Sacrament of charity: Fr Erasto Fernandez SSS continues his musings on the Mass. This week: Faith shown in action.
By Fr Erasto Fernandez SSS
St James states in his Letter that ‘faith without works is dead’ (2:17). Applying this to the Eucharist we see that once our faith has been deepened by the Word, and expressed in the prayer, we need to move into action – the Liturgy of the Bread. Of the several angles from which we can look at this section of the Eucharist, the Memorial is perhaps the most central: “Do this as a Memorial of Me.”
Do: For many, the Eucharist is primarily and exclusively the ‘Body and Blood of Christ’– Jesus present in the sacred Host.
Yet, Vatican II reminds us that Eucharist is first and foremost an action, not a thing; a verb and not a noun. What is asked of the people in the liturgy is involvement in the central action: an active, intelligent and fruitful participation.
Now this liturgical action must have definite characteristics: it is the action of the entire Church and not just of the priest alone. It is the Church that Celebrates, Consecrates, and Communes. Thus, everyone present at the Eucharist is a celebrant, taking part in the entire action of the Eucharist. There can be no passive spectators at Eucharist, only participants. When applied to Communion it implies that when one person receives Communion, the entire Church benefits from this union – not just that one person alone. In the Eucharist there is no I, only a We.
Further, all the actions done in the Eucharist are symbolic actions in which the external gesture must correspond to its own proper internal meaning. Now, the external action is what the ceremony contains while the meaning is what each participant must personally supply.
Thus, when the Celebrant breaks bread (big host), the assembly correspondingly has to break of itself; otherwise this gesture remains only an empty ritual. Experience shows that most people do not put any inner meaning into the main gestures of the Eucharist. They are busy doing their own thing. So, their participation ends up being not ‘intelligent’: they don’t understand what they do! It cannot be ‘fruitful’ either, because the gesture becomes whole and effective only when outer form and inner meaning coincide.
Memorial: does not mean a mere mental construct, but something objective. This technical word ‘Memorial’ is best rendered as: re-PRESENT-ation, a making present again (not do it again). Jesus does not invite us to offer a sacrifice independent of, or different from, his own. He knows our inability to offer something acceptable to the Father.
So, he places his own sacrifice in our hands but in a way that it can also become our own. That is why we have to supply at least the inner meaning. Christ needs us because today he does not have a physical body even though he is really present at the Eucharist and in other ways. So, he asks us: ‘Can you be my body?’ Through us as his instruments, his new body, he will make present again the identical sacrifice of the Last Supper and Calvary.
To be the ‘body’ of Jesus it is not enough to be physically present round the altar while our minds and hearts are elsewhere. Besides, the word ‘body’ is used here in a corporate not individual sense. So, we can help Jesus ‘make present again’, only when we are a close-knit community united in faith and love. Paul admonishes the Corinthians strictly to ‘examine themselves lest they eat and drink condemnation unto themselves’ (1 Cor 11:17-34).
“Take and receive, O Lord, all that I have, all that I am …”