In Mass, why does the Priest not break the bread at the moment when he says, "Jesus took the bread, broke it, gave it to his disciples..."?
This is an excellent question because it gets to the heart of what is really going on in the Mass. There are two Greek words which sum it up: anamnesis and mimesis. Please keep reading - it is quite straightforward!
Mimesis means memory, remembering. If what we did at Mass was just remembering the Last Supper then there would be no reason not to break the bread at the moment we say those words. We could do other things, too: we could celebrate the whole Passover meal, we could wash each other's feet, and we could use even more of the scripture texts that tell us about the Last Supper. Our Mass would be like a play in the theatre, a dramatic reconstruction of the Last Supper.
But in fact what we are doing is anamnesis. This means "making present": that is, actually doing what Jesus did at the Last Supper and, crucially the whole events of Jesus passion, death and resurrection: that is, the events which mean that our Holy Communion precisely is the body and blood of Christ. We are actually consecrating the bread and wine so that it becomes the body and blood of Christ, and we are doing it in the context of the whole salvation event. The Priest is at the altar "in the person of Christ" and it is awesome.
To do this means that we move away from some sort of dramatic re-creating of the Last Supper and instead the focus is on prayer. So both before and after the words of consecration, we call down the Holy Spirit, to bless the gifts of bread and wine, and to change them for us into the body and blood of Christ. Certainly there is the moment where we use the same words that Jesus used at the Last Supper - but the prayer is telling us about more than that.
So the Breaking of the Bread has its own moment in the Mass, the point where the Lamb of God is prayed or sung: "Lamb of God you take away the sins of the world..." The Breaking of the Bread reminds us, then, of Christ's sacrifice on the Cross as the Lamb of God. Also, it is the moment of transition from the one host on the altar to the many parts of that host being distributed at Communion.
In summary, the Breaking of Bread in the Mass is much more than just a dramatic reconstruction of what Jesus did. It is part of a prayer which is making present the body and blood of Christ to us, in the context of the whole salvation event that was Jesus passion, death and resurrection. It is all of that - not just the drama of the Last Supper - that we bring to our Eucharistic prayers.
To find out more detail about all the parts of the Mass there is a brand new publication (April 2005) by the Bishops' Conference - that is, all the Bishops of England and Wales, called Celebrating the Mass. It is not a light read (!) but it is there to dip into to get more detail when you want it. You can access it via the Liturgy Commission of the Bishops' Conference - it is a pdf file so you will need adobe to download it.
See: www.catholic-ew.org.uk/liturgy/Resources/GIRM/Documents/CTM.pdf
Article Written: 8th May 2005
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