Parish Missions

Christ’s Body, Our Body

A group of Christians found themselves in a South

American prison as Easter Sunday approached. They were

determined to celebrate Holy Communion despite the total

prohibition of any such thing in the prison. By previous

agreement on Easter morning a large group of their fellow

prisoners stood so as to form a human wall around the secret

gathering of the Christians. The conversation of the larger

group produced an “acoustic wall” behind which the words of

celebration and life could be proclaimed.

The participants meditated on the sacrifice of Christ out

of their own experience of being pursued, arrested, tortured,

falsely accused, and even condemned to death. They prayed

for all their colleagues, friends, families..., their people in

captivity or on the run: for those about to die.

Since they had no possible way of securing bread and

wine, the pastor (himself a prisoner) simply reached out his

own “empty” hand each time to the “empty” hand of each

prisoner-communicant, pronouncing the Eucharistic words:

“Take, eat, this is my body broken for you”, and “This cup is

the new covenant in my blood.”

John Poulton, The Feast of Life, pp.34-35

When I first read this passage in Poulton’s book, which is subtitled A Theological Reflection on the Theme “Jesus Christ--The Life of the World,” I suspected heresy. How can one have the real presence without the elements of bread and wine? Was the Body of Christ really present? If so what made it present? If it was the community in this instance that made the Body of Christ present what would that demand of our Eucharistic celebrations?

As a not so young seminarian whose Eucharistic perceptions flowed from a pre-Vatican II experience that often saw only half the Sunday congregation approaching the communion rail, these questions posed significant issues. But the more I read, studied and prayed, I began to see the power of the real presence that Vatican II clarified when it declared that Christ was really present in the Word proclaimed, the bread and wine transformed, and the assembly gathered to celebrate that presence.

Soon after reading Poulton’s book I attended a lecture on the Eucharist given by Blessed Sacrament Father Eugene Laverdiere. In his presentation he proposed that when Jesus said at that Last Supper “Do this in memory of me” he was not just commending to us a ritual, but he was also asking each of us who would receive his Body and his Blood to be willing to break our body, pour out our blood for the sake of the world.

It became evident that the Eucharist was a greater Sacrament of the real presence of Christ than I had ever imagined. What became clear was that the awesome mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection was not simply memorialized in the celebration; it was actualized, made present in our time. The implication for one who had been raised to keep the Body of Christ confined to a tabernacle or “my heart” was staggering! Christ’s Body was to be witnessed in and through me!

If he healed the broken; I am called to heal. If he welcomed the out cast, I am called to welcome the outcast. If he showed no partiality, I am called to show no partiality. If he fed the hungry, I am called to feed the hungry. I could not get away from the challenge of the real presence in my life.

Because of this growing awareness of the power of the real presence in the Word, in the Sacrament, in the Assembly, I began going back to the dismissal rite of the old Latin Mass when the presider proclaimed, “Ite missa est,” which is NOT translated “Go, the Mass is ended.” It actually means “Go, you are sent!” We are sent forth to be the Body of Christ in the world--the real presence to a world that desperately needs his compassion, his love, his vision of a world transformed in his image. In the words of John Michael Talbot’s beautiful hymn attributed to St. Therese of Avila:

Christ has no body now but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours.

Yours are the eyes through which he looks

Compassion on this world.

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.

Yours are the hands

Yours are the feet

Yours are the eyes

You are His body

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

So the Mass is not ended, rather “Our celebration has begun, let us go in the peace of Christ!”