When I was in grade school, I always
wondered why my two grandmothers went to Communion so infrequently.
My German grandmother was very prayerful, and would get to Mass
whenever she could; she would say the rosary every day and had other
devotions. My Scotch-Irish grandmother was I guess, spiritual but
not religious, as they say today. She was married to a man who was
raised a Mormon, but didn't practice any religion. She would come to
Mass on Sunday and sit in the back of the church and say a rosary
while the priest said the Mass in Latin. I think I saw her receive
communion two or three times a year, usually on Easter and Christmas.
When you get into the history of the
practice of the reception of the Eucharist, it's interesting. In the
early days of the Church, all of those who participated in the
liturgy would receive. Fragments of the consecrated bread would be
brought to those too sick to come. It was truly considered Spiritual
food. Later, the church began to insist that a person who was a
sinner could not partake of the Eucharist. Initially sins like
apostasy and adultery and murder were what characterized a sinner.
However, as time went on and as the sacrament of penance evolved,
long lists of sins and appropriate penances were made to help
priests. More and more “mortal” sins appeared. Missing the
Sunday liturgy; insulting a priest; making a bad confession by not
disclosing all your sins, even the minor ones; being distracted
during mass – Along with this evolution of the understanding of sin
came the Jansenist movement which held that only a few souls would
make it to heaven, an idea that actually had a lot to do with the
origins of Protestantism.
My grandmothers were influenced by
this history. To them, receiving Holy Communion was a special
privilege requiring a lot of preparation. It was, after all, during
their young adulthood that Pius X urged the frequent reception of
Communion and making it available to children once they reached the
age of reason. But the damage had been done to my grandmothers.
The reaction to the idea that only
those without sin could receive was the rise of the veneration of the
Eucharist just as we do in Benediction and in Holy Hours before the
Blessed Sacrament.
The Feast of Corpus Christi, that is,
the Body of Christ, was the product of the veneration of the
Eucharist in this context. It was a special time to recall that
Jesus was keeping his promise to us that he would be with us always,
to the end of the world. It was a re-affirmation of the truth that
the Bread and Wine become the Real Sacramental presence of Jesus.
And in the days of infrequent communion it served as a substitute,
perhaps; people would sit in the presence of the Eucharist and pray
to the Lord. My grandmothers had no doubt at all in their minds that
Jesus was physically present.
Today we are almost back to those days
of the early church. Very few people would avoid receiving the
Eucharist because they feel too sinful. We don't have the sense any
more. And it seems as though very few of us sense the real presence
either. Holy Communion is casual. People receive and then walk out
the door before Mass is even over. And polls of American Catholics
suggest that almost half of those who go to Mass think the Eucharist
is just a symbol.
If the Eucharist is what the Church
says it is, we have to get back to the right sort of balance. We
need to show by our physical behavior as well as our mental prayer
that we truly believe Jesus is present in the Blessed Sacrament.
Sometimes that means we have to deliberately place ourselves in His
presence even when Mass is not going on. Jesus waits to hear us and
speak with us and while it's true that we could do this in our own
homes, there is something special about coming into his physical
presence. All of us who have families know that there is something
special when we get together with a loved one; email, text messages
and skyping don't really fill the gap. This is exactly why the Roman
Catholic Church has venerated the Eucharist for so long. How can we
really cultivate a personal relationship with Our Lord long distance,
as it were?
But the other side of the coin is
necessary as well. We are urged to receive the Eucharist as often as
possible – but as Saint Paul tells us, we are to receive it
worthily. What does that mean? Well, we should be in what we used to
call a “state of grace”. That means that we are conscious of our
sins and review our spiritual progress with our confessor every now
and then. But it also means that we approach the Eucharist recalling
what is happening – we are being fed the Body and Blood of Jesus.
It means that our whole being comes to the Eucharistic table with
reverence, not just our minds. We indicate by our postures and
gestures that we are approaching God himself, in the person of Jesus.
We prepare for communion by at least a few moments of reflection.
And after receiving we spend at least a few minutes focusing
entirely on the Lord who is now within us.
We Roman Catholics are so fortunate.
Unlike other Eucharistic churches, we usually can receive communion
every day. And in those other Churches the Lord is physically
present only during the Sunday liturgy; there is no practice of
reserving the eucharist, or having the opportunity for silent
adoration.
So on this feast of Corpus Christi let
us resolve to increase our devotion.
