Catholics and Communion and politicians

Having the appearance of bread, but in reality the body and blood of Jesus, man and God

Last month, the Catholic bishops of the United States met to decide if they should take a stand against members of their flock who followed ideology rather than Church teaching, especially on moral matters such as abortion.

The sanction under consideration against rebellious Catholics was to ban them from receiving Communion, which Catholics hold to be the body and blood of Jesus Christ, man and God in the one person. To receive Communion is not only to receive food for the soul, but to state in action that the recipient is a member of the Church in good standing both morally and in adhering to all that the Church  teaches under God's authority. To be banned from Communion is a disgrace and a statement that the person is in a state that would preclude a life of eternity with God after death .

The bishops decided against a full-blown war on wayward members, especially those in the political arena, and especially again those in the Democratic Party, which has policies near the extremes of  demands for abortion and gender self-invention.

However, the bishops produced a document that will form the basis for doctrinal education of all Catholics, with a program planned for several years ahead.

The document lifts the veil on what Catholics believe about what is termed Holy Communion, and why it is given such prominence in the Church's teaching and practice.

This post quotes extensively from the draft document the bishops amended in minor ways, and approved, at their November meeting.

Catholics take literally the words of  Christ, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you” (Jn 6:53). The gospels tell us that though Jesus, in his preaching on this, saw that what he had taught was "a hard saying" and that his disciples were leaving him over this, did not backtrack.

The Latin Catholics and Orthodox Church have recognised that God uses visible signs to point to a hidden reality that enables God's work among us. This is what is called a sacrament. The Mass, the Church's act of worship and thanksgiving (Eucharist), is the time and place where Jesus as God comes again in a personal way, giving himself to us bodily as a way of offering his spiritual riches to us, with God as the vine and we the branches.

The document is not an attempt at apologetics but sets out for Catholics the key tenets of  what is a central doctrine and the chief focus of worship. In this way it illustrates why the failure of some politicians - and others, such as those in the Mafia - to fully practice of their faith hits a delicate nerve among Catholics.    

The bishops say in their document:

The Lord accompanies us in many ways, but none as profound as when we encounter him in the Eucharist. On our journey toward eternal life, Christ nourishes us with his very self. Once, when told by someone that she no longer saw the point of going to daily Mass, the [American] Dorothy Day reflected: “We go eat of this fruit of the tree of life because Jesus told us to. ... He took upon himself our humanity that we might share in his divinity. We are nourished by his flesh that we may grow to be other Christs. I believe this literally, just as I believe the child is nourished by the milk from his mother's breast.” (The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day, ed. Robert Ellsberg, (New York: Image, 2011) p. 483)

[In the Mass] Jesus is not sacrificed again. Rather, the Eucharist “makes present the one sacrifice of Christ the Savior” (Catechism of the Catholic Church #1330). The celebration of the Mass is a sacrifice “because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross" (Catechism #1366). In the Eucharistic celebration “we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life, when God will be all in all" (Catechism #1326).

At the Last Supper, celebrating the Passover, Jesus makes explicit that his impending death, freely embraced out of love, is sacrificial:

Then he took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me." And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you” (Lk 22:19-20).

In the words and gestures of the Last Supper, Jesus makes it clear that he is freely offering his life out of love for us. In doing so, he is both the priest offering a sacrifice and the victim being offered. As priest, Jesus is offering a sacrifice to God the  Father, an offering prefigured by the offering of bread and wine by the High Priest Melchizedek (Gen 14:18). Anticipating his Passion in the institution of the Eucharist, Christ has indicated the forms under which his self-offering would be present to us until the end of time. 

The Real Presence of Christ 

From the very beginning, the Church has believed and celebrated according to the teaching of Jesus himself: "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him" (Jn 6: 54-56). It is not “ordinary bread and ordinary drink” that we receive in the Eucharist, but the flesh and blood of Christ, who came to nourish and transform us, to restore our relationship to God and to one another (See Justin Martyr, First Apology, LXVI). 

