Eucharist and Life - Part 5
To be Church is to be those called by God. Our calling is renewed every time we gather for the Eucharist. Implementation of the revised Roman Missal offers us an excellent opportunity to reflect on that calling. What is the deeper meaning of what we do at Mass, and what does that have to do with daily Christian life in the world? To what does Eucharist call us?
5. Called Together to Receive
To bring the Liturgy of the Eucharist to completion, the assembly recites the Lord's Prayer and exchanges a sign of peace. The bread is broken and all are invited to come to the table to receive Holy Communion.
There is deep meaning in the human act of breaking and sharing bread. To take our daily portion of bread, break it, and hand it to others to eat is to break the powerful attraction between our bread and our body. We postpone our own nourishment and put our lives on hold for the sake of the life of another. Life given for the life of another—that is also the heart of Christ’s sacrifice expressed and enacted in the simple act of breaking and sharing bread with his disciples. What Christ did, we are to do.
We then come in procession to the table to share the broken bread, to join in communion with Christ and one another. To the words, “The Body of Christ,” we answer “Amen.” Following the thought of St. Paul (2 Cor 10 and 11), St. Augustine reminds us that this is a double Amen, both to the body of Christ given to us sacramentally and to the Body of Christ that is the Church (Sermon 272). In saying this Amen to the one who is the Bread of Life we also commit ourselves to being and living as the Body of Christ in the world, to being bread for others. Our procession from the table back into the assembly is like the Emmaus walk. We are companions on the way with Christ and one another, strengthened with food for the journey ahead.
The liturgical dialogue of the gift reaches fulfillment in the act of communion. In response to God's gift of creation, we have brought our work, our lives, and our world to the table in the presentation of the gifts. In the Eucharistic Prayer, we have celebrated the memorial of the gift of salvation God has given us in the life, death and resurrection of Christ, and in response we then offered to God the gift of ourselves in union with Christ's self-gift. The liturgical dialogue of the gift between God and us reaches fulfillment and is sealed in the act of communion, in which “each give[s] the self to the other” (Miller, p. 36). And so, in the Prayer after Communion for Thursday within the Octave of Easter we pray:
Hear, O Lord, our prayers,
that this most holy exchange,
by which you have redeemed us,
may bring your help in this present life
and ensure for us eternal gladness.
This holy exchange of receiving and giving is not meant to end here, however. It ought to spiral out into our daily lives and expand to draw in those around us. The example of the early Church is instructive. St. Justin the Martyr recounts (c. 150) that the collection was taken up after Communion and used for widows, orphans, prisoners, strangers, and all those in need (Apology I, 67). A dim memory of this early practice is enshrined in our current directive for the Eucharistic celebration on Holy Thursday evening. If a collection is taken up, we are told, it is to be used only for those in need and not for the support of the local community, as on other days of the year. The dialogue of the gift can not be a closed circle; it must spiral out beyond the celebration. That is why the assembly is sent from Communion back into lives of self-giving love and service in world.
To be continued.
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6
[The reflections in this series are adapted, with permission, from an article published in Liturgical Ministry20 (Fall 2011).]
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Professor of Liturgy
Director of the Institute for Liturgical Consultants
S.T.L., S.T.D., L.G., Pontifical Athenaeum Antonianum, Rome; Study: Harvard University, University of California
Professor Gil Ostdiek, O.F.M., is a founding faculty member of Catholic Theological Union, an ordained presbyter, and a member of the Franciscan Province of the Sacred Heart. He holds a B.A. from Quincy College, an S.T.L. and S.T.D. from the Pontificium Athenaeum Antonianum (Rome), and has done post-doctoral studies at Harvard Divinity School and the University of California/GTU.
Gil has been a member of the Association of Consultants for Liturgical Space (ACLS), the Catholic Academy of Liturgy (CAL), the Catholic Theological Society of America (CTSA), the North American Academy of Liturgy (NAAL), and Societas Liturgica.
He has received a Festschrift [Finding Voice to Give God Praise: Essays in the Many Languages of the Liturgy, ed. Kathleen Hughes (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1998)]; the 1998 Michael Mathis Award for contributions to liturgical renewal, from the Notre Dame Center for Pastoral Liturgy; the 2001 Pax et Bonum Award, from St. Peter’s in Chicago; and the 2007 Georgetown Center for Liturgy Award for outstanding contributions to the liturgical life of the American Church.
Gil has taught liturgy at the graduate level for 45 years and has conducted numerous adult education workshops on liturgy. In addition, he has been Vice President/Academic Dean, MDiv Director, and MA Director at CTU, and he was the founding director of the Institute for Liturgical Consultants (ILC) based at CTU. He served on the International Commission on the Liturgy (ICEL) for fifteen years on the Advisory Committee, on the General Editorial Committee for revision of the Sacramentary, and as chair of the Subcommittee on the Translation and Revision of Texts. He was on the Board of Trustees of Quincy University and his province’s Board of Education. Gil is a past-president of the North American Academy of Liturgy, and he has also been a consultant for the American Franciscan Liturgical Commission.
Gil’s hobbies are woodworking and photography.
More about Gil.
