A Eucharist Builds the Community of the Church by Paul J. Bernier, SSS We live in a fragmented world.

Many people feel polarized from one another, whether this be because of economic disparity, racial differences, or simply due to the distances which separate us from others. Individualism seems to be an American virtue, and the lone ranger is an old folk hero. In America, families tend to be nuclear except in the Latin, Asian or Native American cultures. Thus, a sense of relatedness with others tends to get reduced to fewer and fewer people. Even the extended families of older cultures are giving way to a form of rugged individualism, where personal freedom becomes the key virtue. This is visible even in the churches. Unless the church is full, people often space themselves out, sitting as far away as possible from others. Everyone likes to sit in his or her own space, wanting only to be alone with God. We find talking before Mass a distraction, something that prevents us from praying. And, especially in our larger cities, we can worship in the same church all our lives and hardly know most of the people with whom we pray week after week. Yet, week after week, Sunday after Sunday, we come together to celebrate something entirely different. We celebrate community. We have been coming together each Sunday as a church community in this way for the past 2,000 years because it is Jesus himself who has asked us to do this in memory of him. In every Mass, when we recall the meal that Jesus held with his friends the night before he died, we take the bread and say, This is my body, which will be given up for you. We take the cup of wine and say, This is the cup of my blood... [which] will be shed for you... so that sins may be forgiven. We then add, Do this in memory of me. In order to understand what we are asked to do, what we are asked to remember, we must take a closer look at what the Mass is all about. After all, the mystery of the Eucharist, the gift of Christs Body and Blood, is at the heart of the church. It is what makes us a church. It is, in the words of Vatican Council II, the source and summit of Christian life. In one sense, the Mass is very simple. Yet, at the same time, it is something so profound that it takes a lifetime to appreciate it. It is so easy to take it for granted, to see it, perhaps, only as an obligation, as something which we have to do as Catholics. Some people reduce it to a private devotion, a moment when they can be alone with Jesus and receive him in communion. While this is not bad, it falls far short of what the Mass is really all about. Jesus tells us in the St. Johns Gospel (15:1-8) that he is the vine and we the branches. He reminds us that only when joined to him can we bear much fruit. Jesus compares himself to a long and fruitful vine from which the church draws its life. We are the branches that

draw our life from him. There is not only one branch on that vine. Our relationship with Jesus is not a private one. Our gathering together on Sunday is not to be alone with Jesus. Sunday is not a question of Jesus and me; it is Jesus and we. When we think of the Mass as building the community of the church, three things should be kept in mind: 1) The Mass is not about things, it is about people. That is, the main focus is not on the bread and wine that is consecrated to become the Body and Blood of Christ. It is about Christs family that gathers together to share that Bread and Wine in memory of Him. 2) The Mass is a verb, not a noun. It is an action, not some static thing. It is what we do as branches on Jesus vine, when we come together as members of his family. 3) The most important thing that happens on Sunday is that we gather together as members of Christs Body. For when we gather in his name, he is present in the community that is here. Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am present among them (Mt 18:20). At Mass, we give the world visible proof that Jesus really gives us life, that we are alive in him. A word about each of these three points. The Mass is about Christs people. Every time the priest consecrates the precious blood of Christ, he says, This is the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. Gods making a covenant with us reminds us that we have been redeemed by being made members of Christs family. The Catholic Church has always taught this. It is not simply by accepting Jesus as our personal savior that we are filled with his grace. It is by becoming a baptized and living member of his church. God chose us as a people to make us his own. Jesus shed his blood that we might all become brothers and sisters, able to call God our Father. This means that when we come together each Sunday, a church full of people is not 1000 people doing the same thing at the same time. It is [supposed to be] one family, praising and worshiping God with one mind and heart. A family, a community, is not a mob or a crowd. When we go to a ball game or a movie, there are many other people there doing the same thing that we are. But they are not a community. They are there as individuals. They dont know each other, dont care about each other, dont communicate, and will probably never see each other again. There is no real relationship binding them together. At Mass, however, we gather precisely as brothers and sisters of Jesus. He is the one who has called us, and who has shared his life with us. We gather at his table in order to be fed with his word and with his flesh. We care about one another because, as St. John has told us, his one commandment to us is that we love one another. Since Vatican II, the church has added something very important to all the new Eucharistic Prayers. This is a special petition that God send the Holy Spirit upon us. This prayer has two parts. The first part is easy to recognize: when the priest stretches out his hands over the bread and wine, he prays that God send the Holy Spirit to transform the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. He then recites the words of institution. However, after the memorial acclamation, we again pray to the Holy Spirit. This time we ask him to transform us! We pray that we who share in the body and blood of Christ might truly become one body, one spirit in him. This prayer is one which is found in all the early Eucharistic Prayers of the church. It is a reminder that the purpose of the mass is to make us one, so that we might be seen to be

