Video Meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor

Eucharist & Parousia

The early Christians expected immediate fulfillment of Jesus’ prophesies. They expected an imminent parousia...Modern historians are right to point out the expectation of the apostolic age. They go wrong, however, when they conclude that the early Christians must have been disappointed with the passing of time. The apostate scholar Alfred Loisy observed that Jesus came promising the Kingdom, but all He left behind was the Church. Loisy was disappointed by this turn of events, but the early Christians most certainly were not.

The early Christians knew that there would indeed be a parousia at the end of time, but there was no less a parousia right now, whenever they celebrated the Mass. When Christ comes at the end of time, He will have not a drop more glory than He has whenever He comes to His Church in the Mass. The difference is that, then, we will see. Faced with the evidence of the ancient liturgies, skeptics will sometimes resort to psychoanalyzing the ancients. They say that the idea of a “liturgical parousia” was a late development and a coping mechanism for a disappointed Church. But it wasn’t late. Gregory Dix notes that it is in the very earliest documents; indeed, some scholars estimate that the liturgy of the Didache could have been written no later than 48 A.D. After reviewing all the ancient eucharistic texts, Jaroslav Pelikan concludes: “The eucharistic liturgy was not a compensation for the postponement of the parousia, but a way of celebrating the presence of one who had promised to return.” After all, it was Jesus Himself who set such a high level of expectation in the Church; and it was Jesus Himself who pointed to its imminent fulfillment. Indeed, it was Jesus who established the Eucharist as an eschatological event — a parousia — a coming of the King and the kingdom...If we are looking for familiar apocalyptic language, we will find it aplenty in Luke’s account of the Last Supper, but we will find it always expressed in eucharistic terms.

--Scott Hahn in Envoy Magazine