Communion Eternal
Communion Eternal
Chris Carter
A chorus of candles flickered throughout the sanctuary. Warm light streamed from the flames, seeking home on the church’s cold stone. On that 2013 Maundy Thursday service in London’s Holy Trinity Brompton Church, I sat ensconced between the votives. Shadow and candlelight danced across my face, a ballet between contrasts. The preacher’s voice strode the liminal spaces. “The Lord Jesus on the night he was betrayed,” he intoned, “took bread and broke it…”
The Lord’s Supper is a mystery that has long inspired, confused, and divided Christ’s church. Some hold the elements to be simple symbols that inspire us to remember Jesus’ passion. For them, the eucharist is memory. Others, however, believe that communion is the literal flesh and blood of Christ. The Eucharist is presence, they say.
Sensing profound confusion among his own flock, the renowned Bishop of Hippo, St. Augustine, pondered, “How can bread be his body? And the cup…how can it be his blood?” The church calls the Eucharist a sacrament, the preacher reminds, because in it “one thing is seen, another is to be understood.” The reality these elements reflect is much deeper than grain, grapes, and disagreements. It is both memory and presence, a tangible reminder of what Jesus accomplished for us and his life continually lived out in the body of his church.
In my life, anxiety and depression tried to counteract that oneness by making me believe that God is distant and I am separated from Him. Despite the power of these demons, communion is a visible sign that nothing “in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39b). Both the memory and presence of the Eucharist played in divine harmony to lift me from the mire of mental illness.
As the pastor ended his sermon, he invited us to take communion and remember. The eucharist is tightly woven by memory. When the Savior shared a final meal with his students, he implored them, “Do this in remembrance of me.” In every Christian service since, the ordinance asks the congregation to remember.
The Eucharist is a story. It retells the suffering of Jesus for us. His betrayal, crucifixion, burial, and resurrection unfold on pages of wheat and wine. When we take the fractured bread and spilled juice, we join in the events. It’s as if we are seated at the table during the Last Supper, jeering with the crowd in Pilate’s courtyard, or weeping with Mary as a sword pierces her soul. In the Lord’s Supper, we’re more than hearers of Jesus’ story; we’re in it. The eucharist is memory.
*
With the priest’s invitation to communion flickering in my ear, I joined the procession of parishioners streaming toward the altar. As we arrived at the front of the church, priests and laypersons stood ready to freely offer bread and wine. Through this shared meal and story, we were becoming the church.
In the Anglican tradition, the priest hands out the wafer and says, “The body of Christ broken for you.” Paul wrote that communion is one of the elements that demonstrates the uniting of Christians with Christ and each other (1 Corinthians 10:16-17). Augustine explains the apostle’s words this way: “Remember that bread is not made from one grain, but from many. When you were being exorcised, it's as though you were being ground. When you were baptized it's as though you were mixed into dough. When you received the fire of the Holy Spirit, it's as though you were baked. Be what you can see and receive what you are.” In the act of sharing these elements, we glimpse our united identity and gain the grace to form Christ’s church.
For some clerics, years of repetition have mechanized the power of the Eucharist. But when I approached the bread that Maundy Thursday in 2013, I didn’t encounter a robotic priest, but a warm, elderly lady. She met each congregant as if the supper were for them alone. Her aged hands gently grasped the wafer and she reverently regarded the element. Then she slowly set the bit in their hand as if it were a table laid for a king. For every person passing her line, she locked them in the gravity of her gaze, and slowly said, “The body of Christ broken for you,” her cadence crescendoing and sustaining on that pronoun. As I tearfully and surprisedly choked out a thank-you, I received the Savior’s broken body.
Deep in my soul, I knew that the bread laying in my palm came from Christ. He saw me entering his story and whispered that it was now mine. When I took communion that night, I joined in the recreated memory of Jesus’ narrative and met my Savior. The eucharist is presence.
As that Maundy Thursday service ended, the candles eventually flickered out. Yet the Spirit had ignited a fire in my heart. This flame would warm me through dark years of anxiety and depression. I would witness suffering through panic and melancholy, but I would also gaze on God’s goodness. In the dividing space between, the memory and presence of the eucharist would interpret my own story in light of Christ’s.
*
Years after the evening in the sanctuary, I found my heart beating at a pace more suited to a sprint than a casual day at the office. Air looped in and out of my lungs in rapid succession. As I drowned in the panic attack, a Word document stared at me reprovingly, the white screen a chastisement. Terror pulled at the fraying edges of my mind. I was paralyzed by panic, convinced the worst would happen.
In the months before COVID’s onset, twin demons beset me. The first was anxiety. As he raged, I became convinced of my inability to serve God. I loved Him, but I could only stare at Him blankly like my computer screen. Anxiety poisoned me with despair and convinced me that I could not trust God, myself, or others. I had the desire for faith, but lacked the ability. The irony was that I only trusted distrust, and it turned out to be my Judas.
