Bread of Life: Exploring the Presence of Eucharist in Our Lives
The practical consequences of this conception should not be overlooked and its attractiveness is immediate. I would very briefly like to try to summarize the result of my studies at that time. My philological and theological research into the understanding of the words "church" and "council" in ancient times showed that a council can certainly be an important, vital manifestation of the Church, but that in reality the Church is something more, that her essence goes deeper.
The Church does not exist primarily to deliberate, but to live the Word that has been given to us. I decided that the word that best expressed this fundamental concept, which conveyed the very essence of the Church itself, was koinonia - communion.
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Her structure, therefore, is not to be described by the term "concilial", but rather with the word "communional". When I proposed these ideas publicly in in my book, The New People of God, the concept of communion was not yet very widespread in public theological and ecclesial discussions. As a result my ideas on this matter were also given little consideration. These ideas, however, were decisive for me in the search for a title for the new journal, and led to our later calling the journal Communio communion.
The concept itself received wide public recognition only with the Synod of Bishops in Until then the phrase "People of God" had prevailed as the chief new concept of the Church, and was widely believed to synthesize the intentions of Vatican II itself. This belief might well have been true, if the words had been used in the full profundity of their biblical meaning and in the broad, accurate context in which the Council had used them.
When, however the main word becomes a slogan, its meaning is inevitably diminished; indeed, it is trivialized. Synod of As a consequence, the Synod of sought a new beginning by focusing on the word "communion", which refers first of all to the Eucharistic centre of the Church, and so again returns to the understanding of the Church as the most intimate place of the encounter between Jesus and mankind, in his act of giving himself to us. It was unavoidable that this great fundamental word of the New Testament, isolated and employed as a slogan, would also suffer diminishment, indeed, might even be trivialized.
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Those who speak today of an "ecclesiology of communion" generally tend to mean two things: Even where these tendencies are not developed in detail, "communion" is nonetheless generally understood in a horizontal sense - communion is seen as emerging from a network of multiple communities. This conception of the communal structure of Church is barely distinguishable from the conciliar vision mentioned above.
The emphasis is on the idea of self-determination within a vast community of churches. Naturally, there is here much that is true. However, fundamentally the approach is not correct, and in this way the true depth of what the New Testament and Vatican II and also the Synod of wanted to say would be lost. To clarify the central meaning of the concept of "communio", I would like briefly to turn to two great texts on communio from the New Testament. The first is found in I Corinthians 10,16 ff, where Paul tells us: The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?
Because there is but one bread, we who are many are one body , for we all partake of the one bread". Vertical dimension in Eucharist The concept of communion is above all anchored in the holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, the reason why we still today in the language of the Church rightly designate the reception of this sacrament simply as "to communicate".
In this way, the very practical social significance of this sacramental event also immediately becomes evident, and this in a radical way that cannot be achieved in exclusively horizontal perspectives. Here we are told that by means of the sacrament we enter in a certain way into a communion with the blood of Jesus Christ, where blood according to the Hebrew perspective stands for "life". Thus, what is being affirmed is a commingling of Christ's life with our own. Thus the communion of blood is also insertion into the dynamic of this life, into this "blood poured out".
Our existence is "dynamized" in such a way that each of us can become a being for others, as we see obviously happening in the open Heart of Christ. From a certain point of view, the words over the bread are even more stunning. They tell of a "communion" with the body of Christ which Paul compares to the union of a man and a woman cf. I Cor 6,17ff; Eph 5, Paul also expresses this from another perspective when he says: This is true in a startling way: The Lord unites us with himself It is truly the one, identical Lord, whom we receive in the Eucharist, or better, the Lord who receives us and assumes us into himself.
St Augustine expressed this in a short passage which he perceived as a sort of vision: In other words, when we consume bodily nourishment, it is assimilated by the body, becoming itself a part of ourselves. But this bread is of another type. It is greater and higher than we are.
It is not we who assimilate it, but it assimilates us to itself, so that we become in a certain way "conformed to Christ", as Paul says, members of his body, one in him. We all "eat" the same person, not only the same thing; we all are in this way taken out of our closed individual persons and placed inside another, greater one. We all are assimilated into Christ and so by means of communion with Christ, united among ourselves, rendered the same, one sole thing in him, members of one another. To communicate with Christ is essentially also to communicate with one another.
We are no longer each alone, each separate from the other; we are now each part of the other; each of those who receive communion is "bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh" Gn 2, Social universal union A true spirituality of communion seen in its Christological profundity, therefore, necessarily has a social character, as Henri de Lubac brilliantly described more than a half century ago in his book, Catholicism.
For this reason, in my prayer at communion, I must look totally toward Christ, allowing myself to be transformed by him, even to be burned by his enveloping fire. But, precisely for this reason, I must always keep clearly in mind that in this way he unites me organically with every other person receiving him - with the one next to me, whom I may not like very much; but also with those who are far away, in Asia, Africa, America or in any other place. Becoming one with them, I must learn to open myself toward them and to involve myself in their situations.
