For January 12th

“And He took the cup, and when He had given thanks He said, ‘Take this, and divide it among yourselves…And He took the bread, and after He had given thanks, He broke it, and gave it to them saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Luke 22:17-19

Eucharist-a Christian sacrament in which bread and wine are consecrated, distributed and consumed in commemoration of the passion and death of Christ (Funk & Wagnalls, New Comprehensive International Dictionary of the English Language, 1980)

“With an expiration of less than 12 hours, what does Jesus count as all most important? ‘And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them…’… In the original language, ‘he gave thanks’ reads ‘eucharisteo’… The root word of eucharisteo is charis, meaning ‘grace. Jesus took the bread and saw it as grace and gave thanks. He took the bread and knew it to be gift (blessing) and gave thanks…Eucharisteo, thanksgiving, envelopes the Greek word for grace, charis. But it also holds its derivative, the Greek word chara, meaning ‘joy’…Deep chara joy is found only at the table of the euCHARisteo –the table of thanksgiving…Is the height of my chara joy dependent on the depths of my eucharisteo thanks?...As long as thanks is possible, then joy is always possible…Eucharisteo is the central symbol of Christianity. Thanksgiving.”

Ann Voscamp, “One Thousand Gifts”, (2010)