EUCHARISTIC THEOLOGY AND PRACTICE

- Paul Bernier, SSS

It is claimed that the Eucharist is the source and summit of Christian life. That sounds very nice. We may have used the expression ourselves more than once. But we know that it is simply not true. Most of the Catholic world gets along very well without the Eucharist. The United States may be the only country in the world where the majority of the people celebrate the Eucharist regularly each week. Many "Catholic" countries see far fewer. In Poland, for example, only some 30% regularly attend weekly Mass.

Furthermore, our own Church practice seems almost calculated to preventing more and more people from making Eucharist the center of their lives. As the number of priests goes down and the mean age rises, we seem to be more concerned to devise rituals for "priestless" Sundays, than we are in providing sufficient priests. We need not even touch the theologically dangerous minefield of women's ordination. The refusal to even consider the ordination of married men in the Roman Church, despite the admission that there is no theological reason why this could not be done, is sufficient to show that maintaining a rule like celibacy is more important than regular Eucharist.

Furthermore, much of what is written about the situation and Eucharistic practice in general, seems to reinforce an outdated piety, one that is becoming less and less meaningful for a great number of people. To provide rituals whereby catechists can give communion with hosts consecrated weeks before, or brought from distant place is not much different from providing circuit-riding priests who can travel from place to place to say Mass for congregations that they do not know or otherwise minister to. It reduces the Eucharist to magic, turns priests into sacred figures independent of any congregation, and makes Eucharist itself a private devotion of individuals rather than a celebration of the entire Church. If our catechesis and practice does not keep this in mind, we risk concerning ourselves with external display that has little lasting effect. We also will come close to throwing away our sacramental heritage.

I would suggest that our thinking of the Eucharist in the life of the community needs to keep two things in mind. First, we must pass from a devotional (private, individualistic) understanding of the Eucharist to a communal one, and from a passive to an active appreciation of the meaning of the sacrament.

From Eucharist as Devotion
We have often witnessed the phenomenon of celebrating the liturgy only to notice a congregation that is unresponsive. They do not participate actively. Some may even be saying the rosary or pursuing some other devotion or piety. This is not to condemn devotions. Many of them have been consecrated by years of tradition. Some go back hundreds of years and are to a certain extent part of a craving for meditation that characterized medieval piety. However, the Eucharist is not simply another devotion, and devotions during Mass show how little people realize what is really going on each Sunday.

In older days, devotions during Mass might have been understandable, since people understood so little of what was really happening, and were really unable to participate actively. It is only in modern time that we were allowed to even translate the ritual into the vernacular. When the liturgy was totally imcomprehensible for most people, they turned instead to devotion of various kinds that gave them more immediate contact with the divine especially because the saints seemed closer somehow, to the everyday world.

The lack of participation stemming from medieval times also comes from excessive focus on the divinity of Christ, and a consequent forgetting of the fact that he is also true man. In those days Christ was seen in his divinity rather than his humanity. The awe of his majesty and fear of his judgment on their sinfulness acted to prevent people from developing a healthy personal relationship with the Lord.

The fact that communion at least once a year had to be mandated, shows the extent to which people felt unworthy to receive. For some this was because of a sense of personal sinfulness. We still have remnants of this in the feeling on the part of many that one should go to confession before approaching the Lord's Table.

If we must ask how the average person views the Eucharist, we might note that there are a variety of responses. Some people almost never approach the Eucharist. We are not dealing here with people who have almost little or no opportunity to do so, but more with those for whom Eucharist has no meaning for their personal lives. It simply does not enter in as being important or something worth doing for them. They may still consider themselves Catholic, and have their children baptized, but as far as the Eucharist is concerned it has no real value for their lives.

Another group does attend Mass. But it is done out of a sense of obligation, because it is a law of the Church. But they have little understanding of why it is considered so important. It seems more like an external obligation which has little personal meaning. This group usually participates only minimally and has little appreciation of how central Eucharist is to the very nature of the Church, to their own relationship with Christ and with each other, or how it is meant to affect daily life. In many cases devotions act as a substitute for liturgical life.

