A Tour through the Mass!

Communion with Christ

“The bread which we break, is it not communion in the body of Christ?  As there is one bread, so we, though many, are one body, for we all share in the one bread.”  (St Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians 10.16-17).

These words of St Paul are among the first words about the Eucharist that have come down to us.  St Paul put them into writing even before the gospel words about the Last Supper were actually written down.  They are words which we need to take to heart.

St Paul writes these words because the Corinthians (a bit of an unruly lot) were misbehaving at Mass – they were starting off before everyone was there!  They were not acting as the community they were called to be.

Paul’s words show the radical importance of the relationship between celebrating the Eucharist and being the church.  In the Eucharist, we enter into communion with Christ and by so doing we enter into communion with each other.  The bread is broken specifically so that we all share the same food, that is we take into ourselves the same life-giving food, that is we share the same life.  We enter into communion with each other such that we become like a body – an organic unity which lives the same life and works together for the good of all.  St Paul develops this image of the body even further in chapter 12 of the same letter to the Corinthians.

This relationship of the Eucharist and the church has often been expressed in the following adage: The Church makes the Eucharist and the Eucharist makes the church.  That is, the church celebrates the Eucharist that has been left to it by Christ, then in the course of that celebration, the Eucharist makes the church what it really is – a communion of life in Christ.

Communion is a personal thing, but not an individualistic thing.  It is not given to separate us from others or to draw us away from others but to join us to others, to make us children of the Father with Christ and brothers and sisters of each other with Christ.

By Fr Frank O’Loughlin