The Eucharist as Source and Summit [ PDF ]

by Fr Elio Capra SDB

“ …The liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the source from which all her power flows. For the goal of apostolic works is that all who are made children of God by faith and baptism should come together to praise God in the midst of His Church, to take part in her sacrifice, and to eat the Lord’s supper.” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 10)

“Father, we didn’t have a chance to practise during the week, so there’ll be no music this morning.” It’s Sunday morning 9.05 am, the priest is ready to start, but the two altar servers are still struggling with their knots and arguing who is going to carry the cross. Families are still parking their cars, hurrying the children along and rushing in through the side door in order to avoid the entrance procession. They scuttle to their seats with a few nods and embarrassed smiles as they go past other members of the congregation.

And yet, this group of people is no ordinary gathering. Paul reminds us who we truly are:

“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.” (Eph. 2:19-22)

People can be in the same church at the same time without necessarily being a congregation. A congregation implies people who first and foremost are gathered in the presence of Jesus Christ and in response to Jesus’ promise: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” (Mt. 18:20) A true congregation is made up of a group of people who truly believe that they belong to Christ and that they share Christ’s vision: love, compassion and forgiveness. This is not something that we can achieve on our own. We gather because we know that we as individuals did not merit and cannot achieve this oneness. We gather therefore as a congregation giving thanks to God as the only one who can make us and hold us together as one household. It is a part of God’s creative act going beyond this particular group of people. It is God’s act of creation uniting heaven and earth and transforming us into one body, the dwelling place for God.

Gathering together is not only about what we can do individually or what we can do for each other collectively, but it is principally and essentially about what God has already done for us and what He will do for us during this liturgy. It is therefore a gathering of individuals who collectively acknowledge that they are in need of God, and that their hearts fail to accept and their lives fail to respond adequately to God’s abundant and unconditional gift of love (the penitential rite). This leads to the climax of the gathering rite, the opening prayer, which used to be called the collect. The presider’s invitation: Let us pray, is to be followed by a silent pause. It is a time during which each individual opens his/her heart to God through individual prayer. After these silent individual prayers, the presider collects them and presents them to God on behalf of the whole community. The many individual prayers become the one and solemn prayer of the Church.

We still retain our individuality but at the same time the focus is on the reality and the vision that is beyond us and yet unites us:

“In the celebration of Mass the faithful are a holy people, a people God has made his own, a royal priesthood: … They should endeavour to make this clear by their deep sense of reverence for God and their charity toward all who share with them in the celebration. They therefore are to shun any appearance of individualism or division, keeping before their mind that they have one Father in heaven and therefore are all brothers and sisters to each other. They should become one body.” (General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 62)

Gathering together becomes a risky business, because in order to become one body, one household, we have to confront our own egoism and individualism. If this gathering is to have honesty and integrity, it must have the qualities and the characteristics of Jesus. Our social and cultural security is threatened, because Jesus continuously stretched the boundaries of Jewish categories: He invited sinners and tax collectors; He gathered his followers from the highways and the byways; He commanded us to love our enemies and he went to his death praying that all may be one.

If we gather in division and conflict we cannot call ourselves a congregation. In the face of conflict and division, Jesus is challenging us to do something to break down the wall that separates us. Only by tearing down the wall dividing us do we allow Christ to shape us into one body, one household, one congregation. This is not achieved by simply being there, it is achieved only when, through faith, we allow God to open our eyes to recognise the presence of Christ in the motley group of individuals gathered with us.

Therefore, every time we gather for Eucharist we are challenged by the penitential rite, the opening prayer, the word of God, the Eucharistic Prayer and the sharing in the body and blood of Christ to stretch our categories and our boundaries. We cannot gather in God’s house and proclaim that we are one body without feeling the need to heal and to mend the conflicts and divisions among us. We cannot gather in God’s house without a prayer of lament for our separated brothers and sisters who believe in Christ and yet cannot share this gathering with us. We cannot gather in God’s house without renewing our commitment to reach out in love to those who refuse or reject Christ’s invitation to be sons and daughters of God. We cannot gather in God’s house without wanting to live our lives with a heart that welcomes the stranger, the outcast and the sinner.

What we proclaimed during the gathering contains within it a commitment to a way of life based on Christ’s Gospel. That is why the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy speaks about the Eucharist as being the source of the Church’s power in the world and the summit of the Church’s action. (SC #10).

Every time we gather for Eucharist, Christ is given to us in the very presence of the individuals and the families rushing in at the very last minute, the choir members with their limited skills, the presider and all the other ministers with all their human limitations. Because of this gathering we are reminded of our solidarity and missionary spirit towards all human beings. Gathering for Eucharist is therefore a renewal of our vision and mission to be signs and bearers of God’s love for our brothers and sisters and for the world.

Dr Elio Capra SDB lectures in Sacramental Theology at Catholic Theological College.