Meeting 3. - Eucharist as union with people and God¶
Introduction for the Animator¶
The goal of today’s meeting is:
drawing attention to the need to prepare for the Eucharist;
showing the unity of people through the prism of receiving the Body and Blood of Christ;
showing the Eucharist as a source of attitudes that we should practice in our daily life.
Today’s meeting takes place after the Sunday Eucharist, therefore conclusions and resolutions will concern every next mass after returning home, without the retreat community. Therefore, the most important thing is that we make participants aware of these new communities, often random people, that we primarily show at today’s meeting the unity and equality of people participating in the mass and feeding on the Body and Blood of Christ. The second important point is showing the mass as a source of attitudes and a model to follow in our daily life, showing the Eucharist where a perfect community of people in God takes place, which we should try to create also outside the church.
Today the most important thing is referring to the experiences, feelings of participants. Let them tell how they experienced these masses during these retreats, whether they differed from other ones experienced by them so far. This reflection can proceed according to questions in the outline, but can also touch on other moments of the mass. The most important thing in this part is to extract concrete attitudes that we will try to introduce into our life after returning. This meeting has primarily a sharing character. One should “help” participants in recalling important fragments of the Eucharist, and even nitpick, provoke to express their opinion.
Eucharist as the saving presence of Jesus in the community of believers¶
And on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, “Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?” And he sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there prepare for us.” And the disciples set out and went to the city and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover.
—Mk 14:12-16
During the last supper, 12 apostles gathered around Jesus. They were the nucleus of the Church, the community that we can currently experience. Before eating the supper, Jesus orders the disciples to prepare the room. It is to be “large, furnished and ready”. Also we should prepare for the meeting with God.
What does my preparation for the Eucharist look like? (Making an appointment for an important meeting with someone close to our heart, we prepare solidly – appearance, punctuality, course of conversation.)
Let’s read:
The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.
—1 Cor 10:16-17
What is the bread in reality? It is the Body of Christ. Who do those who receive it become? The Body of Christ; not many bodies, but one body. In fact, just as bread is a unity, although it consists of many grains, which although they do not know each other, are in it, so that their diversity disappears in their perfect union — in the same way we are also mutually united with each other, and all together with Christ.
—Commentary of St. John Chrysostom
Through the Eucharist, and especially receiving Jesus in Holy Communion, He makes us become one with all who receive this Body. Our diversity builds the community.
What is my relationship, attitude towards other participants of the Holy Mass?
Can I accept and reconcile with the diversity of people participating in the Eucharist?
What does it mean to me that this diversity disappears in Jesus? How do I understand these words?
So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
—Mt 5:23-24
Jesus calls us to be able to forgive each other. So that we can participate in the Sacrifice of Christ without anger. Jews, before sitting down to supper with family and friends, washed their hands. Apart from hygienic reasons, this meant that one had to relax the hand. One could no longer have a hand clenched into a fist. Relaxing the hand caused all bad emotions to go away; one calmed down. Currently the same function, and maybe even greater, is expressed by passing the “sign of peace”. Through this gesture we unite with other people, pass on peace to each other, Christ’s peace – that is, release from all worries, cares, anger, wrath etc.
Can I forgive and reconcile before I enter the church?
What role does the “sign of peace” play in my experience of the Eucharist? Is it just shaking hands because it is appropriate? Can I shake hands at mass with those whom I hurt, those who hurt me?
Participation must be active!¶
Participation in the mass must be active. One cannot be just a listener, someone who watches from the side. For a meeting to take place, for it to be fruitful and beneficial for both sides, active participation of these 2 sides must occur.
What are my answers to the priest’s calls?
Do I answer at all, or do I just listen to what others say? What is my involvement in singing during the liturgy?
Let’s read:
The gift of Christ and his Spirit which we receive in Eucharistic communion superabundantly fulfills the yearning for fraternal unity deeply rooted in the human heart; at the same time it elevates the experience of fraternity already present in our common sharing at the same Eucharistic table to a degree which far surpasses that of the simple human experience of sharing a meal. Through the communion of the Body of Christ the Church comes to be ever more profoundly “in Christ in the nature of a sacrament, that is, a sign and instrument of intimate unity with God and of the unity of the whole human race”. The seeds of disunity, which daily experience shows to be so deeply rooted in humanity as a result of sin, are countered by the unifying power of the body of Christ. The Eucharist, precisely by building up the Church, creates human community.
