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When you meet together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal, and one is hungry and another is drunk. What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.  For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we should not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are chastened so that we may not be condemned along with the world. (I Corinthians 11:20-32, Revised Standard Version) One of the great concerns I share with many of my brother priests centers on the cavalier manner in which some of the faithful approach Holy Communion today. Given our Catholic belief that the Lord Jesus Christ is really, truly, substantially present in the Most Blessed Sacrament, one would expect that this great gift would be handled with the greatest care, reverence, and devotion by each and every practicing Catholic. Alas, that is not always the case. In the reflection that follows, I would like to draw attention to a few things that must be taken into consideration when we as Catholics place ourselves before the Lord Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Eucharist and prepare to come forward if indeed we have been truly "called to His supper." A QUESTION OF FAITHThe first issue that comes to mind is a matter of faith. What does the Catholic in the pew believe about the Eucharist? Over the last decade, many studies have been conducted and polls taken which sometime show that an alarming number of people who identify themselves as practicing Catholics do not have an authentic understanding of the Eucharist. When asked about the nature of the Eucharist, many respond with a position that is taken from \Protestant teaching and theology, namely, that bread and wine are merely symbolic of the presence of the Body and Blood of the Lord. God forbid that this error should continue! Catholic belief and teaching on the Eucharist is as clear today after the Second Vatican Council as it has been in the past. The following footnotes from the 2002 Norms for the Distribution and Reception of Holy Communion Under Both Kinds of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops are illustrative of this: 8. Christ is "truly, really, and substantially contained" (18)in Holy Communion. His presence is not momentary nor simply signified, but wholly and permanently real under each of the consecrated species of bread and wine. (19) 9. The Council of Trent teaches that "the true body and blood of our Lord, together with his soul and divinity, exist under the species of bread and wine. His body exists under the species of bread and his blood under the species of wine, according to the import of his words."(20) |
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