On Courageously Speaking the Unspoken
Introduction
(Corpus Christi in context)
After the Father sent the Son into the world (Christmas), and after the Son returned to the right hand of the Father (Resurrection and Ascension), the Son now sends us the Holy Spirit (Pentecost.) The completed liturgical cycle gives us Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Feast of the Trinity (last Sunday) is well positioned at ”the end of the line.”
Though Jesus has left us in his Ascension to the right hand of the Father, he has not left us orphans. He is true to his promise to be with us even to the end of time. Though gone, he’s still with us in a special form: in the Eucharist. So today’s Feast of Corpus Christi, feast of the Eucharist, is also well positioned, at “the end of the line.”
Catholics
perplexed
With a bit of nostalgia
some of us remember the celebration of Corpus Christi of years past. Under a
portable canopy we carried in solemn procession the Blessed Sacrament encased
in an exquisite monstrance, along
country roads through “village in valleys and hamlets on hills,” amidst clouds
of incense and over carpets of flowers. The procession stopped at three outdoor
altars positioned along the way for the ritual of Benediction.
We senior Catholics are
perplexed. We wonder where all that has gone.
We wonder why has it gone in the first place. When it comes to our
Eucharistic lives, many of us are aware that something has obviously changed
since Vatican II, and has changed quite considerably. We recall Sunday Masses in the old days: when it came time for Communion, for the
Corpus Christi, for the Body of Christ, only a handful out of a whole
congregation would rise to communicate.
Only those who had gone to confession and had now considered themselves
“in the state of Sanctifying Grace” would take Communion. The rest of the faithful, those
un-confessed ones, those who considered themselves “in the state of mortal
sin,” remained nailed to the pews. And
now, quite suddenly, all that has changed: when it’s time for communion the
whole Assembly rises to communicate. That is perplexing (not “disturbing” but
“perplexing”).
And there are
many other little strokes that add to the perplexity regarding our Catholic
Eucharistic lives, like the great debate on the ordination of women to
celebrate the Eucharist; like the distribution of Communion by lay people; like
the laity carrying Communion home to their beloved sick in “pixes” after Sunday
Mass; like the reception of Communion in the hand instead of the mouth, or
standing instead of kneeling, etc.
An explanation:
No doubt about
it, there’s a considerable difference in Catholic Eucharistic life today. Perhaps a well thought-out explanation is long overdue (instead of the knee-jerk
reaction that simply “blames” it all on Vatican II, which is not very
enlightening). As long as that explanation is not forth coming, some of us will
continue to be perplexed. For those who are too young to be perplexed in this
matter, the explanation will still shed light on the Eucharist, on the Corpus
Christi.
Luke tells us that on
Easter morning two disciples are on the road to Emmaus (seven miles from
Jerusalem). As they are walking and talking, the risen Lord draws near, and he
asks them what all the discussion is about. They relate to him all the great
events that have just happened. But
they don’t recognize it is the Lord. As
they drew near to Emmaus, the two invite him, saying, “Sir, it’s getting dusk,
why don’t you come and stay with us?” So he went in and stayed with them. “He
sat at table with them, took the bread and said the blessing, broke the bread
and gave it to them.” And at that, Luke writes, “Their eyes were opened, and
they recognized him in the breaking of the bread” (Lk 24:30-31). Luke does not say that they
recognized him “in the bread” but rather “in the breaking of the
bread.” The difference is important, and it sheds light, I believe, on our
perplexity.
In times past our
emphasis was upon recognizing Jesus in the bread, in the consecrated
host, in the exquisite monstrance
carrying the Eucharist on the Feast of Corpus Christi through “villages
in valleys and hamlets on hills.” That emphasis gave rise to Babel of
theological explanations about how Jesus is present in the bread: He’s there through “subpanation” (i. e he’s
there under the bread). No, he’s there through “companation” (i. e. he’s
there with the bread.) No, he’s there through “impanation” (i.e. he’s there in the bread) No, say
Catholics, he’s there through transubstantiation” (i. e. the whole substance of
the bread changes into the whole substance of Christ’s Body.) None of the
explanations (including our own) very enlightening.
It was that emphasis upon Jesus’ presence “in
the bread” that had some priests at the end of Mass frantically searching for
any particle or speck of bread that might be left upon the patent or the
corporal. The new emphasis stresses Christ’s presence especially in the
breaking of bread, and the search now is not so much for specks as it is
for bread breaking.
That naughty
Irish lady from Ireland, whom we spoke of last Sunday and who wrote the
Archbishop complaining of “the
procession of male clergy across the altar” at the ordination service in St.
