Corpus Christi 2020
The Irish used to have a saying, “It is the Mass that matters.” For them, recovering particularly from the Great Potato Famine in the 19th century, the Eucharist was the great source of identity in an environment that was incredibly oppressive. The celebration of the Mass was the rock of their existence in a sea of social hostility which threatened to engulf them. We recall even the famous Mass rocks ‑ those rocks on which Masses were celebrated set out in the countryside away from the detection of the English invaders.
The saying, “It is the Mass that matters” followed the Irish Diaspora to our own shores where the Eucharist has continued to be the primary means by which we gather as a Catholic community. Even though our communities are no longer affected by the prejudice and suspicion the Irish faced, and even whilst so many of our younger generation seem not to find meaning in the celebration of the Mass, for those of us who do gather around both the Table of the Word and of the Lord with regularity, we know that it is the Mass that matters. Here we find the nourishment for our week and our life, a still point in the midst of all the demands that we face, a reference of meaning in the struggles we have in life and about life.
Perhaps it is the habit of weekly Eucharist into which we have fallen that gives us this anchor; maybe it is the ritual itself that, in its stumbling and stuttering way, speaks to us of the infinite in the finitude of our world. Perhaps we are not too conscious of why this ritual action has such constancy in our life. And yet we know that it matters; we sense that we are being drawn into something by being here – something beyond ourselves and yet, at the same time, something that is within us.
These last months have placed a great stress on our religious practice. We have not been able to gather for Mass because of restrictions in the face of the historic pandemic, and even now our capacity remains limited. And yet, these same months have clarified for us just how important the celebration of the Eucharist is in our Christian and Catholic lives. Hopefully, it has especially deepened our appreciation of the centrality of the mystery of the Eucharist in our Christian lives, and what the Eucharist is truly about: the community of faith gathering in the name of Jesus, hearing the Word of God through memory of him, repeating his gesture of self-emptying become a self-giving, and expressing our fellowship with one another (Chauvet). In such a way our lives are shaped, themselves, to become Eucharistic. The Eucharist is the Christian act. It is what defines us; it is what makes us who we are.
The Eucharist is given to us as a four-act drama. We take, bless, break and share bread. We take, bless, pour and share wine. These are the four genuinely Eucharistic activities: taking, blessing, breaking and pouring, and sharing. They are the activities at the heart of the great Eucharistic accounts in the Gospels. Yet, one of the things that has become clear is that in some ways some of us may have reduced the Eucharistic Mystery to but one aspect of it, the reception of Holy Communion in a way that regards this in isolation from the fullness of the Mystery itself. Yes, we are nourished by Christ’s own Body and Blood, his very life, by our sharing the Bread and the Wine. But our sharing is the outcome of our gathering, our listening to the Word, our remembrance of his gesture of self-giving expressed in ritual form through the Great Prayer of the Eucharist. If we but share, without taking, blessing and breaking then we have denied three of the essential dimensions of the Eucharistic action. To receive Communion outside the full context of the Mass should be limited, then, to those most exceptional circumstances, reserved for those who are sick and dying, for those who can never be a part of the worshipping community because of their circumstances. In their case, the Eucharist is brought to them to share in the celebration of Mass and so to include them in the prayer and worship of the community.
The reception of Communion as an act isolated from the full celebration of the Mass tears the fabric of the Eucharistic Mystery and it weakens our sense of what the Eucharist is fully about. In recent decades new practices have emerged, regrettably, in which Holy Communion is received as a substitute for Mass at those times when, for whatever reason, a priest is not available to celebrate. This is most recent and has never been the historical practice of the Church. Though there may be exceptional circumstances in very isolated communities where the Sunday Assembly gathers without a priest and the Blessed Sacrament is distributed, the proliferation of the practice has done great harm to a genuine understanding of the Eucharist. It is wrong both theologically and pastorally. It is much better at such times for communities to gather celebrating other forms of prayer from the richness of our Tradition, and to join in anticipation of the celebration of the Eucharist to follow. The celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours on such occasions is truly a much more authentic expression of the community at prayer. These last months have taught us that we can live with anticipation and expectation for the Eucharist, and that this anticipation and expectation in fact deepen our authentic hunger for the Eucharist, rather than lessen it. What we have learnt in these months must now translate into reformed practices such that we resituate our hunger to receive the Lord fully into the integrity of the Mass and not independently of it.
And in this way, we recognise again the importance of the community as the Risen Body of the Lord with its own various parts and roles being the proper locus for our sharing in the Eucharist. Again, we must be careful not to assume the individualistic mentality of our time before the Mystery of the Eucharist. It was fascinating to hear comments last week praising those who put the cause for which there were many public demonstrations ahead of concern for their own safety. But social restrictions are not in place simply for my own safety. They are in place for the safety of others. It is the concern not for me but for others that makes us compliant with the restrictions. Yet, a self-centred attitude can creep in, too, to our understanding of the Eucharist. Then the reception of Communion becomes entirely a personal, subjective devotion. At worst, it becomes thought of as a personal right. The Eucharist is never a right we have. It is always a gift given to us, a gift we should never presume but for which we should always receive with gratitude and humility.
And also, one we receive with responsibility and accountability. For those actions that constitute the very heart of the Eucharist mystery – taking, blessing, breaking and sharing – are the activities in which we must be drawn into in our lives. In other words what we do in the Eucharist, we must do in our own lives. Our lives, themselves, become Eucharistic when we able to take our lives, hold them with respect and with attentiveness, when we are able to bless them by reverencing them, listening to them, when we break open the experiences that we have wondering at the invitation that is present at the heart of them, and when we give ourselves over to others in gestures which nourish the lives of others. We take, bless, break and share bread. What we do with the bread and wine, we are to do with our own lives. The Eucharist thus becomes the paradigm for how we are to live.
This year, in the midst of the historic circumstances through which we have journeyed, is the most opportune time for us to restore our genuinely ecclesial and Catholic understanding and practice of Eucharist. The time of lockdown in the pandemic has taught us many things; it has helped us clarify what is most important for us. It has also acted as a corrective for a number of things we have presumed and practiced hitherto. Now is the opportunity to renew the genuine place of the celebration of the Eucharist. It is the opportune time to deepen our sense of its meaning and its practice. At every Mass, we gather, we listen, we take, bless, break and share bread. We take, bless, pour and share wine. We celebrate the presence of Christ’s life. His life we spread as we take, bless, break open and pour and share our own lives with others.
It is not surprising that it is the Mass that matters.
