Discourses at the Communion on Fridays

Introduction

The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, Eucharist, or Holy Communion is regarded by many Christians as the central rite of the Christian religion . Yet in the history of Christian thought there is little liturgical literature, either dogmatic or popular, that focuses reflectively on the appropriate penitential posture for participation in this sacred ritual or on its personal import for the individual communicant who partakes of the holy meal. The publication of a series of communion discourses by the Danish philosopher of religion and Christian thinker Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) constitutes a unique contribution to the phenomenology of religion in this regard. Written with communicants of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark specifically in mind but potentially edifying for every individual regardless of his or her religious affiliation, Kierkegaard’s communion discourses fill a major void in this genre of religious discourse. Among his many religious and philosophical works, all produced in the course of little more than a decade, Kierkegaard wrote a total of thirteen discourses for the communion on Fridays, which was his favorite time to take communion in his native city of Copenhagen, where communion services were regularly held in Lutheran churches on Fridays, Sundays, and holy days.1 Three of these discourses were actually delivered by Kierkegaard at the Church of Our Lady in the parish where he lived and worked as an independent author.2 By his own admission, Kierkegaard wrote and spoke “without authority” since he was not an ordained minister or teacher, although he attended the pastoral seminary for a year after completing his undergraduate Introduction • 1. Niels Cappelørn, “Søren Kierkegaard at Friday Communion in the Church of Our Lady,” trans. K. Brian Söderquist, in IKC:WA, 259, 276–78. 2. Ibid., 283–85. Introduction 2 degree in theology at Copenhagen University and was later awarded a magister or doctoral degree in philosophy by the same institution. Nor did Kierkegaard claim to be an extraordinary Christian or truthwitness who had suffered for the faith; he claimed only to be “a singular kind of poet and thinker” who sought in his writings to depict and illuminate Christianity in its utmost ideality and integrity in the hope that it might become an existential possibility for every human being.3 Of the thirteen communion discourses written by Kierkegaard, twelve were published under the title “Discourses at the Communion on Fridays” in groups of seven (Part IV of Christian Discourses in 1848), three (1849), and two (1851). The remaining communion discourse , which was delivered by Kierkegaard at a Friday communion service in 1848, was published as the first of seven “Christian Expositions ” that make up No. III, “From on High He Will Draw All to Himself ,” of Practice in Christianity (1850). All of these expositions, which share the same or a slightly variant format consisting of an opening prayer, biblical text, and exposition of the text, were originally intended to be communion discourses.4 After much internal debate, however , Kierkegaard changed his mind because he had decided to publish Practice in Christianity pseudonymously and therefore impersonally, which was not in keeping with the personal character of a communion discourse.5 With the exception of the one communion discourse published pseudonymously as a Christian exposition in Practice in Christianity, then, all of Kierkegaard’s communion discourses were published under his own name and unquestionably reflect his own views. One other discourse, An Upbuilding Discourse (1850), was also originally planned to be published as a communion discourse and then as a Christian discourse before receiving its final designation as an upbuilding discourse.6 Numerous texts and initial drafts for other communion discourses that were never written or completed were also recorded in Kierkegaard’s journals.7 We are thus left with only thirteen discourses that were actually published and/or delivered as communion discourses in Kierkegaard’s authorship. 3. JP 6:6390–91, 6497, 6511, 6521; WA, 165; AN, 129–30. 4. JP 6:6245. 5. JP 6:6417, 6487; SKP X 5 B 99, 101. 6. WA, 261. 7. JP 2:2001; JP 4:3917–23, 3925–26, 3936–37, 3942, 6:6359; SKP VIII 1 A 567, 628; SKP X 1 A 29; SKP X 2 A 60. See also IKC:WA, 286 and 287n103. Introduction 3 Since the communion discourses were published at different times and appear either independently or as part of other works in Kierkegaard ’s authorship, it...