Editorial
Eucharist proclaims Christ’s death until he comes again
The following quotation from St. Paul is the earliest written account of the institution of the Lord’s Supper in the New Testament. The narrative emphasizes Jesus’ action of self-giving and his double command to repeat this action “in remembrance of me:”
For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes. (1 Cor 11:23-26)
Paul tells the Church of Corinth, and by extension all of us, that when we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim Jesus’ death until he comes again. This makes the reception of holy Communion an act of evangelization. Eucharist is never a purely private devotion. It is always a proclamation of the Gospel and, therefore, an action of the whole Church united with Christ in this great sacrament of our salvation.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “The Eucharist 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. It is the culmination both of God’s action sanctifying the world in Christ and of the worship men offer to Christ and through him to the Father in the Holy Spirit” (#1325).
This makes our reception of the holy Eucharist something profoundly personal—our intimate communion with the person of Jesus Christ—and something that is done in union with the whole Church. The catechism goes on to say that “the Eucharist is the sum and summary of our faith” and that “by the eucharistic celebration we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life, when God will be all in all” (#1327, #1326; 1 Cor 15:28).
Considering the sacredness of what we are doing when we receive the Eucharist—as individuals and as a community of faith—there is no way we can afford to take this action for granted.
St. Paul urged the Corinthians to receive the holy Eucharist in a worthy manner. The consequences of an unworthy (or irreverent) reception of the Lord’s body and blood are quite serious. If we eat and drink unworthily, without having grasped and internalized the meaning of Christ’s sacrificial gift of himself to us, St. Paul says we are guilty of a sin against the Lord himself (1 Cor 8:12).
The only proper way to celebrate the Eucharist is with a deep and abiding reverence for what this sacrament is (the source and summit of Christian life) and for what it does (unites us with God and with all creation). A casual or indifferent reception of the holy Eucharist denigrates the profoundly sacred actions that the sacrament gives witness to—God’s action sanctifying the world in Christ and the worship owed to him by us.
St. Paul urges each of us to reflect on what it is we are doing when we consume the Lord’s body and drink his blood. The action we perform is something sacred. It is a proclamation of the Lord’s death that binds us to live as his disciples, to worship him with great reverence and to treat one another as members of the one family of God.
In a few months, our archdiocese will host the first National Eucharistic Congress in 83 years. This spiritual event will bring tens of thousands of pilgrims to Indianapolis on July 17–21. At the congress, pilgrims will gather to experience profound, personal renewal through the power of Christ’s love. Like a new Pentecost, this transformation will flow out from Indianapolis to bring revival in our communities as the Church returns to her first love—the source and summit of our faith.
At the heart of this National Eucharistic Congress are St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians, and to all of us, “for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26).
—Daniel Conway