Periodically, I encounter an individual who is economically distressed. They are on a side walk, at an exit at a shopping center or along an intersection where cars have to stop. They frequently have a message printed on a piece of cardboard that expresses their need for food or some other basic necessity. For a variety of reasons, I (like most people) don’t regularly stop to provide assistance. There are churches and social agencies that are ready to provide assistance. Sadly, there are also those who use donated money for alcohol or drugs. When helping someone out, there is never a guarantee that a helping hand will be used appropriately.
I do, however, stop from time to time to offer financial help. Recently, I stopped to talk with a man who had a prosthesis on his leg. He looked rather weathered and had probably been homeless for years. He was at an intersection in Billings near a gas station. I just happened to need to fill up and, after doing so, I went over to him. I asked his name and he told me it was “Hernandez” (evidently not his first name). I gave him some money and told him to use it for food. He assured me that he wouldn’t be buying alcohol and thanked me for the assistance. It was a brief interaction.
When I have an opportunity to assist someone and it seems appropriate, I ask for the name of the person. It humanizes them. It reminds me that they no longer are just an anonymous beggar on the street. They are a person, created in the image and likeness of God. I believe that, in many ways, recognizing the person who is in need is as important as providing them material aid. I read somewhere that Pope Francis once related a practice he made when hearing confessions as Archbishop of Buenos Aires. He would ask people in confession what they were doing to help the poor and would add, after the penitent provided a response, “Did you look into their eyes?” People in need, whether they be a beggar on the street in Great Falls or Billings, a victim of abuse, a person with a severe handicap of some sort, a refugee from a foreign land, need to be seen as persons created in the image and likeness of God. They need to be seen as persons and not merely anonymous people in need. To do so is very much an element of be Eucharistic.
There is a definite communal dimension to Eucharist. The Church is a community of God’s people, Christ the Head and we the members of His Body, the Church. At Mass, as we gather to worship and give our thanks and praise to God, we affirm our conviction of faith that Christ is truly present sacramentally in simple elements of bread and wine. Having heard the Word of God proclaimed, we respond by turning to the Altar. And then, having attended fully and consciously to the Prayer offered by the priest, we come forward to receive the Eucharist. It is a celebration of Holy Communion with the Lord and with each other and a commitment to be a means of communion with all others. We who receive Christ in Holy Communion, affirm that we are a Eucharistic people of God, sent to be instruments of the Lord for the life and salvation of others.
I note this because many view Holy Communion solely in terms of the communion that occurs between them, as an individual, and the Lord. The theology of the Church is much broader. For one, it includes a recognition of all the members of the Church as sisters and brothers. Secondly, it sends us forth from Church to be an instrument of communion for those outside of the Church. This includes those people we may encounter seeking a hand and who we may judge as undeserving. As Pope Francis teaches, however, we must go out to the peripheries.
At Mass, we recall that we are in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. As the Catechism reminds us, Christ is present in the Eucharistic species: body, blood, soul and divinity. As the Second Vatican Council taught that the Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life.” Following the transformation expressed in the Eucharistic Prayer, the bread and wine are no longer mere bread and wine. Christ is totally present to us in the Sacrament of the Altar. By his divine nature, Christ can only give himself totally to us. This is expressed by the symbol of Christ on the cross. But we who receive Christ in Holy Communion affirm that we are being transformed into his likeness. As an alter Christus, we must strive to give of ourselves for others, especially those who are in need. It is a reason why we must never allow our understanding to be so domesticated. In reality, there is more power in us as a result of our reception of the Sacrament than we usually can imagine.
Annie Dillard in her book Teaching a Stone to Talk captured this as she wrote: Most of us “do not seem to have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke” when we gather. “The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, making up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ hats and velvet to church; we should be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to the pews.”
To receive Holy Communion is not merely for our personal wellbeing. It is for this, but it also expresses an understanding that we must share in Christ’s mission of salvation. When we receive Holy Communion, it is not so much that Christ is being incorporated into us who receive Christ, but that we are being incorporated into Christ. It is to affirm, as St. Paul does in Galatians, “I no longer live. It is Christ who lives in me.”
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