The Holy Supper
Swedenborg
210 The Lord set up the holy supper so that through it, religion could be
united with heaven, and in this way with the Lord. So it is the most sacred
act of worship.
211 But we cannot know how this union takes place through the holy supper
unless we know something about the Bible's inner, spiritual meaning. Otherwise,
our thinking will not get beyond the outer, literal meaning. From the Bible's
inner, spiritual me aning, we can understand the meaning of body and blood,
of bread and wine, and of eating them.
212 In that meaning, the Lord's body, or flesh, symbolizes the goodness
that comes from love. Bread means the same thing. The Lord's blood is the
goodness that comes from faith. Wine means the same thing. Eating them is
making them a part of ourselves and uniting them with ourselves.
This is how the angels who are with us when we go to the holy supper understand
it, since they understand everything spiritually. So the sacredness of love
and faith flow into us from these angels, which means it is flowing through
heaven from the Lo rd. This is how the union takes place.
213 From this you can see that when we eat the bread, which is the body,
we are united with the Lord through the goodness in our love for him, which
comes from him. When we drink the wine, which is the blood, we are united
with the Lord through our fa ith in him, which also comes from him.
You should realize, though, that the holy supper only unites us with the
Lord when we have in us the goodness of loving and believing in the Lord,
which comes from him. When we have this, the holy supper does unite us with
him. When we do not, he is there with us but we are not united with him.
214 The holy supper also includes and embodies all the divine worship set
up in the Israelite religion. The burnt offerings and sacrifices that made
up most of that religion were all summed up in the single word "bread."
So the holy supper accomplishe s what all those burnt offerings and sacrifices
used to accomplish.