Closely following this demon was depression. He deceived me into believing that life would never improve. He took me by the hand and led me down to a deep pit before turning my eyes toward a cloud concealing the sun. From that distance, the cloud seemed like a mighty devourer and the sun a flickering candle with little wick to sustain it.
These demons ensnared me in that pit to keep me from God’s true promise: “Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles” (Isaiah 40:31). Were hope wings, I could rise to that dark cloud and see it for the faint vapor it is. The slightest breeze of the Spirit would blow it away with the ease. But despair gave solidity to that wispy vapor. My hope felt betrayed.
The betrayal of the Messiah by a dear friend marks the opening of the first Eucharist and has done so ever since. Many stories of suffering begin with betrayal. The good we thought we knew is suddenly stabbed in the back by evil. Still, Christ took the bread in hand. He knew it would be broken, but he still gave thanks for it. My life in those early months of the pandemic was mangled and distorted, yet it remained firmly in the Savior’s grip. Daily, He lifted it up to heaven and gave thanks for it. His story, which becomes mine through the Eucharist, shows that life can come from broken things.
*
Some nights, the demons elevated their voice from the usual whisper and began to dance and howl. One evening, hours into their revelry, my trembling fingers texted my friend Matthew, begging him to get drinks with me. I needed someone real to sit down with me and tell me everything would be okay. Despite the lateness, he agreed to meet.
Looking back, I can see Matthew’s kindness in that moment. He was exhausted from a long shift, but he still went out of his way to make sure I was okay. I couldn’t see this at the time, however, because anxiety and depression were blinders hiding me from grace.
Matthew and I sat in an empty tavern and sipped on beers. I traced the contours of my confusion and despair. His face was drawn like Christ’s on a Man of Sorrows icon. His doleful eyes were fixed on me. In silence and sadness, he listened. The few words he spoke were trampled by the capering fiends; I couldn’t believe he cared. Whatever assurances or consolations he offered, I didn’t believe. The next morning, I sent Matthew a curt message. Instead of extending gratitude for his time, I told him I didn’t trust him anymore.
In his Confessions, Augustine, whose sermons and experiences have so often informed my own life, recounts the death of a dear friend. The theologian and this unnamed companion shared a bond so intimate that they felt they shared one spirit between two bodies. Though the relationship was intense, it was short-lived. After a fleeting year, Augustine’s beloved friend succumbed to fever. In the aftermath, grief pushed the future bishop farther from God. His faith dwindled.
During his Passion, Christ was situated between two thieves. One mocked him as a failed Messiah while the other implored mercy. As my own story with Matthew taught me—and Augustine’s loss reminded me—faith often lies between the poles of fear and trust. Instead of looking for the Savior hanging in the space between the thieves, I chose distrust. In that choice, a dear friendship stretched out its arms and died.
*
In the aftermath of a panic attack, depression follows. While anxiety distracts me with unfounded fears, melancholy pilfers my energy, joy, and sense of self. In those moments of desolation, all I can do is swaddle myself in a blanket and curl up on my bed. Sleep would be a welcome reprieve from the emptiness, yet that too is a good stolen by depression.
In the middle of this lethargy, a small voice encourages me to get up, eat, and call a friend. These mundane tasks, however, demand a volume of energy missing from my reserves. But still, he calls and summons: “Rise.”
During one of these episodes, I mustered the strength to ask my roommate, Mark, to get me some food. When he arrived, however, depression had concluded his robbery. I lay listless on my bed, hungry yet unable to eat. In this moment, I found another point of resonance with Augustine. Immediately after his nameless friend died, the saint sank into lifeless resignation. “Everything repelled me,” he reflected, “even daylight itself, and everything with a being apart from him was obnoxious and offensive.”
After an hour, my other roommate, Luke, noticed my dinner sitting outside my door. He scooped up the items and let himself into my room. Vacantly I watched him set down my food. Luke didn’t try to force me to eat. Instead, he waited with me. After several long moments, Luke said gently, “Your food is here if you want to eat.” He laid out the elements and invited me to the meal. When a few minutes passed, Luke’s presence and offering gave me enough strength to get up and eat.
*
These moments of depression resonate with my experience of the eucharist. Every Sunday my priest sets the Lord’s table with bread and wine. He blesses the elements and distributes them without cost or condition. The table made no demand beyond take and eat, taste and see.
Despite this generosity, the eucharist confused me. I felt unworthy. Surely someone as holy as Jesus would not want me. My pit of despair was too dark for him. Yet every week my priest proclaimed the elements to be Christ’s body and blood, tangible reminders that Jesus is still here and still loves me. When the pastor handed me those elements and spoke the words, “The body of Christ broken for you,” I could hardly believe it. Between these reminders of God’s presence, the demons continued their chorused whisper in my ear: “You can’t trust the priest or his God.”
