Holy Communion

Mosaic depicting Melchizedek serving bread and wine to Abraham

The sacrament instituted by Jesus at the Last Supper—at which Christ and his apostles were celebrating the feast of the unleavened bread, or Passover.

Origins

The blessing of the bread and the wine is an ancient Jewish tradition which commemorates the Sabbath and other holy days. It is a ritual which can be traced back even to Melchizedek who “brought forth bread and wine” when he blessed Abraham. On Friday evenings, the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath, a ceremonial blessing is first pronounced over the wine and then over two loaves of bread, which symbolize the double portion of manna that fell in the desert on the sixth day.

At the Last Supper, Jesus

... took bread and when he had given thanks, he brake it and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.”

As recorded in John 6, Jesus had also earlier admonished:

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.... Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life....

Spiritual significance

Our partaking of Holy Communion (in any Christian church) is our acceptance of God’s gift of Sonship and our commitment to go out no more from the house of the Father and the Son. Each time we celebrate the Lord’s Body and his Blood, we must go forth from the altar witnessing to his Spirit by our words and our works. Each time we accept the bread and the wine, believing it is, by transubstantiation, the Body and Blood of Christ, we imbibe the flame of our Christhood increment by increment, piece by piece, drop by drop.

The “flesh and blood” of the Universal Christ is the essence of His Spirit and His Word celebrated by Keepers of the Flame who “have the testimony of Jesus” in the LORD’s Communion through the dictations of Jesus and the Servant Sons in heaven, the Ascended Masters. Our cup is the Messenger, our wine is the initiation of the Light outpoured by the Holy Spirit, our Bread is the Living Word. “I AM Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending” is the true mystic’s mantra of Communion as he partakes of the Body (the Omega) and Blood (the Alpha) of his LORD.

Sources

Pearls of Wisdom, vol. 28, no. 28.

Elizabeth Clare Prophet, The Astrology of the Four Horsemen, chapter 28.