John’s Cathedral last May, wrote another letter to a priest named Enrique. She recalls for him the occasion when he
celebrated Mass in the Hyatt Hotel here in Milwaukee for a convention of
people. She reminds him of what he said when the time for communion arrived:
(You said) “All are welcome. This is
the banquet of the table of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you feel called to join
in His celebration, you are welcome. No matter whether you have been away from
the Church, no matter whether you belong to a
different denomination or not to any at all, if you feel called to come
forward and partake in the breaking of the bread, you are welcome.”
Our Irish lady displays
the same dramatic, almost unbalanced, reaction this week as she did last
week. After Enrique’s wide-open
invitation “to partake in the breaking of the bread if one feels
called,” she writes: “Upon your invitation, all of a sudden my mind careened backwards, sideways, all over the
place. Flashes of Irish Protestant and Catholic ancestors at odds with each
other, storming out of weddings and baptisms, fighting over the `the
faith,’ -- such flashes came flooding
over me.”
Then she ups the dramatic
by imagining a troop of Catholic
vigilantes storming into the convention hall from nowhere, taking all
by surprise, and shouting, “ Okay,
everybody’s under arrest! What do you mean, `All are welcome if you feel
called to partake in the breaking of
the bread?’ What blasphemy! Everybody, up against the wall.”
Finally she tops off the
dramatic with these words: “Sitting in the folding chair in Hyatt Hotel, your
invitation, Enrique, continued to wash over me. `All are welcome.’ God, thank you, thank you, thank you, for
letting me live to hear such words. … Like old Anna and Simeon in the Temple, I
can die now in peace.”
Senior Catholics
remember the old days when you could easily commit what we used to call “bad
communions.” A bad communion, for
example, was when you willfully entertained a “dirty” thought, and you didn’t
confess it but went to Communion anyway.
In those days, “bad Communions” were a huge part of the guilt burden we
used to carry. But now, my gosh, with such a wide-open invitation as Enrique’s
(where anything seems to go) are there no more bad communions today? (Sounds
almost like we miss them.)
Oh yes, bad
communion is still possible today. If out there all week long we have not
broken any bread: haven’t done anything for anyone, haven’t shared something with someone, haven’t put
ourselves out for another, haven’t
thought of any one else but ourselves
-- and then come here to the Sunday Assembly to partake in the breaking
of the bread, that indeed is ”bad communion,” even though you might have
confessed your “dirty” thought. Or if out there your protest against remodeling
the house of God would be mean and ugly and revengeful instead of honest,
right-on and with good merit, and then come here to the Sunday Assembly to
partake in the breaking of the bread, that indeed would be “bad communion” even
though you might have confessed your “dirty” thought.
Liturgical
bread breaking in here is not the real thing; it is a symbol of the real thing,
or should be the symbol of the real thing. The real bread-breaking happens out
there somewhere. It happened in the burnt out ruins of the fabric mill whose Jewish CEO held on to all his employees
who were now without a job, gave them a Christmas bonus (this Jewish CEO), paid for their weekly
salaries and their health insurance until the factory was rebuilt. That’s real bread breaking.
Again, real bread-breaking happens out there somewhere, as it happened one day in a supermarket, when the check-out clerk, a young black man whom everyone likes (and no doubt a Baptist) saw my grief because I have just put my dog Tina to sleep, then whipped out his wallet and paid for my groceries. That’s real bread breaking. And if this Jewish CEO or this Baptist checkout man had been sitting in the convention and had taken up Enrique’s invitation that “If you feel called to partake in the breaking of the bread, you are welcome,” theirs would have been “good communion” of the first water, Jew or Baptist though they be.
Conclusion
Listen once more to Enrique’s spoken invitation:
“If you feel called to join in the breaking of the bread, you are welcome, no matter
whether you have been away from the Church, no matter whether you belong to
a different denomination or not to any
at all… “ Well. Once you open the door
like that, there’s no end to the invitation: “All who feel called to
partake in the breaking of the bread are welcome, no matter whether you are divorced and remarried, no matter whether
you are un-confessed, no matter whether you are gay, no matter whether you are
a Lutheran or Baptist or Methodist, no matter whether you are living in a
marriage not recognized by the Church
-- all who feel called to partake in the breaking of the
bread are welcome!”
After
all is said and done, Enrique’s spoken wide-open invitation
is alive and well in a huge part of the Church today. And that explains why,
comes communion time, the whole congregation rises to communicate. That makes
some people unhappy. Others feel that it is right-on.
But
though alive and well, the invitation spoken by Enrique is unspoken in
the Church. Wouldn’t it be nice if that wide-open invitation of his were courageously
spoken in the Church and by the Church, instead of in a convention hall by
some maverick priest? That would
indeed remodel the Church in ways undreamed of, but perhaps that’s why it
remains unspoken.