAMENT: AN ECONOMY OF GIFT 153 so bound is it to certain expectations from the receiver, that some recent writers have questioned the possibility of true giving. They see it more as the “impossible” act to which we may aspire in aspiring to the good and to openness to the other. Thus its use in the context of sacrament, if related to the actual experience of gift-giving, may fail to do justice to the superabundance of divine gift, both in conception and in practice. Hence, it is necessary to be quite careful in using this analogy, and yet it is important to use it. Phenomenological, literary and philosophical writings on gift look back to the work of anthropologists, especially Mauss and Malinowski, who have taken data on gift economies in what are called archaic societies.16 These are barter economies, where there is an exchange of goods, or even persons such as slaves and women, rather than the use of money to guarantee the social and economic ordering of life together. A person achieves high status by much gift-giving, for his contribution to the order is high. The gift is hardly totally gratuitous, however generous. What the gift-receiver owes back is not so clear, but smaller gifts and recognition of status are expected. Amongst those of equal social status, there is some equality in gift-giving. This feeds personal and societal relationships and a sharing in life, but it too implies some expectations in the giving of gifts. To give a gift without expectations is hardly possible in these societies, as they are seen by western anthropologists, though of course the ordering of relations is different to what is known in monetary economies. It is the sense of relationship, not the value of goods or production, which determines what is given, but this form of exchange has at the same time served to maintain the public order and economy, that is the distribution of goods, within such societies. When gift-giving is transposed from archaic societies into societies of monetary and production economies, it is not essential to the economy but has another place in ordering human relations. There has been an odd change in the use of money however since its introduction. When given as a gift, instead of some good, money actually freed the recipient from certain obligations or impositions. When a good is given, it has to be used in a certain way and for certain purposes, since it fits no other. As a gift, money allowed the recipient a choice of the goods or purposes to which it was to be put. Of itself, it carries no intrinsic imposition on action. In today’s market economy, however, money is

16. For a collection of essays, see The Logic of the Gift: Toward an Ethic of Gen- erosity, ed. Alan D. Schrift (New York/London: Routledge, 1997). For an essay on its use in Christian context, see John Milbank, “Can a Gift be Given? Prolegomena to a Future Trinitarian Metaphysic,” Modern Theology 11 (1995) 119-161. 154 DAVID N. POWER given in return for work or is put as a price tag on goods. In today’s global economy, gifts or loans of money are used to impose certain ideals of productivity and democracy. Gifts are then not free. If this analogy is employed to explain the gift of grace in sacrament, it underlines the element of exchange and relationship, and the functioning of order on this basis. It is so bound however to expectation and a kind of imposition on the one receiving the gift that it may fail to contain the sense of gratuity in divine gift. It is unfortunately often used to imply obligations and return, since in the vocabulary of Christians we are used to the idea of giving something back to God. Even the Eucharist is explained as sacrifice in these terms: in offering bread and wine the community returns the gifts of earth to the creator, the creator gives them back as consecrated gifts, and the community in a further exchange returns this as the offering of Christ, or an offering in Christ. This hardly does justice to God’s gratuity, however commonly such language is used. Feminist writers have suggested that the problem of turning gifts into barter, and loading them with expectations, is a peculiarly male one. Women, it is contended, are much more free in living out of gift, and in living gift-giving as a free, unencumbered act. Possibly this is because they are so vitally connected with the primordial gift, which is the gift of life, of life to be lived, to be lived in plenitude and generously. Hélène Cixous expresses this pithily in the following paragraph: How does she give? What are her dealings with saving or squandering, reserve, life, death? She too gives for. She, too, with open hands, gives herself – pleasure, happiness, increased value, enhanced self-image. But she doesn’t try to “recover her expenses.” She is able not to return to herself, never settling down, pouring out, going everywhere to the other. She does not flee extremes; she is not the being-of-the-end (the goal), but she is how-far-being-reaches.17 As far as other writers are concerned, Robert Bernasconi has noted the difference between Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas on the possibility of such gratuity in gift-giving.18 Derrida accentuates more the aporia which leads him to speak of the “impossible” gift, even while taking such free and unselfcentred giving as an inspiration. Levinas contends that it may become possible when we learn to give primacy to

