In The Sacred Meal by Nora Gallagher, Gallagher provides a basic summary of the spiritual discipline of the Lord’s Supper.  She approaches this discipline by giving what she considers to be the three stages of the act (waiting, receiving, and afterward), and then addressing various issues surrounding the Eucharist (myths, traditions, history, etc).  More than anything, this book acts as a memoir–a first hand account of someone who’s life is deeply engaged in this discipline and who has been significantly impacted by it.  Gallagher fills the pages of this volume with beautiful stories about Communion experiences from her life that inspire the reader to take part in this moving exercise.  Her book is more of an invitation than an exposition or description.  She is inviting everyone to the table–to experience the transformation that comes from this mysterious act that has been such an integral aspect of the history of the church.

The book is filled with interesting nuggets that are worth contemplating.  Here is a sample of those:

“Hidden in repetition is the chance that on any given day, the mind or soul will connect with what is waiting to connect to us.” (p. xix)

“He said these things to himself because he understood that choosing the vulnerable path was the way to keep his soul alive, and protected, from the harsh realities of power.” (p. 20)

“Too much focus on personal sin, and especially sin having to do with sex (while many church leaders got away with serious sexual misconduct and abuse) without any mention of how we participate in larger, more systemic evil, has left the word sin almost empty of meaning.” (p. 30)

“By making our greatest and most important goal the one of productivity, we miss out on the ways that God’s gifts of grace comes to us by doing nothing. (p. 41)

“At the altar, we are invited into what Jesus called heaven.” (p. 48)

“Part of ‘afterward’ is letting an experience of the holy seep into your cells so that even when your brain decides it didn’t happen or you made it up, you have a cellular memory.” (p. 56)

“My theology couldn’t explain the chaos.  I need the sacrament.” (p. 65)

“They are concrete things that stand in for something invisible and mute, recognized by human minds as avenues into the sacred.” (p. 84)

“Jesus practiced a radical faith: everyone was welcome at his table.” (p. 92)

“It’s more accurate to say [the Lord’s Supper’s] roots are in the various meals that Jesus shared with is followers and others throughout his life.” (p. 101)

Gallagher addresses many different topics and spends time discussing many different tangents to the Lord’s Supper.  She spends several pages discussing a correct understanding of the Kingdom of God, working towards a better definition of sin, and the  larger Christian narrative.  This strength of the book is also a weakness.  It is a strength because it broadens the reader’s understanding of the Lord’s Supper into a multi-faceted act designed to embody the broader purposes of Christianity.  It is a weakness, though, because the connection to the Lord’s Supper is not at all times clear, and in some situations requires skimming back through the pages to see how the thought-flow has developed.  Similarly, the chapters sometimes end abruptly without a clear conclusion of ideas.  This was frustrating at times, but is an interesting literary style that effectively makes the book more like a mental conversation with Gallagher than a persuasive argument for a particular belief about Eucharist or a strong appeal to partake.  Gallagher brilliantly explores the spiritual impact the sacred meal has had on her soul and extends this into a non-threatening invitation to partake of the feast of our Lord.


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