'The arts of feasting': spiritual food as we fast from the Eucharist

In his book Finding the Church, the late priest and theologian Daniel Hardy described the eucharist as a gathered interval in the scattered life of the Church. What if we are called to inhabit an interval that is longer than a day or a week - an interval of extended scattering as we anticipate the feast?

The Church Times article by priest-theologian Julie Gittoes, 'Why I am fasting from the feast', offers a welcome and necessary theological reflection on our fasting from the Eucharist during this time of Covid-19.  Above all, it points to the theological rationale for such a fast: that this is not merely a pragmatic course of action but, rather, one grounded in the Church's life of prayer and sacrament.

What particularly caught my attention in the article was this section:

This Eastertide, we are walking a road to Emmaus. The world around is unsettled and fearful; we have questions that we can’t answer; we are haunted by death. Yet we also hear stories of life-affirming and demanding care. Just as Jesus opened up the scriptures for the bewildered disciples on the Emmaus road, might we also attend more deeply to God’s word?

As we take the scriptures to heart - reading in the Spirit - we rediscover who we are called to be, and learn afresh something of God’s ways with the world. As our homes become more keenly places of prayer, study, and devotion, might our hearts burn within us as we keep going, knowing that one day we will gather to break bread and know the nearness of our risen Lord with us?

These words are a wonderful description of the rediscovery of Mattins and Evensong which can take place at this time (and anecdotal evidence does seem to suggest that this may be occurring).  What is more, this also points us to the core of the daily office, as described by Cranmer: "by often reading, and meditation in God's word".  It also brings to mind Michael Ramsey's warning regarding the value of Mattins as a main Sunday service, "where congregations were nurtured in the Scriptures".

The reading of Scripture within the context of canticles and Creed embodies the Emmaus experience:

And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

The canticles order our reading of Scripture towards the Christological centre: Te Deum celebrating the Trinity and the Incarnation, the Benedictus proclaiming the Incarnation, the Jubilate - in the words of Secker (quoted by Mant) - "peculiarly proper after a lesson from the Gospel, since it peculiarly relates to the Gospel times", rejoicing in the One in whom the Gentiles hope.  Similarly, the Creed - Apostles' or Athanasian - grounds our reading of Scripture in the Church's confession of the Christological centre, drawing us to perceive the Crucified and Risen Lord manifested in the scriptural story of Israel and of the Church.

After the pattern of the Emmaus experience, this rediscovery of Mattins and Evensong then becomes a preparation for receiving the Sacrament:

Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures? ... And they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread.

The sustained reflection upon Scripture through Mattins and Evensong, with a renewed experience of these offices being normative Anglican worship, does not displace the Sacrament of the Eucharist but prepares us for, and orients us towards, "such a heavenly Feast".  It becomes a means of restoring the discipline of preparation which, over centuries, shaped the approach of Christians to the Sacrament.  In doing so, it does not leave us without sustenance.  For here and now we are fed.

In his critique of the ecclesial laws concerning the Lenten fast in the medieval Church, Jeremy Taylor pointed to the culinary delights of fish, adding with considerable irony this critique of those who described the Lenten fast as difficult:

He therefore that objects against the severity and affliction of the Lenten diet, knows not the arts of feasting; and complains of the church for a step-mother, when she is not only kind, but fond also of making such provisions. 

Yes, we are living in a time when fasting from the Holy Communion is a necessity.  But let us not be those who 'know not the arts of feasting'.  Taylor reminded his readers that even amidst the requirements of the Lenten fast, "herbs, and fruits, and broths" were permitted, as "God hath provided great variety of other things besides flesh".  In our present fasting from the Sacrament we are not left without sustenance, without a form of feasting.  So let us partake of the fare of Scripture, delightfully presented to us in Mattins and Evensong, even as we prepare for and await the great feast.