Solidarity and the Eucharist

Published by Published on

When people think of Mass they tend to only think about the hour they give to show up at a Church building and sit in a pew. This is problematic on a number of levels and I hope this series on the Mass and the Eucharist develop our love and understanding of the principal mystery of our faith. In the Mass, all of our existence is summarized and reflected upon. The Mass itself is a symbolic journey, with the exception of the True Presence of course Since it participates in the reality it signifies, which allows us to see the Mass as a certain popup book that all the symbols used therein are two-dimensional until Jesus is made actually present and then His person leaps from the story into the existence of the reader/listener of His Word. In this way, it also reflects the process of conversion and spiritual life (purification, illumination, and unification). In light of this, we come to understand that We are every bit united to Christ's body as much as His, since we each become One with Him we are all One with those He is One with.

In his commentary on the Gospel of John, St. Augustine summarizes what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10:17, “O sacrament of devotion! O sign of unity! O bond of charity!”.[1] The earliest Christians, reflecting on the process it took to make the sacramental bread, considered how God’s providence brought forth everything necessary to provide the bread that makes up the Eucharist.[2] Relating this to 1 Corinthians 10:17, they prayed that God would likewise bring His Church together through His works. Where Christ, so also the Church.[3] As Christ is one so also is the Church; especially at the height of Her life in the Sacraments, all the faithful are brought to unity with the whole Church at their reception.[4] So marvelous and indefinite is the effect of the Eucharist, the cause of Christian life in all four senses of the term: the efficient, “material”, formal inasmuch as it is Christ’s Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity), and final.[5] The Eucharist, in this way, is truly the sum of earthly life, and thereby is the highest foretaste of Heaven, in which each “worthy” recipient of the sacrament becomes one with God.[6] The Eucharist bears the descriptor “image of unity” in the same sense that we are images of God, because we bear something of God within ourselves so also (and even more so) the Eucharist bears unity within itself.[7] At the reception of the Church’s Spouse, we are united in and through Christ and are thereby made sons and daughters of God, in the fleshly and spiritual sense of the term.[8] The Eucharist is the highest possible accomplishment of solidarity on this side of the Eschaton.

In conclusion, it is not difficult to understand that this sacrament is what truly makes us One Body. This sacrament produces the whole Christian project, grown from our Jewish Roots and through our Jesse's stem from something as small as a mustard seed (i.e. Jesus, in which Divinity dwelt in man and his death gave life to His Church). It encompasses all times where God has never ceased drawing people to himself (John 12:32). It is no random coincidence either that He mentions gathering His people in John 6:44 as well as John 12:32, the first in the bread of life discourse and the next in the judgment. Indeed, both mention judgment but the context of the former refers to the evangelization period we find ourselves in today, and the former exclusively to the eschaton. Insofar as we become what we eat we are literally made to be like God, welcomed into His household as adopted children, and made each other's brothers and sisters.

Our bread bring me Your life.

Who am I that God come to my home

Unworthy though I am, I chase You in strife,

In You, I find unity with Rome


Darkness encamps about me

a single light comes near

Your love is all I see.

I am not quite there.


Participation is all I seek

just a little bit from that table Divine

Without this my journey is bleak

All I wish to be is Yours that you would be mine!

FN:

  1. John Paul II. “General Audience on Wednesday, 8 November 2000.” Vatican. Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2000.
  2. Ibid.; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 2000), 1333.
  3. Cf. CCC, 1368.
  4. Cf. CCC, 1330
  5. CCC, 1324
  6. CCC, 1331
  7. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum concilium (4 December 1964), § 10.; CCC, 1074, 1325.
  8. CCC, 1326.
I am a created entity, not a person.

Most Viewed Posts

Psychological Therapies and Catholic Anthropology: A Comparative Analysis

Published by Published on
Image
Psychological therapy often faces stigma, to the point are some people are skeptical about its value or concerned it contradicts their faith. However, therapy is a powerful tool for addressing mental and emotional struggles, offering healing that goes beyond just the mind. While secular therapies, such as Freud's psychoanalysis, Adlerian therapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy, can provide practical solutions, they often do not fully align with the Christian understanding of the human person. Catholic anthropology, which views humanity as a unified being of body, soul, and spirit in relationship with God, provides a more complete framework for healing. Secular therapies may help with emotional pain, but they typically overlook the spiritual and redemptive dimensions of human life. True healing, from a Catholic perspective, involves recognizing both our current struggles and our ultimate destination in communion with God. As Scripture teaches, authentic freedom is intertwined with...
Click Here to Continue Reading This Post

Law & Virtue: Freedom Refined for True Goodness

Published by Published on
Image
The Seven Virtues, Piero and Antonio Pollaiuolo and Botticelli Depicted from left-to-right: Fortitude ~ Temperance ~ Faith ~ Charity ~ Hope ~ Justice ~ Prudence If you have ever observed a significant amount of rhetoric on any contentious issue, then you would have observed an attempt to frame an objective reality subjectively, some ad hominem attacks, and even some conclusions/premises posed without evidence. This comes largely from the cultural inability to either form arguments or a disbelief in objective reality. However, more fundamentally, there is hardly ever a common definition of freedom. What is freedom, and do we have it? True freedom is the aspect of rational man to choose the good (according to the nature of a thing, in that it is some way desirable and that it has its essence in completeness or in that an action contributes or derives from the completeness of an act, thus an act not completely good is evil and it correspond to an imperfection in the actor and lacks being ...
Click Here to Continue Reading This Post

The Deeply Biblical Celebration: Part 1-The Start of Mass

Published by Published on
Image
The Mass is as old as the Eucharist itself. Extending back arguably to the feeding of the thousands, but definitely and sacramentally, to the Last Supper which is intimately united with Our Lord's Passion, Death, and Resurrection. Therefore/Thereby, the Mass is not only Biblical but is a living and perpetual extenuating of the essential/substantial nature of what scripture is and does. The next few posts will discuss not only the significance of the parts of the Mass and the words they use but also their intensely Biblical roots. In this post, let us look specifically at the first parts of the Mass. The Introductory Rites, as we call them, draw us to be one i.e the One Church, but most importantly one with God, and this movement is deeply scriptural. NOTE: the point of posts like this is to give you a guide to enter in Biblically into this mystery not so much to reveal a mystery but point toward it in a way that will allow the reader to be able to intentionally enter into it in a n...
Click Here to Continue Reading This Post