In the Breaking of the Bread

Introduction

Corpus Christi

In his ascension Jesus promised he would not leave us orphans but would be with us to the end of time (Jn 14:14; Mt 18:20). He kept his promise by sending us his Holy Spirit, and we celebrated that last Sunday with the feast of Pentecost. He also kept his promise by giving us the Eucharist, and that we celebrate today with the feast of Corpus Christi, the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ.

With a bit of nostalgia some of us recall how Corpus Christi was celebrated in days past. It was a big event and a huge production. The Blessed Sacrament was placed in a monstrance, a very elaborate gold receptacle. Under a portable canopy it was carried in solemn procession through villages in valleys and hamlets on hills, amidst clouds of incense and over carpets of flowers. Three times the procession stopped along the way for benediction with the Blessed Sacrament.

Changes galore

The feast is no longer the huge production it used to be. Since Vatican II we’ve made a journey of a light-year out of our Catholic Eucharistic past. Almost everything has changed on us--except one thing: the Eucharist remains central to Catholic faith; we come fifty-two times a year to celebrate it. Apart from that almost everything else has changed.

In the old days (that simply means before Vatican II), at Communion time only twenty to thirty people who considered themselves in the state of sanctifying grace would rise to communicate. The rest of the faithful (those who had committed a mortal sin and not confessed it, or who were divorced, or who weren’t Roman Catholics, or who had not fasted from every speck of food and drink from midnight on) remained nailed to their pews. That has dramatically changed. Now at Communion time a whole congregation of sinners rises to receive the Eucharist. Now Communion is seen more as food for sinners than as a reward for saints. We’ve come a long way.

In the old days, too, we were diligently warned about making “bad Communions.” That was going to Holy Communion with a mortal sin on our soul (like taking pleasure in a dirty thought or performing a dirty act) and then not confessing it. Not a small number of Catholics in those days was tortured over having made bad Communions either because they hid something in confession or had not confessed matters in the right way. You don’t hear much talk anymore about bad confessions and Communions. We’ve come a long way.

In the past, we were also very scrupulous about handling the Eucharistic. Only the consecrated hands of an ordained male could touch the Blessed Sacrament. Now we see the faithful receiving Communion in the hand and from the hands of Eucharistic ministers, i.e., who are not ordained (i.e. laity) and who are not males (i.e. women). We even see the faithful after Sunday Mass carrying Communion home to their beloved sick. And now we hear the rumblings of a debate that gets louder as priests get older and fewer: the ordination of married men and even of women to celebrate the Eucharist. The very debate itself shows that we’ve come a long way.

Jesus in the bread

I’ve pondered over these remarkable changes in our Catholic Eucharistic life, and have come up with my own characterization of them. In the old days the emphasis was on Jesus’ presence in the bread (period). But in this new day, the emphasize is more upon Jesus’ presence in the breaking of the bread. The difference is not just a matter of semantics; it’s quite substantial.

In the old days the emphasis was on Jesus’ presence in the bread (period). So we looked at the bread held on high, especially at the elevation of the Mass, and we even rang a bell at that moment to make sure that everyone was paying attention. On big feast days we climaxed Mass with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament as a kind of frosting on the cake. The Eucharist, encased in the monstrance, was held on high for all to see Jesus present in the bread. After Vatican II, Benediction immediately after Mass is forbidden because the Mass is a cake which needs no frosting.

Jesus in the breaking of the bread

In the new day, the emphasis is more on Jesus’ presence in the breaking of the bread. That’s a notable difference, and it is scriptural. On Easter morning two disciples are on the road to Emmaus a few miles from Jerusalem. As they are walking and talking, the risen Lord draws near and asks them what all the discussion is about. They relate to him all the great events that have just happened. But though the disciples are looking at him, they don’t recognize it is the Lord. As they draw near to Emmaus, they invite the stranger, saying, “Sir, it’s getting dusk, why don’t you come and stay with us?” He stays, and Luke writes, “He sat at table with them, took the bread, said the blessing and then broke the bread and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread” (Lk 24:30-31).

I basically follow the rules laid down for the celebration of Mass. Those rules are important so that the priest doesn’t become a liturgical loose cannon with his person getting in the way of the celebration. But I’m not a die-hard rubricist. The celebrant is more than just a liturgical automaton. I depart at times from the rubrics. I depart at the moment of consecration. It is then that I break the altar bread while most priests obey the rubrics and break it later on. The cracking sound of the breaking host and the broken bread held on high dramatize for me what the Mass is all about: it’s about bread broken and shared.

Fit and worthy recipients

The old Baltimore Catechism taught that to be a fit recipient of the Eucharist (a) one must be a baptized Catholic, and (b) must have reached the use of reason and know what the Eucharistic bread is all about. Missing is the most important element of all—a spiritual element: to be a fit and worthy recipient of the Eucharist one must be a good “breaker of bread.”

