Eucharistic Consistency

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - June 8, 2007

In his March apostolic exhortation, Pope Benedict referred to the Eucharist as the "sacrament of love," and called Christians to believe in, celebrate and live this sacrament. The feast of the Body and Blood of the Lord this Sunday is a privileged occasion for us to examine just how much we do.

Corpus Christi is first an opportunity to deepen our "eucharistic amazement" and express our faith that the Eucharist is not bread and wine but Christ himself. In this awe-inspiring gift, the Son of God, who humbled himself to take our humanity, humbles himself so much more, cloaking his humanity and divinity under the appearances of food and drink so that we might consume him and become one-flesh with him in spousal love. Through this union, we participate in his passion, death and resurrection and are brought into communion with God and with each other. Because the Eucharist is Jesus Christ, and because Jesus wills to do so much for us through this supreme sacrament, the fathers of the Second Vatican Council couldn't help but declare that the Eucharist is the "source and the summit of the Christian life," the starting point and goal of any life that is truly Christian.

How a Christian celebrates the gift of this Eucharist is an indication of the depth of his or her Eucharistic faith: it reveals whether a person believes the sacrament is a thing or Jesus Christ and whether one's faith has passed from an intellectual reality to one of love. Corpus Christi is a day for special Eucharistic celebration. It is a day to pray the Mass with great joy, beauty, reverence, preparation and thanksgiving, and to receive the Lord with worthiness and love. It is a day to dedicate time, individually and communally, to adoring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. It is a day to bring the Eucharistic Lord with enthusiasm to our neighbors in Corpus Christi processions. These and similar events are grace-filled opportunities by which individuals and parishes can ensure that they're centering their Sundays, parishes and whole lives around Jesus in the Eucharist rather than succumbing to the temptation merely to "fit Jesus in" to lifestyles centered around something or someone else.

But the greatest manifestation of one's faith in Jesus' presence in the Eucharist, Benedict points out, does not occur in external celebrations like those on Corpus Christi. It occurs internally, when a believer unites the sacrifice of his life to Christ's in the Mass, adoring within the presence of Christ received in Holy Communion, and becomes a living monstrance taking the radiant presence of Christ on procession to one's family members, neighbors and colleagues. The life of a Christian is supposed to be a liturgy of love. When we receive the sacrament of Christ's love, we are called to "live on" in that love and to love others as Christ has loved us (Jn 15:9-12). Our communion with Christ is meant to make our whole lives eucharistic, transforming them to be an echo and extension of Christ's words, "This is my body… given for you."

St. John Chrysostom once powerfully described this connection between the Eucharist and a eucharistic life: "Do you wish to honor the body of Christ? Do not ignore him when he is naked. Do not pay him homage in the temple clad in silk only then to neglect him outside where he suffers cold and naked. He who said: 'This is my body' is the same who said: 'You saw me hungry and you gave me no food,' and 'Whatever you did to the least of my brothers you did also to me.'" Our recognition of the real presence of Christ under the appearances of bread and wine must help us to discern his image in the appearances of those we meet. Our communion with Christ at Mass is meant to lead to — and flow from — a life of communion with him, in which we strive to see as Christ sees, to think as Christ thinks, and to love as Christ loves (1 Cor 2:16).

The central point of Benedict's exhortation is that there is an "objective connection" between eucharistic faith, eucharistic celebration and eucharistic life. Since the person is an integral unity, and since Christ calls the person to enter into communion with him, faith, worship and morality can never be isolated. Each is meant to enhance the other in a spiral leading to deeper and deeper communion with Jesus Christ.

This "objective connection" is at the basis of the Church's teaching — which the Pope, the Mexican bishops, the U.S. episcopacy and various other prelates have reiterated recently —that those who support abortion or other intrinsic evils cannot worthily receive Holy Communion. Benedict teaches in the exhortation that each of us, and especially those who serve in public office, is called to embody a "eucharistic consistency," which means that our whole lives, private and public, must be in communion with Christ, with his love, with his teaching and with his actions. To take up St. John Chrysostom's image above, we simply cannot claim to be faithful to Christ if we "ignore him" in the womb; the same Christ who says "this is my body" is the one who reminds us whatever we do to the least of his brothers and sisters — and we're littlest when we're in the womb — we do to him. We cannot be in communion both with Christ and with those who butcher unborn children made in Christ's image.

This call to "eucharistic consistency" is first a summons for all Catholics to examine their daily thoughts, desires and choices to make sure they cohere with Christ's teaching and commandment of love.

But it is also unmistakably an attempt on the part of the Church to call to conversion those who support abortion, by reminding them that to favor or facilitate the massacre of unborn children is to cut oneself off from communion with Christ, and by preventing them from pretending otherwise. The Church is hoping that, when such Catholics are forced to choose between supporting abortion and receiving the Eucharist, they will have enough faith to choose Christ, reject the evil of abortion, and enter into life.

For those for whom Christ in the Eucharist is the source and summit of their life, the choice should be easy.

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.