What Does It Mean to Do This?

Jesus' best-known mandateûafter perhaps the mandate to love God and neighborûwas given at the Last Supper just before his death: "Do this is memory of me." Indeed, a case can be made that to "do this" is the source and summit of the way Christians carry out Jesus' love-mandate. Of course, Christians have debated what it means to "do this," and these debates have all too often led to divisions within and between themûdebates over leavened and unleavened bread, reception of the cup, real presence and sacrifice, "open" or "closed" communion, this Supper and the hunger of the world. These divisions seem to fly in the face of Jesus' mandate, causing some to wonder whether this is "really" the Lord's Supper we celebrate (compare 1 Corinthians 11). Everything turns on just what it means to "do this." The purpose of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology's 2012 conference was to address at least some of the many aspects of this questionûto address them together, as Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox pastors and theologians, and all participants in the Supper. Book jacket.Read less