Yet a third group does find mass important. These have evolved a personal spirituality, and the Eucharist has become the high-point of their relationship with Jesus. But their understanding of it is basically a Jesus-and-me mentality. The communal dimensions of Eucharist are ignored. Even in the celebration it matters little to them whether they are alone or crowded into a pew with others, or even who the others are. Even in a full Church they are there as a crowd, not as a community, because they have come to see the Mass mainly as a chance to deepen their personal relationship with Christ, to receive communion for the grace and strength they need to face the day. It is for them the highest devotion possible.

The problem with the devotional approach is that it ignores the communal dimension of Eucharist. It becomes a private relationship rather than an ecclesial one. We have been told by the Vatican Council that the Eucharist is the source and summit of Christian life. The Fathers of the Church used to say that it was the Eucharist that made the Church. These statements are only pious hopes unless the Eucharist is seen as the action of the entire Christian community gathered to express its identity. This implies, first of all, a far greater emphasis on the community that is gathered.
It is interesting that one of the first names given to the Eucharist in the New Testament is "ekklesia" - "church". (Cf. 1 Cor. 11:18; depending on the translation we read, when you meet "as a church" or "when you gather". It is obvious that it is the Eucharist that is being referred to.) In the early Church the theology and understanding of what it meant to be Church and to celebrate Eucharist were one and the same.

We have been reminded by the Constitution on the Liturgy as well as Pope Paul VI Encyclical 'Mysterium Fidei' that there are other real presences of Christ in the Church. One of the main ones is his presence in the assembly gathered in his name to proclaim the liberation he has wrought by his death and resurrection, and the communion that should result from our being able to gather together at the Table of the Lord.

We come to Eucharist to be missioned, to continue the work of Christ. It may be possible to do this if we regard the Eucharist as the highest and greatest of devotions. But, ignoring the fact that Eucharist is actually the public worship of all of God's people does nothing to give us a proper sense of identity. Neither does it liberate the individual from private seclusion and give a sense of mission that comes from realizing our responsibilities as part of the new covenant people. The symbolism of a community gathered by the Lord is a powerful reminder that we are called to continue the work of establishing the kingdom for which Jesus lived and died. This is what it means to be Church.

From Passive to Active Eucharist
Even our language betrays a basically passive understanding of Eucharist. People 'attend' Mass or they 'hear' it. But 'going to' Mass or 'assisting' at it puts us merely in the role of spectators, observers of what is going on rather than part of the action. Again, there are many historical reasons for this state of affairs. For years, when the Mass was in Latin there was little understanding of what was going on at the altar. The priest's back effectively hid whatever he might be doing as well. Even the old liturgical practice of having the priest repeat (in Latin) anything that the congregation might sing or say, reinforced the impression that the role of the congregation was not important and added nothing of value to the celebration.

Until recent years also the communion rails effectively segregated the congregation from what was happening in the sanctuary. The impression was given that there was where the action took place: there was no room for the people. Lectors and eucharistic ministers are very recent. The point is that distinction between clergy and laity was even visibly represented in our Churches so that people naturally felt that they really had no role to play in the liturgical action.

What then were they to do? If they went at all it was basically to receive something from God. People went to Church to deepen their relationship with Jesus, or to receive grace, or to be enlightened. Perhaps they even looked forward to receiving communion and the sacramental encounter that that permitted. But in all this, they were there with their hands out. Out to receive rather than to give. And this is the crux of the problem.

This essentially passive attitude makes it impossible to really enter into the eucharistic action. For we see the action as belonging to someone else - to the priest, or to Jesus. We do not see it as our action as well. Thus the eucharistic prayer itself becomes an exercise in nostalgia or historical memory of what Jesus did for us almost 2000 years ago. But, if our sacramental encounter with the risen Lord has any meaning at all, it is Jesus' meeting us on our life's journey and inviting us to join in solidarity with him, to become agents of the world's salvation.