In the Eucharist, we see before us Jesus Christ, who, in the Incarnation became flesh (Jn 1:14) and who in the Paschal Mystery gave himself for us (Ti 2:14), accepting even death on a cross (Phil 2:8). John Chrysostom preached that when you see the Body of Christ “set before you [on the altar], say to yourself: Because of this Body I am no longer earth and ashes, no longer a prisoner, but free: because of this I hope for heaven, and to receive the good things therein, immortal life, the portion of angels, [and closeness] with Christ.” (John Chrysostom, Homilies on First Corinthians, 24.7, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First series (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995) 

How can Jesus Christ be truly present in what still appears to be bread and wine? It is through the power of the Holy Spirit that Christ is made present in the Eucharist. In the liturgical act known as the epiclesis, the bishop or priest, speaking in the person of Jesus Christ, calls upon the Father to send down his Holy Spirit to change the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ (Catechism #1353). 

The reality that, in the Eucharist, bread and wine are truly transformed into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ without ceasing to appear as bread and wine to our five senses, is one of the central mysteries of the Catholic faith. This faith is a doorway through which we, like the saints and mystics before us, may enter into a deeper perception of the mercy and love manifested in and through Christ's sacramental presence in our midst. While one thing is seen with our bodily eyes, another reality is perceived through the eyes of faith. The real, true, and substantial presence of Christ in the Eucharist is the most profound reality of the sacrament. “This mysterious change is very appropriately called by the Church transubstantiation” (Pope Paul VI, Credo of the People of God, # 25, cf. Council of Trent, Session 13, Decree on the Sacrament of the Eucharist ch. 4).  

Though Christ is present to us in many ways, the Church affirms that “the mode of Christ's presence under the Eucharistic species is unique” (Catechism #1374). As Pope Paul VI wrote, “This presence is called ‘real’ not to exclude the idea that the others are ‘real’ too, but rather to indicate presence par excellence, because it is substantial and through it, Christ becomes present whole and entire, God and man" (Mysterium Fidei, #39). 

In the sacramental re-presentation of his sacrifice, Christ holds back nothing, offering himself, whole and entire. The use of the word “substantial” to mark the unique presence of Christ in the Eucharist is intended to convey the totality of the gift he offers to us. 

When the Eucharist is distributed and the minister says, “the Body of Christ”, we are to look not simply at what is visible before our eyes, but at what it has become by the words of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit – the Body of Christ (See St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, IV.16.28). The communicant's response of “Amen” is a profession of faith in the Real Presence of Christ and reflects the intimate personal encounter with him, with his gift of self, that can come only through reception of Holy Communion. 

Communion with Christ and the Church 

When we receive Holy Communion, Christ is giving himself to us. He comes to us in all humility, as he came to us in the Incarnation, so that we may receive him and become one with him. Christ gives himself to us so that we may continue the pilgrim path toward life with him in the fullness of the Kingdom of God. 

The fourteenth century theologian Nicholas Cabasilas described this sacrament by saying, “unlike any other sacrament, the mystery [of the Eucharist] is so perfect that it brings us to the heights of every good thing: here is the ultimate goal of every human desire, because here we attain God and God joins himself to us in the most perfect union." 

Through this sacrament, the pilgrim Church is nourished, deepening her communion with the Triune God and consequently with one another.  

The Sacrament of the Eucharist is called Holy Communion precisely because, by placing us in intimate communion with the sacrifice of Christ, we are placed in intimate communion with him and, through him, with each other. Therefore, the Eucharist is called Holy Communion because it is “the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that communion in the divine life and that unity of the People of God by which the Church is kept in being” (Catechism #1325).

How can we understand this?  The Gospel of John recounts that, when Jesus died on the cross, blood and water flowed out (Jn 19:34), symbolic of Baptism and the Eucharist. The Second Vatican Council teaches, “The origin and growth of the Church are symbolized by the blood and water which flowed from the open side of the crucified Jesus" (Lumen Gentium #3), and that “it was from the side of Christ as he slept the sleep of death upon the cross that there came forth the wondrous sacrament of the whole Church” (Sacrosanctum Concilium #5).

In this image from the Gospel of John, we see that the Church is born from the sacrificial love of Christ in his self-offering on the cross. The Eucharist re-presents this one sacrifice so that we are placed in communion with it and with the divine love from which it flows forth. We are placed in communion with each other through this love which is given to us. That is why we can say, “the Eucharist makes the Church”( Catechism #1396).