17. Hélène Cixous, “Sorties: Out and Out: Attacks/Ways Out/Forays,” The Logic of the Gift, 159. 18. Robert Bernasconi, “What Goes Around Comes Around: Derrida and Levinas on the Economy of the Gift and the Gift of Genealogy,” The Logic of the Gift, 256- 273. SACRAMENT: AN ECONOMY OF GIFT 155 the other, to attend to the face of the other, and not to ourselves. How- ever, he does speak of this as “an eschatology of liberation from my own time,” thus in his own way placing it always in the future, as something to be hoped for.19 What Derrida and Levinas see as difficult to come by, Cixous sees as already central to a woman’s world. The “impossible” gift, or the “eschatological” gift, or the “womanly” gift, is one that gives the gift of freedom. That is, it opens up possibilities of free action for the recipient, who is impaired neither by the nature of the gift nor by the expectations of the giver, but acts purely out of an appreciation of the gift in itself and out of what it opens up as possible. Nonetheless, there is a relationship between giver and recipient, some exchange or participation in the gift, for it is the passage from one to another, without loss to the giver, and in a mutual living from the gift. The gift of life may indeed best exemplify this, for all that in the petti- ness of our humanity at times it is given with strings attached. When a mother gives birth to a child, she gives it life. When parents care for a child, they open up the gift of life to it. The ideal reception is for the child to value life as the parents do and to live freely from this gift, not out of a sense of indebtedness to the parents. The child’s living leads to life’s enhancement, and moves it to give to others out of this gift. There is a flow to true gift, that means it is not consumed but passed on and given increase in this very passage. It is when gift is imaged and thought along these lines (or outside these lines!), that it provides a true image of divine giving and of sacramental gift. The gift of life, of incarnation, of forgiveness, of the inner grace of the Holy Spirit, are truly a share in God’s own life and love, but even in giving God remains unpossessed, in the sense that there is no fusion of the divine with the human and that the divine remains mystery. But if unpossessed, God in loving is also unpossessing. Life and love are simply poured out, not to obtain aught for God but so that they may be lived and continue to increase. It is thus true that the gift is not simply a “present,” it is not consumed in the present passing moment, nor indeed fully possessable in that moment, but is eschato- logically oriented. The gift will continue to increase, but its increase is not now measured. If then we can use the language of the economy or “exchange of gifts,” or in Latin, the commercium, this does not mean that the benefi- ciaries are giving something back to God. It means rather that there is a being together, a loving together, in the action of the gift, a covenantal

19. As quoted by Bernasconi, “What Goes Around Comes Around,” 258. 156 DAVID N. POWER relation by which both God and people pledge and work for the enhancement of the same gift. When humans by consent and faith receive the gift of the life given in Christ, of the divine agape, in their appreciation of it they enter into its flow. So precious is the gift and so much truly theirs, that they live from it and in living from it com- municate it to others. Bestowed upon, they are in turn bestowers. The self-giving love of God shows forth in the self-giving love of Christ. The self-giving love of Christ shows forth in his giving of himself for sinners on the Cross, and in the self-giving of the table of his body and blood in the sacrament of the Eucharist. This self-giving love of Christ shows forth further when embodied in the Church, which in turn gives that life, pours out that love from within itself, so that others may possess it, and possess it more fully.

