Becoming What We Receive
When we celebrated the
9:00am weekday Mass in our chapel, we had a practice whereby the faithful would
place a communion host for themselves in the ciboria before Mass. Recently, when that Mass moved into the
church, we continued this practice. But,
one of the mass-goers asked, “Why do we have to do that now when the tabernacle
is right there?” A great question!!!
From the earliest
days of the church, the tabernacle has been used primarily for the reservation
of communion for the sick and the homebound.
That hasn’t changed. Therefore, the
primary purpose of the tabernacle is to reserve communion for those who are
absent, NOT to retrieve hosts for
those who are present. Why? The General
Instruction of the Roman Missal explains:
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 will stand out
more clearly as a participation in the sacrifice actually being celebrated.
The Church is
trying to teach us that it is our participation at Mass that makes Eucharist. We bring our hearts, our minds, our hopes, our
dreams, our burdens, and our sufferings to the altar. We offer ourselves, along with the bread and
the wine so that we too might be transformed.
Perhaps St. Augustine said it best:
If you, therefore, are Christ’s body and members, it
is your own mystery that is placed on the Lord’s table! It is your own mystery
that you are receiving!
Augustine was
concerned that the faithful feel deeply and intimately connected to the
Eucharist. That happens more clearly
when we receive the same hosts that we offer at a particular Mass. Although this is difficult to manage with the large number of
people who come to Mass on Sundays, our sacristans are busy behind the scenes
trying to get the count of hosts as accurate as possible.
If the community
makes Eucharist, then it’s also true that the Eucharist makes the
community. St. Augustine speaks again:
Be what you see and receive what you are… be a member
of Christ’s body, then, so that your “Amen” may ring true!
