Holy Thursday: Blessing the Bread, the Cup

Rev. Jan Richardson is a superb writer, artist, and ordained minister. I treasure her books, her blog posts, her paintings, and her poems.

Here is one of her blessing-poems as we remember the Last Supper (from 2017), with her introduction.

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Holy Thursday, and it is time to come to the table.

Here at the table, there is bread.

Here at the table, there is wine.

Here at the table, there is Christ, offering the gifts to us with beautiful simplicity and astonishing love.

As we linger at the table, as we leave the table, what will we do with what we receive?

Blessing the Bread, the Cup
For Holy Thursday

Let us bless the bread
that gives itself to us
with its terrible weight,
its infinite grace.

Let us bless the cup
poured out for us
with a love
that makes us anew.

Let us gather
around these gifts
simply given
and deeply blessed.

And then let us go
bearing the bread,
carrying the cup,
laying the table
within a hungering world.

—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons

©Jan Richardson. www.janrichardson.com
http://paintedprayerbook.com/2017/04/12/holy-thursday-blessing-the-bread-the-cup/

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Jan also posted the same poem-blessing in 2012, and that time included a short essay. Here’s an excerpt:

“… The table invites us to do: to remember, to gather around the cup of memory and the bread of celebration, to enter again into the stories—and the Story—that they hold. In today’s scripture reading, Paul’s telling of the story of the Last Supper is elegant in its utter simplicity. And heartbreaking. And brimming with hope.

In the years and centuries to follow this meal, the Christian tradition will spill vast quantities of ink over the meaning and doctrine of what takes place on this night. Yet Paul’s story, received from Christ and passed along to us, lays bare the essence of the gift: This is my body, Christ says with the bread in his hands, that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Cradling the cup, Christ tells his table companions, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.

Given. Poured out. For us.

This day, this Holy Thursday, beckons us to return to the table, to gather around the bread that has been offered to us, the cup that has been poured out for us. Yet this day will also send us out: away from the table and into the world, in search of those who hunger and thirst for what Christ gives: to us, through us. This is the real grail quest: to discern what to do with what we have been given, and then to do this. What path will the bread and the cup—and the One who offers them—impel you to take?“

http://paintedprayerbook.com/2012/04/04/day-38holy-thursday-cup-of-the-new-covenant/

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Jan has painted a number of marvelous paintings on the theme of Communion. I like them all, but this one continues to be my favorite. She titled it ‘The Best Supper.’

image


The Best Supper © Jan L. Richardson
Read her commentary on the painting at
http://paintedprayerbook.com/2008/10/03/the-best-supper/

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