Communion in Gift

There is no proper sense in which the Church gives anything back to God. It only acknowledges the gift given and lives out of it. That is the communion established between God and humankind. It is rela- tional, Trinitarian, to the extent that it is totally from God and not in any way given back to God. It is given in Christ and in the Spirit. As their love it continues to go forth, to body forth in the Church, which bodies it forth into the human enterprise of a world to become. It is communion in the relationship of Christ and the Spirit to the Father, in the coming forth from God that is ever coming forth, without ever retreating into its source, and without end in the coming forth. All sacramental giving leads to that eucharistic table where the gift is given and even in and through the communion of the Church continues to be offered, held out, embraced, lived out, and sent forth in the body- selves of those in whom it has taken its dwelling. This is not a responsibility to be met in “justice” nor an obligation to give back, but only a freedom to go forth, to live out of the communion in love that is God-given. It is to this gift of divine agape that the testimony of Christ and Spirit are spoken in sacramental witness, and it is this gift which they bring to life anew when the Church assumes this testimony into stories, lives and cultures. It is this which sets up the order of divine justice, where human relations, being in the world, the hope for the transcen- dent, and the naming of God, are vivified by gift and its flow. It is in the bestowal of this gift that humans are given the freedom to love and SACRAMENT: AN ECONOMY OF GIFT 157 to live. It is with this gift in their hearts that they enter the drama of redemption, seeking to give witness to God’s love in the following of Christ and in the power of the Spirit, so that the world may be transformed. It is through this gift that they break through and enlarge the boundaries of human being in the world. In appreciation of this gift, it is of great interest to note that a new paradigm for Church, sacrament and ministry is emerging in ecumenical conversations, to guide relations between Churches, as well as to guide Churches internally.20 This is the image of koinonia. The term expresses the communion of Christians among themselves, within their common participation in the communion of Father, Son and Spirit. It is a communion in the love given as gift, even within historical, ecclesial and paradigmatic diversity. The gift of divine love is an embodied gift. As sacrament of Christ’s self-gift and self-emptying, it takes on specific community and historical forms through the action of the Spirit. The twofold mission of Word and Spirit are ever working in the Church, to bring believers and disciples together in the one communion of love. The gift is embodied, the communion takes on cultural and historical shapes. Thus it is a communion in diversity. To take account of this gift as it is embodied, love and service are the activities and the images which come to the fore, acti- vated in the ethical commitments undertaken. The description of the Church of Jerusalem in Acts 2:42-46 has always had a fascination for Christians, especially in times when reform seemed necessary. It depicts the necessary: communion in the faith of the apostles, communion in prayer, and the communion of goods whereby none care only for themselves but always have the need of the other at heart. Alongside this most fundamental communion, to have a living picture we have to think of exchange and sharing in material goods, the care of the needy, mutual relations within communities and between communities, exchange of letters, hospitality, common stances on social issues, living within a shared vision of the future, and a sense of common identity. It is through word and sacrament that this communion is formed, as a realization and sacrament of the divine koinonia of Father, Son and Spirit. The sacramental images of communion are at the same time images of the gift given. At the heart of the matter is the common table in the one loaf and the one cup, gift given by Christ in the Spirit, gift

20. For references, see David N. Power, “Roman Catholic Theologies of Eucharistic Communion,” Theological Studies 57 (1996) 587-589. 158 DAVID N. POWER shared by all in fellowship and hospitality. Putting this in context, the words of Ignatius of Antioch are ever pertinent: one faith, one baptism, one table, one altar, one assembly, one bishop. The imagery of baptism is imagery of access to this table, namely, forgiveness and rebirth through the passage through the water, and sealing with the Spirit. Within this common assembly, forgiveness and reconciliation are offered to the vagrant, and healing and strength to the sick and suffering. Within it, some are appointed and ordained to ministry, others in marriage witness to the communion of the love of God with humanity, in sacrament and in action, both groups appointed in the Spirit to the service of God’s gift- giving.

Conclusion

The intention in this article was to present sacramental celebration in the Church as an economy of gift. The reflection was prompted in a particular way by problems affecting the Sunday celebration of communion services, which come on one side from emphasis on the role of priests and on the other from attention to the congregation’s action in giving. It was suggested that an appreciation of liturgical history may lead us to give priority to the divine gift, that has no roots in human giving and is totally gratuitous. Evidence for this perception was taken from the liturgical use of the Latin word commercium, from the thought of Martin Luther, and from the anaphora of Basil of Caesarea. The dif- ficulties of using the analogy of gift without the intrusion of cultural restraints on gift-giving was noted, and a way was sought to give the word in sacramental context its truly gratuitous and eschatological significance. This was then related to the twofold mission of the Word and the Spirit from within the godhead, and to the communion of the Church in a wondrous exchange, which is an earthly sharing in the divine communion of Father, Word and Spirit. What is at the heart of sacrament overflows into the life together and into the ethical commitments of the body of Christ, the Church.