Dear brothers and sisters,
We have today the great joy of witnessing the reception of Caitlin Mahoney into the full communion of the Catholic Church, as well as sealing with the seven-fold gift of the Holy Spirit through the Sacrament of Confirmation. We also have the great joy of witnessing the incorporation of Gentry Mahoney into the Body of Christ through the Sacrament of Baptism. We do this in the midst of the liturgical celebration of the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ. The notion of communion is at the heart of each of these celebrations.
Caitlin, in a few moments, you will make your profession of
faith in the teachings of the Catholic Church. The Church will receive you
gladly as a member of the Baptized because, as Saint Paul says, there is “one
Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Ephesians 4:5). Your communion with the Body of Christ
began when you were baptized into a Baptist profession of faith. It was in this
community that you came to know and love Christ Jesus; today you respond to the
Lord’s call to enter more deeply into the knowledge and love of him by
receiving the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as the grace of her Baptism is
strengthened and through the reception of the Eucharist. This morning the Lord
will complete your incorporation, your initiation, into his Body, the Church,
even as he begins Gentry’s incorporation and initiation into his Body.
A new movie called Wildcat playing now in some theaters can help us understand the Eucharist more deeply. Wildcat is about the life of the Catholic author Flannery O’Connor who died of lupus at the age of 39 in 1964. She lived in the deep south where anti-Catholic sentiments were and remain strong. Her stories, though often intentionally gritty and uncompromising as regards the painful realities of life, are imbued with a forceful Catholic ethos.
The movie portrays a dinner party at which Flannery spoke very bluntly about the mystery of the Eucharist. This is how she recounts it in one of her letters:
I was once, five or six years ago, taken by some friends to have
dinner with Mary McCarthy… She departed the Church at the age of 15 and is a
Big Intellectual. …I hadn’t opened my mouth once, there being nothing for me in
such company to say… Having me there was like having a dog present who had been
trained to say a few words but overcome with inadequacy had forgotten them.
Well, toward morning the conversation turned on the Eucharist, which I, being
the Catholic, was obviously supposed to defend. Mrs. Broadwater said when she
was a child and received the Host she thought of it as the Holy Ghost, He being
the “most portable” person of the Trinity; now she thought of it as a symbol
and implied that it was a pretty good one. I then said, in a very shaky voice,
“Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.” That was all the defense I was
capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about
it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all
the rest of life is expendable.[1]
The more polite among us might say she spoke too forcefully, but she said nothing wrong or incorrect. “In its bluntness, clarity, and directness, Flannery O’Connor’s remark is one of the best statements of the Catholic difference in regard to the Eucharist.”[2]
Here we might well ask why Flannery was right to say, “if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.” If what appears to be bread and wine is merely a symbol of the Body and Blood of the Lord shed and offered out of love for us, then we commit idolatry when we kneel before it and it is rightly consigned to hell. But if what appears to be bread and wine has actually become the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus through the power of his own words spoken by the priest, then it really is the inexependable center of all existence for it is God himself; it cannot be consigned to hell. Because Jesus cannot command us to do anything immoral or idolatrous, we have the certainty that the Eucharist – the good gift – is what he says it is: his very self, given to the Father and to us in love. This is why those who call the Eucharist nothing more than a symbol break communion with his Body and “call Our Lord a fraud to His face.”[3]
When Saint Augustine spoke about the reception of the Eucharist, of Holy Communion, he said something rather profound:
Inside each of you, thoughts like these are rising: "Our Lord Jesus Christ, we know the source of his flesh; he took it from the virgin Mary. Like any infant, he was nursed and nourished; he grew; became a youngster; suffered persecution from his own people. To the wood he was nailed; on the wood he died; from the wood, his body was taken down and buried. On the third day (as he willed) he rose; he ascended bodily into heaven whence he will come to judge the living and the dead. There he dwells even now, seated at God's right. So how can bread be his body? And what about the cup? How can it (or what it contains) be his blood?" My friends, these realities are called sacraments because in them one thing is seen, while another is grasped. What is seen is a mere physical likeness; what is grasped bears spiritual fruit. So now, if you want to understand the body of Christ, listen to the Apostle Paul speaking to the faithful: "Now you are Christ’s body, and individually parts of it" (I Corinthians 12:27). If you, therefore, are Christ's body and members, it is your own mystery that is placed on the Lord's table! It is your own mystery that you are receiving! You are saying "Amen" to what you are: your response is a personal signature, affirming your faith. When you hear "The body of Christ," you reply "Amen." Be a member of Christ's body, then, so that your "Amen" may ring true![4]
In order for our Amen to ring
true we must be in union with Christ and with his Body, the Church he
established; we must be in communion with him and his members. How do we enter
into this union? Saint Paul speaks of being baptized into Christ as the means
by which we are united to Christ (cf. Romans 6:3 and Galatians 3:27).
Later Christian communities rejected the universal Church’s ancient biblical and perennial teaching on the reality of the Eucharist, that it is not just a symbol but is actually the very Body and Blood, soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ. This departure from the teaching of the Apostles was a great tragedy and wounded the Body of Christ.
Being united to him necessarily means being united to the members of his Body, the Church. This is why the Catholic Church does not have what others call an “open communion;” it is why not everyone is allowed to receive the Eucharist. The reason for this is not to exclude others but to recognize the differences in beliefs. The word “communion” means “union with”; and to say “Amen” to “The Body of Christ” and “The Blood of Christ” is to profess belief that the Eucharist is not merely a symbol. It is also to profess faith in what the Catholic Church teaches in terms of beliefs and morality.
Those who do not believe what we believe may not receive the Eucharist because they are not in union with us, and we do not want to make them liars in the house of God; we want to affirm their integrity. Similarly, Catholics who attend a Protestant service are not able to receive their communion because we are not in union with them, and we do not want to be liars in the house of God; we want to keep our integrity. We should each implore the Lord that his people will again be one flock under one shepherd, that the communion of his Body will be restored.
Caitlin, of your own free will you have asked to be received into the full communion of the Catholic Church. You have made your decision after careful thought under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I now invite you to come forward with your sponsor and in the presence of this community to profess the Catholic faith. In this faith you will be one with us for the first time at the Eucharistic table of the Lord Jesus, the sign of the Church’s unity. May your Amen and ours always ring true.
[1] Flannery O’Connor, The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor. Sally Fitzgerald, ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 1980), 124-125.
[2] Robert Barron, This Is My Body: A Call to Eucharistic Revival (Elk Grove Village, Illinois: Word on Fire, 2023), 69-70.
[3] J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 250 To Michael Tolkien, 1 November 1963. In The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Humphrey Carpenter, ed. (New York: William Morrow, 2023), 475.
[4] Saint Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 272.
No comments:
Post a Comment