We are first incorporated into the Body of Christ, the Church, through the waters of Baptism. Yet Baptism, like the other sacraments, is ordered toward Eucharistic communion. The Second Vatican Council teaches, 

The other sacraments, as well as with every ministry of the Church and every work of the apostolate, are tied together with the Eucharist and are directed toward it. The Most Blessed Eucharist contains the entire spiritual boon of the Church, that is, Christ himself, our Pasch and Living Bread, by the action of the Holy Spirit through his very flesh vital and vitalizing, giving life to men who are thus invited and encouraged to offer themselves, their labors and all created things, together with him. 

The Council Fathers continue, 

In this light, the Eucharist shows itself as the source and the apex of the whole work of preaching the Gospel. Those under instruction are introduced by stages to a sharing in the Eucharist, and the faithful, already marked with the seal of Baptism and Confirmation, are through the reception of the Eucharist fully joined to the Body of Christ (Second Vatican Council, Presbyterorum Ordinis, #5). 

That is why the Council calls the Eucharist “the source and summit of the Christian life" (Lumen Gentium, #11).

St. Paul emphasizes that this communion exists not only among ourselves, but with those who came before us. In addressing the Church at Corinth, he praises them for holding fast to the sacred tradition handed on by Christ to the apostles, and in which we now share: “For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you” (1 Cor 11:23). During every Mass we are united with all the holy men and women, the saints, who have preceded us. 

The obligation to attend Mass each Sunday, the Lord's Day, on which we commemorate the Resurrection of Jesus, and on other Holy Days of obligation, is therefore a vital expression of our unity as members of the Body of Christ, the Church. It is also a manifestation of the truth that we are utterly dependent upon God and his grace. A third-century instruction on the life of the Church points out one of the consequences of willful absence from Mass: “Let no one deprive the Church by staying away; if they do, they deprive the Body of Christ of one of its members!" (Didascalia apostolorum, no. 13.)

Mother Teresa of Calcutta once said: “When you look at the crucifix, you understand how much Jesus loved you then. When you look at the Sacred Host, you understand how much Jesus loves you now.”

The foundation of our personal and moral transformation is the communion with himself that Christ establishes in Baptism and deepens in the Eucharist. In the celebration of the Mass, we are shown what love truly is, and we receive grace that enables us to imitate the love that Christ shows us.

The personal and moral transformation that is sustained by the Eucharist reaches out to every sphere of human life. The love of Christ should permeate all of our relationships: with our families, our friends, and our neighbors. It should also reshape the life of our society as a whole. 

It is the role of the laity in particular to transform social relations in accord with the love of Christ. Lay people, "conscious of their call to holiness by virtue of their baptismal vocation, have to act as leaven in the dough to build up a temporal city in keeping with God's project. Consistency between faith and life in the political, economic, and social realm[s] requires formation of conscience, which translates into knowing the Church's social doctrine". 

Lay people who exercise some form of public authority have a special responsibility to embody Church teaching in their service of the common good. 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that the “Eucharist commits us to the poor. To receive in truth the Body and Blood of Christ given up for us, we must recognize Christ in the poorest, his brethren." This happened to Mother Teresa of Calcutta. It was her deep faith in the Eucharist and her reception of Holy Communion that motivated her loving care of the poorest of the poor and commitment to the sanctity of all human life. In beholding the face of Christ in the Eucharist, she learned to recognize his face in the poor and suffering. Mother Teresa once said: “We must pray to Jesus to give us that tenderness of the Eucharist. Unless we believe and see Jesus in the appearance of bread on the altar, we will not be able to see him in the distressing disguise of the poor.” 

St. Paul warns us that “whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself” (1 Cor 11:27-29). 

To receive the Body and Blood of Christ while in a state of mortal sin represents a contradiction. The person who, by his or her own action, has broken communion with Christ and his Church but receives the Blessed Sacrament, acts incoherently, both claiming and rejecting communion at the same time. It is thus a counter-sign - it expresses a communion that in fact has been broken. 

We also need to keep in mind that “the celebration of the Eucharist presupposes that communion already exists, a communion which it seeks to consolidate and bring to perfection.”

