Vatican II at 50 - The Bread We Break
I was in Haiti shooting a video when I heard what
sounded like a crying baby. I looked
down from the lens of the camera to see a knife at the throat of a small
goat. Needless to say, I was a little
shaken—and even more so the next day when that goat was served up for
dinner. We who shop in grocery stores
where food is precisely packaged, neatly assorted, or nicely shined take it for
granted that in order for us to live, something has to die. With so much packaged food and meals ready to
eat, we scarcely consider the process of food preparation. This
is especially true when it comes to one of our staple foods, bread. Soil
is tilled, seeds are planted, weeds are removed, plants are harvested, threshed
winnowed and ground. And that’s just to
get the flour!! Then, there is the
making of the bread, not to mention the marketing, sales, hauling and
distribution.
Indeed, it takes many hands to make bread, something
the liturgy helps us to remember when we praise God for the “fruit of the earth
and work of human hands.” In the same way it takes a village to make
bread, it takes a community to make Eucharist.
We are called to join the priest in offering the sacrifice of Christ
along with the sacrifice of our own lives, whose seeds are also planted,
weeded, harvested, threshed, winnowed and ground. As Vatican II stresses:
The
faithful, in virtue of their royal priesthood, join in the offering of the
Eucharist. Lumen Gentium #10
This is why the Church teaches that we should eat
only the bread consecrated at that particular liturgy, rather than take bread
from the tabernacle, which is reserved for the sick:
The
more complete form of participation in the Mass by which the faithful, after
the priests’s communion, receive the Lord’s body from the same sacrifice, is
strongly endorsed. Sacrasanctum Concilium #55
It is most
desirable that the faithful, just as the Priest himself is bound to do, receive
the Lord’s Body from hosts consecrated at the same Mass..so that even by means
of the signs Communion may stand out more clearly as a participation in the
sacrifice actually being celebrated.
GIRM #85
We are called to participate in the sacrifice, the
process of dying to self, so that others might live. Amen!
