Receiving Communion

You may have noticed that we always speak of receiving communion.  The Eucharist is placed in our hand when we go to communion, that is we receive it.  This may seem something that we take for granted and don’t think about but it has real significance.  The Eucharist is not something we ‘take’ but something we ‘receive’.  It is a gift and that is why it is placed in our hands; we do not reach out and take it.  It is the same with the chalice.  The cup is given to us to receive and take that consecrated wine into ourselves and so to speak let it penetrate us.

Just as we cannot give life to ourselves, it is a gift that we receive.  So God’s gift of new life in the future is also just that – a gift.  And so is the Eucharist, the deposit God gives us on the future he promises us; it is a gift that we receive.

Our response to this gift is to say ‘Amen’.  It is our agreement to all that the Eucharist means; it is our agreement to enter into all that the Eucharist means and commits us to.  This personal ‘Amen’ at communion parallels the communal ‘Amen’ that we all proclaim at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer.  They echo each other.  They are both saying “I am in”; I stand with and rejoice in all that we have done and said in this Eucharist.

We go to communion in a procession, that is we all go together.  This communion is not just about my communion with the Lord but about our communion with the Lord.  And as we go to communion, we sing together precisely because what is happening for me in this action is happening for everyone who is present and part of the Eucharist.  We are joined together.  It is in the Eucharist that Christ makes us ‘his body, the Church’.  Though we are many, he gives us the Eucharist in order that we may be one.  This Eucharist which the gathered Church celebrates, makes of those who celebrate it the Church, that is a communion of life with and in Christ our Lord.

By Fr Frank O’Loughlin