Politicians and ecclesial communion 

The Eucharist is the sacrament of ecclesial communion, as it both signifies and effects most fully the communion with Christ that began in Baptism. This includes communion in its “visible dimension, which entails communion in the teaching of the Apostles, in the sacraments and in the Church's hierarchical order.”

Likewise, the reception of Holy Communion entails one's communion with the Church in this visible dimension. We repeat what the U.S. Bishops stated in 2006: 

“If a Catholic in his or her personal or professional life were knowingly and obstinately to reject the defined doctrines of the Church, or knowingly and obstinately to repudiate her definitive teaching on moral issues, however, he or she would seriously diminish his or her communion with the Church. Reception of Holy Communion in such a situation would not accord with the nature of the Eucharistic celebration, so that he or she should refrain” (USCCB, Happy Are Those Who Are Called to His Supper: On Preparing To Receive Christ Worthily in the Eucharist, p. 11).

Reception of Holy Communion in such a situation is also likely to cause scandal for others. 

One's communion with Christ and His Church, therefore, involves both one's “invisible communion” (being in the state of grace) and one's “visible communion”.  John Paul II explained:

The judgment of one's state of grace obviously belongs only to the person involved, since it is a question of examining one's conscience. However, in cases of outward conduct which is seriously, clearly and steadfastly contrary to the moral norm, the Church, in her pastoral concern for the good order of the community and out of respect for the sacrament, cannot fail to feel directly involved. The Code of Canon Law refers to this situation of a manifest lack of proper moral disposition when it states that those who 'obstinately persist in manifest grave sin’ are not to be admitted to Eucharistic communion (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, #37). 

Likewise, the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches states that "those who are publicly unworthy are forbidden from receiving the Divine Eucharist" (c.712).

If we find that we have broken communion with Christ and his Church, we are not properly disposed to receive the Eucharist. However, we should not despair since the Lord in his mercy has given us a remedy. He loves us and deeply desires to forgive us and to restore our communion with him.

Food for the Journey 

The lives of the saints show us the importance of the Eucharist on our journey as disciples of Jesus. Many testify to the power of the Eucharist in their lives. We see the fruits of Holy Communion in their lives of faith, hope, and charity. It was their intimate union with Jesus in Holy Communion and frequently their prayer before the Blessed Sacrament that nourished and strengthened them in their journey to heaven. They teach us that "growth in Christian life needs the nourishment of Eucharistic Communion, the bread for our pilgrimage until the moment of death, when it will be given to us as viaticum" (Catechism #1392).

Blessed Carlo Acutis, a young Italian teenager, who died at the age of 15 and was beatified in 2020, used to say: "The Eucharist is my highway to heaven.” Blessed Carlo attained sanctity at such a young age because the Eucharist was at the center of his life. He attended Mass daily and prayed each day before the Blessed Sacrament in adoration. He discovered the joy of friendship with Jesus and brought that joy, the joy of the Gospel, to others.

Blessed Carlo was fascinated by Eucharistic miracles and created a website about them that has reached thousands of people around the world. [See link below.] He was an apostle of the Eucharist through the internet. We encourage all, especially our young people, to learn about the life of this holy teenager. In the midst of many distractions in our life, Blessed Carlo teaches us to focus on what should be our center. He said: “To always be united with Christ: This is my life's program.” 

Likewise, Saint José Sánchez del Río, a Mexican teenager who was martyred at the age of fourteen and canonized in 2016, was so filled with love of Christ and his Church that he was willing to give up his life rather than renounce Christ and his Kingship. While imprisoned, José Sánchez del Río was able to receive the Blessed Sacrament when it was smuggled into his cell along with a basket of food. Thus strengthened, he prayed for the conversion of his persecutors and repeatedly told them, “My faith is not for sale.” Blessed Carlo and Saint José Sánchez del Río teach us to focus on what is more important than anything else. 

The bishops know that Catholics' faith can be deepened and witness through service to the Church, nation and world can be nourished most powerfully by participating in the Holy Eucharist and especially in the regular reception of Communion. They have been shocked by the lack of understanding among Catholics of this rich source of nourishment that Christ has left his Church. We will be hearing more on the subject from them from now till 2024, when a Eucharistic convention will be held, most probably with the Pope in attendance. 

[] Carlo Acutis’s website on miracles centered on the Eucharist is here 

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