A man going from Jerusalem to Jericho was waylaid by robbers and left half-dead. Along came a Jewish priest and a Levite who saw the poor man, did nothing, and passed him by. Along came a despised Samaritan, who stopped to break bread with the dying man. He poured the oil of compassion into his wounds and hurried him off to the nearest inn where he provided for his care and cure. When week’s end and Sabbath rest arrived, which one of the two was a worthy candidate to receive Holy Communion with Yahweh in the temple that day? Why, of course, the one who broke bread.

The black Baptist check-out clerk at the old Pick ‘n Save on Capitol, who broke bread with me by paying for my groceries early one morning when he saw I was weeping over my dead dog Tina, is also a worthy candidate to receive Catholic Holy Communion. The Jewish CEO, whose fabric mill burned down a few days before Christmas of 1995, didn’t take the insurance money and run but instead stuck with his 2000 employees. He broke bread for them by giving all a Christmas bonus and by paying their health insurance and weekly salaries until the mill was rebuilt. He, too, is a worthy candidate to receive Catholic Holy Communion.

Fit and worthy celebrants

The same Baltimore Catechism taught also that to be a fit celebrant of the Eucharist (a) one must be a baptized Catholic, (b) one must be a male and unmarried, (c) one must be ordained. Missing is the important element of all—a spiritual element: To be a fit and worthy celebrant of the Eucharist one must be a good breaker of bread.

When our Archdiocese was in the throes of a painful crisis, I remember being lifted up in spirit by various reports out there of bread-breaking. I remember the Rev. Mary Ann Neevel, pastor of the Plymouth Congregational Church here in Milwaukee, standing in spirit beside the Archbishop, as the Stabat Mater stood beside the wounded Jesus. In a homily to her congregation she magnanimously declared, “We are all in this together.” It is not being male or celibate but being a great bread-breaker that makes that Congregationalist lady or anyone else be a worthy celebrant of the Eucharist.

I am reminded of another worthy celebrant-- Father Enrique from South America. In a letter to him Barbara Marion Horn, that feisty lady from Ireland with a good knack for words, writes,

Dear Father, I want to tell you of my experience at the Mass at the Hyatt Hotel last fall. You may have noticed a woman weeping in the front row at Communion time. That would be me. I wept and wept and wept. Is there any way to put on paper what my heart and mind were immersed in? I will make the attempt, if only because I so desperately want you to know the great peace and joy you have brought me.”

You came to Milwaukee in November to share your experience, strength and hope. You told your story on a Friday. It was on Saturday that you breathed life into that story at a Mass set up by a gang of us who enjoy the royal priesthood of the baptized. Then came Communion time. You looked over the assembly and spoke the telltale words, perhaps the very ones which brought on Rome's final blow? “All are welcome,” you said. “This is the banquet, the table of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you feel called to join in his celebration, you are welcome. No matter if you have been away from the Church, belong to a different denomination or not to any at all, if you feel called to come forward and break bread, you are welcome.”

[As she continues now in a higher pitch, bear in mind that she’s writing out of the bloody background of Northern Ireland.]

Suddenly my mind careened backwards and sideways and all over the place. Flashes of Protestant and Catholic ancestors at odds with each other, storming out of weddings and baptisms, fighting over the faith and refusing to break bread with each other—all that came roaring into my psyche. [Her emotional pitch peaks with these words.] Sitting there, your invitation, dear Father Enrique, continued to wash over me. “All are welcome.” God, thank you, thank you, thank you for letting me live to hear such words. I am the luckiest person alive. [She’s thanking God for the bottom line that it’s bread breaking that makes us worthy celebrants and recipients of Eucharist.]

Church as shining example of bread-breaking

At this new moment in the life of our church which has just elected Benedict XVI as pope, our hopes and prayers are for a church that will become more and more a worthy celebrant of the Eucharist by herself becoming more and more a shining example of bread-breaking. That’s a church which, even before it breaks bread with others, Lutherans or Anglicans or the Orthodox or Muslims or Jews, first of all breaks bread with her very own. A shining example of bread-breaking--that’s a church which is first of all in communion with herself—is first of all communicating with her very own. A shining example of bread-breaking--that’s a church which Richard Gailardetz says holds “a holy conversation” among her very own people concerning the great issues that rankle them, like inter-communion, divorce, birth control, ordination of married men, ordination of women, homosexuality, and especially the shortage of priests. A shining example of bread-breaking--that’s a church which Gailardetz says “resists the temptation to control or direct the holy conversation toward predetermined conclusions” but has, instead, the courage to hear out the voice of dissent.

Conclusion

Ite! Go, break more and better bread!

The bread-breaking that takes place here of a Sunday morning in Old St. Mary’s is sacramental and symbolic. The really costly bread-breaking takes place out there in the real world and in the week ahead when we are called to share, console, encourage and pour the oil of compassion.

But the bread-breaking that takes place here of a Sunday morning, though symbolic, is also very important. We come here weekly to celebrate all real life’s great bread-breakers: the Good Samaritan, the Baptist clerk at old Pick ‘n Save, the Jewish CEO, the Rev. Mary Ann Neevel and Father Enrique. But we come also and especially to celebrate our own bread-breaking of the week past, and to be dismissed at the end of Mass to go forth to break even more and better bread in the week ahead.