"Do this in memory of me". We repeat these words at each Eucharist. The tendency is to see them as only to the words of the priest. Even worse, we tend to think of them as applying only to the words of consecration. But Jesus never asked us to repeat his words. Nor did he request us to celebrate a beautiful liturgical ceremony in his memory. He asked us all to do what he himself was doing at the moment. And that was preparing to give his life for the salvation of the world. St. John's Ch. 13 shows Jesus washing the feet of his disciples "as an example" of what we ourselves should be doing for one another. All in memory of him. Eucharist asks us to join with Jesus in the task of the world's salvation.

That means that proclaiming to all that "This is my body which is given for you" and also "my blood which is poured out for you" are but empty words unless they signify our willingness to make them our own. Eucharist is solidarity. Jesus invites us to his table that he might inspire us with his vision and join us with himself in the salvation of others. This is the missionary dimension of Church and Eucharist. But, if our Eucharists in the past have been ineffectual in transforming people's lives, in making people more committed to the work of Christ, perhaps it is because people have felt that they were there to receive rather than to give. The hands we have outstretched are not only to receive the body of Christ, they are in turn to give him to others. This is the essence of Christian mission. And it belongs to the entire people by reason of their baptism.

Conclusions
As we face a shortage of priestly ministers, we should become more and more concerned about the many who do not benefit from the gift of the Eucharist. We have to ask if it is more important to set arbitrary requirements for priests than it is for the Christian community to have Eucharist. If we decide that it is, we will continue to bemoan the lack of generosity on the part of our youth and try stretching our dwindling resources to provide as many Masses as possible.

However, having people make the Eucharist the center of their lives does not mean that we should lose sight of the quality as well as the quantity of our Eucharists. We do not need poorer Eucharists, those tinged with magic, devotional or passive ceremonies. If we are to make any inroads in catechizing the people as to the importance of Eucharist, we have to present a view of it that is more responsive to the mind of Christ and to the needs of people today.

Passive and devotional Eucharists have the sad tendency to become isolated from real life. They have nothing to say about the real world of politics, economics or social realities. Thus the tendency to privatize Eucharist and our relationship with Jesus strikes at the root of the nature of Christian community. We are a sacramental people and a sacramental Church. Sacraments, that is, of the saving power of Christ.

In our efforts to build the Church, in the various liturgies and catechetical or homiletic approaches we take in our ministry, we should keep in mind the importance not only of getting more people to Church, but of getting them to appreciate what they are doing there. The Eucharist is a challenge to the Church and to the world that our common problems will be solved only when we can learn to love one another the way Jesus loved us - love incidentally that can lead even to giving our lives for one another. Each time we celebrate Eucharist we proclaim the death of the one who has given his life for us, and who looks to us to do the same. It is this active love and commitment that is the heart of the Eucharist.

We are one body in Christ. This is a point St. Paul insisted on: we who eat the one bread become one body in Christ. The mystery of our incorporation will never be understood without our active and ecclesial appreciation of the mystery of faith we celebrate at the altar.

If the Eucharist is not the source and summit of Christian life, it may be because we say one thing and practice another. People do not understand subtle theological distinctions. They know if we are making an effort to make the Eucharist available or not. And this speaks louder than anything else.

Perhaps even more important, if our practice in the years ahead is not to reinforce an individualistic and devotional piety, we need to restore the Eucharist to its centrality in the life of the community. There it can be seen for what it truly is: a gift of Christ to his people. It characterizes us as a community. For Christ continues to invite us to his table in order that we grow in the realization of what it means to be his body. What can we do to make this a reality?

Paul Bernier, Eucharist, Celebrating Its Rhythms in our Lives, Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame, 1993, 9-14