Torn between gospel reminder and anxious doubt, I still received the eucharist. Despite my singular trust in distrust, Christ stayed with me. He climbed down into my pit every Sunday and sat with me. In the eucharist, Christ truly descended to my hell. He whispered to me the words Augustine preached in sermon 272, “Believe what you can see and receive what you are.” This persistent grace that would eventually proffer the hand that pulled me from the pit.
*
The eucharist not only recalls the life and death of Jesus; it is also a flavored reminder of his resurrection. The bread crackling beneath grasping fingers and the wine flowing from the chalice demonstrate the supple body and coursing blood of our Savior. Where death held dominion, the Spirit came like a rushing wind and dispelled the tenebrous clouds concealing the Son. The stone rolled away, and Jesus emerged like the dawn.
As he vacated the tomb, Christ met Mary Magdalene. With deep compassion, the Lord looked at his student and said one word: “Mary.” Her name falling from Jesus’ lips opened her eyes to the life before her. The tomb was not empty in desolation; rather, it yielded to the fulness of life.
As he stood bodily before her, Jesus declared to Mary that he was returning “to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (John 20:17). She was no longer a dishonored demoniac, for Christ had given her a name and a family.
Through the grace offered in the eucharist, Christ summons us out of our grief into his name-giving, family-making presence. In the holy meal, he asks us to remember Mary’s tears at the grave, to hear him declare her identity, and to watch his God and Father become hers as well. Jesus calls us to remember because he wants to make those memories our present reality.
This truth dawned on me in a poignant moment. One Saturday, when my depression was deep, I was in the car with my friend John. I tried to make small talk, but conversation was hollow. Yet I persisted because I assured myself that I couldn’t show John my despair. However, as we approached home, my defenses cracked, and I started verbalizing my pain. I could barely form sentences as syllables were sundered by grief. John parked the car, drew me into a tight hug and started praying. As he spoke, I wept. During my mourning, he whispered over and over to me, “Chris, we love you. Chris, you are so loved.”
During that desperate prayer, I learned the potential of lament. Many stories hinge on the tears shed for another. For Augustine, the anguish of his mother, Monica, led him to the one in whom his soul would find rest. One observer of Monica’s grief noted prophetically, “It’s impossible that the son of these tears of yours will perish.” As Augustine’s mother interceded for him with lament, my own story would shift in the unexpected tears of a dear brother. Drops fell hot and bitter from my eyes. But as they cascaded, I felt others dripping on my arm. They weren’t mine. John was weeping with me. In this moment his own tears fell for me.
In John’s presence, friendship, and tears, I noticed a similarity to the reverent lady in that 2013 Maundy Thursday service. John looked at me with the same engagement and care. He handled my pain gently. As he took it in hand, he held it with respect. His words communicated how he ached in my anxiety and hurt because of my distrust. He remembered my pain. Then with his other hand he joined compassion to my pain. Mingled together, he set them reverently in my palm. He was present in my suffering.
This experience was a eucharistic encounter where I saw Jesus in the face and tears of my friend. For once, I trusted John, and the demons were silent. It was as if Jesus had walked into my tempest and commanded the voices of depression and anxiety to be still. In that moment, John did not utter any liturgical words. He simply spoke my name, reminded me I was loved, and pointed me to the Savior. In this friend and his tears on my behalf, I saw the body of Christ broken for me.
*
Depression and anxiety still haunt my steps, but they’re not as frightening as they once were. I continually pray for God to exorcise them, but they may be with me until the Return. In the meantime, God will give me grace to live in the liminal space.
He reassured me of this nearness on that candlelit Maundy Thursday service. Joining in the eucharist, I recalled two sustaining truths: Christ asks me to remember His story and that He is with me eucharistically through the presence of my Christian brothers and sisters. In the sacred supper, we remember the Passion together and become the body of Christ for one another. The Eucharist, Augustine reminds us, is “the mystery that means you. It is to what you are that you reply, ‘Amen,’ and by so replying you express your assent. What you hear, you see, is the body of Christ, and you answer, ‘Amen.’ So be a member of the body of Christ, in order to make that Amen true.” The eucharist is memory and presence. It is you and I united with our Savior. “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8a).
Important note from the author: I use the term “demon” for anxiety and depression as a poetic device. While I do believe these struggles have a spiritual component, they are primarily serious mental conditions. In addition, I use the term “melancholy” as a synonym for depression. In everyday usage, they are not quite the same. Finally, this essay is no way meant to suggest that going to church alone will cure mental illness. This was only one component of my own healing. I also sought regular counseling and therapy.
Chris Carter
Writer & Photographer
Chris is a photographer and writer living in Los Angeles. He is the author of Prodigal Disciples and has had work published in Bible Advocate, and The Secret Place. If you would like to sample more of his work, see his website www.awty.me and Instagram (@carterthechris).
Photography by Florencia Viadana