This is the proof of the authenticity of my love for Christ. If I am united with Christ, I am together with my neighbour, and this unity is not limited to the moment of communion, but only begins here. It becomes life, becomes flesh and blood, in the everyday experience of sharing life with my neighbour. Thus, the individual realities of my communicating and being part of the life of the Church are inseparably linked to one another. The Church is not born as a simple federation of communities.
Her birth begins with the one bread, with the one Lord and from him from the beginning and everywhere, the one body which derives from the one bread. She becomes one not through a centralized government but through a common centre open to all, because it constantly draws its origin from a single Lord, who forms her by means of the one bread into one body.
Because of this, her unity has a greater depth than that which any other human union could ever achieve. Precisely when the Eucharist is understood in the intimacy of the union of each person with the Lord, it becomes also a social sacrament to the highest degree. Martin de Porres, Mother Teresa The great social saints were in reality always the great Eucharistic saints. I would like to mention just two examples chosen entirely at random. First of all, the beloved figure of St Martin de Porres, who was born in in Lima, Peru, the son of an Afro-American mother and a Spanish nobleman.
Martin lived from the adoration of the Lord present in the Eucharist, passing entire nights in prayer before the crucified Lord in the tabernacle, while during the day he tirelessly cared for the sick and assisted the socially outcast and despised, with whom he, as a mulatto, identified because of his origins. The encounter with the Lord, who gives himself to us from the cross, makes all of us members of the one body by means of the one bread, which when responded to fully moves us to serve the suffering, to care for the weak and the forgotten.
In our time, we can recall the person of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Wherever she opened the houses of her sisters to the service of the dying and outcast, the first thing she asked for was a place for the tabernacle, because she knew that only beginning from there, would come the strength for such service. Whoever recognizes the Lord in the tabernacle, recognizes him in the suffering and the needy; they are among those to whom the world's judge will say: Briefly, I would like to recall a second important New Testament text concerning the word "communion" koinonia.
It is found right at the beginning of the first Letter of John 1, , where he speaks of the encounter granted him with the Word made flesh. John says that he is transmitting what he has seen with his own eyes and touched with his own hands. This encounter has given him the gift of koinonia - communion - with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. It has become a true "communion" with the living God. As John expresses it, the communion has opened his eyes and he now lives in the light, that is, in the truth of God, which is expressed in the unique, new commandment, which encompasses everything - the commandment to love.
And so the communion with the "Word of life" becomes the just life, becomes love. In this way it also becomes reciprocal communion: The text shows the same logic of communio that we already found in Paul: Only when we regard communion in this depth and breadth do we have something to say to the world.
Solidarity We arrive finally at the third key world, "solidarity". While the first two words come from the Bible and from Christian tradition, this word comes to us from outside. The concept of "solidarity" - as Archbishop Paul Cordes has shown - was developed initially among the early socialists by P. Lerou died in contraposition to the Christian idea of love, as the new, rational and effective response to social problems.
On the Eucharist
Christ freely and totally gives his own body and blood that we might have life. Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.
For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.
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Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. We live in a time that says we must get the most out of every moment and that this is where true life is to be found. Today, our faith gives us the same invitation:. Watch carefully how you live, not as foolish persons but as wise, making the most of every opportunity , because the days are evil. Therefore, do not continue in ignorance, but try to understand what is the will of the Lord.
Forsake foolishness that you may live; advance in the way of understanding. I have just finished reading a new book put out by my friend Fr. Lou Cameli entitled; Bread of Life: Exploring the Presence of Eucharist in Our Lives.
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The book is quite good and I highly recommend it but here I want to bring out two points that Fr. Cameli makes in his book. First, in the book, Fr. At first Jesus is talking with a crowd, then it is his disciples, then it is the Twelve and, I would say, finally Jesus is in dialogue with you and me. The invitation that Jesus has put out there for the people has become too much, too intense — many people walk away. Jesus puts the same question to each of us; Do you also wish to go away?
It can include childhood religion classes as well as adult retreats, seasonal parish missions, and personal spiritual reading, Bible study, or faith-sharing groups. We should have no expectation of outgrowing this stage.
The connection step is simpler—sort of. Connection means linking the fruits of recollection, reflection, and catechesis to our lives. What has our liturgy to do with us? What does it mean for us that God is bread? What does it mean that bread is Christ and we are too? What difference does what we do on Sunday make on Monday? As it is for every other event or relationship in our lives, the bottom line of liturgy is: We perform this action, say these words, and profess this faith: How does all of this make a difference to how we think, feel, behave, and decide?
We return to the original question: Nor do I return to my routines on Monday with a restored luster to my halo and a cosmically enhanced mercy in every glance. The transformation of liturgy on my life has been more like the lapping of waves on the shore that gradually changes the shoreline completely. Folks who knew me 40 years ago as the girl who never smiled are startled primarily by the presence of joy that friends now describe as standard issue in my character: Who knows, you may even get the pirate patch, intriguing scar, and remarkable story to tell.
This article also appears in the August issue of U.
View the discussion thread. Sign up for our weekly newsletter. Skip to main content. Does the Eucharist change us? It might not happen immediately, but stick around for a lifetime and see what happens. By Alice Camille Print Share.