The Teaching Chruch

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume 30, Issue 12, 1 February 1940, Page 6

The Teaching Chruch

TheSacranmht of The ttblyOomm^

Fellowship with God and with one another,

We speak of this service as "Holy Communion," and the name is so familiar that we probably seldom pause to think exactly what is meant. Communion or fellowship with God through Jesus Christ, with our fellow worshippers who are members of Christ's body, with the great company of those who have served God faithfully here and are now m Paradise, with Angels and Arch-angels and with all the company of Heaven. It is the fellowship or union of the members of the Church with God, the Supreme Reality, the ground of all existence. We may well ask, "Who is sufficient for these things?" God Who Seeks In Father Hebert's writings we notice how frequently he returns tothe importance of the statement, "Suffered under Pontius Pilate." The reason for this may be seen m the following passage from "Liturgy and Society." "The Revelation of God is thus proclaimed as m the first place, a fact rather than a doctrine. Christianity is the announcement that God has been incarnated m the flesh and suffered under Pontius Pilate. Christianity, therefore, appeals to history, and every great effort to evade the appeal to history is an evasion of the Gospel of the Incarnation." It is this grasp of the truth of God given to the Church and founded on historical facts which is so necessary for us. The faith is not a summary of human ideals bnt the response to the facts of the Divine activity. In the day's of His flesh our Lord came to call sinners to repentance which is the beginning of the the possibility of fellowship with Him. This seeking of man by God, manifested once most vividly m the life of our Lord, which is a matter of history, is now manifested m the life of the worshipping Church. The chief symbol which witnesses to this reality is the Holy

Communion. We come, then, because God has called us and our actio nis a response. Action is Fellowship. Perhaps no word is more bandied about m the Church than this word "fellowship." Too often we attempt to express fellowship by a certain breezy feeling by which we hope to cover differences of aim. But is this fellowship ? What do we re-^ quire of a friend? It seems that we require at least two things. Firstly, there must be community of interest and aim m the most important matters of life. Secondly, there must be mutual understanding of the workings of the mind. We feel pain when we have blundered and mis-read our friend and we suffer when, our friend acts m such a way that our confidence m him is strained or even shattered. St. Paul's "My little children, I stand m doubt of you," is the expression of one of the most acute miseries of life. The fellowship of the Eucharist is founded on the reality of God Who seeks. His knowledge is thus stated by St. John, "God is greater than our hearts and knoweth all things." He wills that we should know Him. "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent." Fellowship here quite clearly means response to the Divine activity and can only be manifested m obedient love and service of Him." Abiding m Fellowship There is then the means of attaining fellowship with God through Jesus Christ and fellowship with one another. It is not a matter of human ideals but of response to Divine activity manifested m history and continued down the ages m the Church. What is involved? Can fellowship be true and real if it consists of occasional acts which appar-

ently bear iio relation to the daily life? Surely 'this; is impossbile to believe. If we grasp the real significance of the joy of Holy Communion we must see, that we are called into that fellowship to take our part m, winning the whole of human life and its activities for our Lord. God is the supreme and rich reality and it is this truth and its corollary of the responsibility of man to God which the world so sadly needs. It is the work of the fellowship of the Church to witness to that faith and need m all departments of life and so we are taught to pray: — "And we most humbly beseech. Thee, O Heavenly Father, so to as T sist us with Thy grace, that we may continue m that holy fellowship, and do all such good works as Thou hast prepared for us to walk m."