the true body of Christ. We thereby give to the world a powerful witness to the reality of Christs grace. Communion gives us a share in Christs life, forging new links between us, and making all of us more fruitful branches on his vine. We show that we really are his people. The Mass is an action. This is why we can say that the Mass is an action. It is something we have to do, something we have to be involved in. Unfortunately, in the past we tended to refer to the sacraments in a passive way. We talked about hearing or going to Mass (as if it were a movie), receiving or taking communion (as if it were a thing). Vatican II has told us that it is a celebration. We may not be used to that way of thinking. Yet, the Eucharist is where we celebrate who we are as church. It is where we are asked to bring full, conscious and active participation to each liturgy. In a very real sense, we will get as much out of the Mass as we put into it. All of you have heard people say that they find the Mass boring, that they dont get anything out of it. Heres the mistake! Jesus does not expect us to come here to church with our hands always out to receive something: grace, life, love, peace, whatever. If our hands are out, they should be out not so much to receive, but to give! We are not only supposed to make withdrawals from the church, we are supposed to make deposits each week helping to build the body of Christ. Our presence and full sharing makes it easier for others to participate. This is why the church encourages joining in the prayers and singing, and why more and more laity are asked to be lectors or Eucharistic Ministers. It is why all are asked to be attentive to what is going on at the altar. It is not the time for private devotions, for reciting novenas of one sort or another, or for praying the rosary. Those are all good in their own time. But when the Mass is being celebrated, we celebrate the reality of Jesus giving himself completely for our sakes, and he asks us to be as completely attentive to him as he was to us. We gather for several reasons. We come together first of all as Christs family. Then we settle down to listen to his word, to be both nourished and challenged by that word. We are then fed at the table of Christs flesh and join in receiving his body and blood. Finally, we are sent forth to live our faith more fully in the week that lies ahead, making it an active reality in our lives. This is the reality of the Mass. Christ is present in his community. Many people regard the consecration as the high point of the Mass. This idea grew especially in the days when almost no one went to communion, and attention shifted to what we saw as the moment of Christs becoming present among us. Do we focus on the consecration and in our minds eye imagine Jesus coming from heaven and becoming present in the bread and wine? There is no doubt: Jesus does become present in the bread and wine. However, it is not as if before the consecration there were a vacuum in the church. Jesus does not become present in a place where he was totally absent before the consecration! Vatican II, as well as Pope Paul VI (in his encyclical Mysterium fidei) have reminded us that there are various ways in which Christ is present in his church. The first of these is his presence in the community that gathers in his name. (He is also present in the word

that is proclaimed, and in the priest who presides, as well, of course, in the consecrated bread and wine.) However, the fact that the community gathers together is what makes the celebration, the entire liturgy, possible. Being aware of the reality of Christs presence in the community is extremely important, as it makes us realize our own dignity. It also stresses the responsibility that is ours at each Eucharist. There we are asked to join in not only as passive spectators, but as people celebrating a family feast. It is our feast, our celebration that we make possible. As St. Augustine said years ago, The priest says Body of Christ, and you answer, Amen. It is your own mystery that you place on the altar; you say Amen to what you are! (Sermon 272). The central ethic of love which St. John speaks of in the Gospel (13:34-35; 15:9-17) and which runs through the Johan nine letters, hinges on a proper appreciation of the true nature of Christian community. This may be especially difficult if our parishes are anonymous bodies reflecting the anonymity of society. We need to make the effort to see one another as brothers and sisters, with a sense of responsibility and concern for one another. This is why St. John tells us that our love should be something real and active, and that we express our love for God by the love that we show for one another. How can we do that in our parishes? First of all, by reminding ourselves that when we come together to celebrate the Eucharist, we do so as members of Christs Body, not as individuals. As St. Paul told the Galatians, because of our baptism we are no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; we are all one in Christ Jesus. The Eucharist is a reminder that what tends to polarize us and discriminate between peoples in the world around us has no place in the church. The Eucharist demands that we break down whatever tends to divide us from one another. Within families, that means the willingness the eagerness even to forgive. It means recognizing that lack of unity is not from God. Jesus wants us to share the same life, to be one as he and the Father are one. Only when we learn to heal wounds, to reach out to the poor and sick, to become genuine peacemakers in our world, will we appreciate what the Eucharist is all about. This requires that we develop a compassionate heart, and that we see our eucharistic responsibility as leading us to make a positive contribution to improving the world in which we live. Every Eucharist should develop in us the sensitivity to the various ways in which we can spread Christs love, helping to make the parish a true community where people can say of us, as they did of the early church, They were all of one mind and heart (Acts 4:32).###