—John Paul II – Ecclesia de Eucharistia
It is worth asking participants here about family celebrations (or any other) that take place at the table. What do they look like, how do people who come to them behave. How such celebrations are perceived by us, by participants (do not take up the topic of alcohol). What makes people sit at one table, gather for a celebration? Why do they do it? What is the goal of this meeting? Does the Eucharistic assembly have a similar goal? What attracts us during it? What makes us gather in one place and time?
During the Eucharist we become brothers, we unite, not by ourselves, but thanks to participation in one Body and Blood. The Lord’s Supper is not an ordinary feast. People have always organized feasts to be closer to each other, to unite. The most important events in the life of every person, joy, sadness we experience precisely during a feast, dinner etc. There people meet, open up to each other. Also these meetings with the closest person take place at the table. One of the elements of a perfect, romantic time with a loved one is precisely a joint dinner.
However, the Eucharist takes us to a higher level. Here we are united by the food we consume together. It allows us to perceive unity between us, It unites us. It should be noted that all people gather for this Food, it is what unites us. The Lord’s Supper constitutes a source of mutual understanding, respect, a source of community of people, revives unity between people, which sin broke. The Eucharist teaches us love for our brothers:
The Eucharist educates us to this love in the deepest way, because it shows what value every person, our brother and sister, has in God’s eyes, since Christ gives himself to everyone in the same way under the forms of bread and wine.
—John Paul II
Application¶
Let’s try in this part of the meeting to reflect on practical things resulting from the Eucharist. Since the Eucharist is not detached from reality, but is to help us in our daily life, is an image of ideal life in community with other people and God, therefore let’s consider on the basis of Fr. Blachnicki’s sermon, what elements of the Eucharist I can and want to improve and deepen in my life (in the context of the day’s topic). Let’s analyze the text of this sermon together with participants. Let’s try to highlight those points of liturgy that we can transfer to the ground of our daily life.
In the liturgy we are not only to unite with God, but to unite among ourselves and experience in an external sign this truth that we are a community, that we are the Church, that we are the People of God. And again it depends on us, on our opening not only to God, but also to brothers. […] When we come to the liturgical assembly, we come not to fulfill our personal religious duty and not to personally enrich ourselves with the word of God or the grace of God. Liturgy is not some, one could use this comparison, shop where everyone comes to buy for themselves some goods that they need. In the liturgy there is no such thing that we stand in line and everyone takes what is theirs and goes home satisfied. Liturgy in its entirety is a sign of what the Church is, that is, a sign of community. Going to the Holy Mass, or to another liturgical assembly, we go to unite into a community, to give expression to the fact that each of us is a member of the community, to experience our unity with the whole community of the Church and to express it externally. In the liturgical assembly I must feel a member of the community of the Church, I must enter with full awareness into this assembly, into the essence of Christianity and the Church, that is, into the community with God and with brothers.
Therefore, the condition for entering the liturgical assembly is reconciliation with brothers, rejecting from one’s heart everything that separates us. “If you are offering your gift at the altar - says Christ - and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift”. Well, this word of Christ refers primarily to our participation in the Eucharistic assembly. None of us should enter this assembly if he is at odds with another person, if he has grievances against someone in his heart, if he hates someone, if he has not yet forgiven someone, has not forgiven the harm.
Christ gives us himself and waits for our answer of faith and love. Receiving communion, i.e. receiving the Body of Christ, I confess by this that I am in unity with Christ and with all who eat the same Bread at the same table. This is a sign of unity. Just as in our human life sitting at a common table is a sign of friendship, a sign of love. Someone who is hostile, who has hatred in his heart, will not be asked to the table, will not sit at a common table in the family circle. Similarly the Eucharist: consuming the Lord’s Body in the community of God’s people, sacrament - sign of unity. If I approach the Lord’s Table, receive the Body of Christ, then by this I express outwardly that I am in unity with Christ and with all who are also in unity with Christ, who eat of the same Bread. If now someone approaches this external, sacramental communion, and in his heart there is no faith or love for Christ, there is no love for brothers in his heart, he is not ready to forgive everyone, is not reconciled with everyone, then he fulfills outwardly a sign which is a lie, to which internal experiences and attitudes do not correspond.
—Fr. Franciszek Blachnicki – Fragments of a conference on liturgy addressed to participants of the oasis in Krościenko on July 28, 1973.
Let’s ask:
How does our attitude change after leaving the Holy Mass? For how long does this strength to “bear” other people in the community last us?
Does the Eucharist have any common points with our daily life? Is it not perhaps something completely detached from it, a time in which we behave completely differently than in reality and do not try to transfer these values to our life?
In what way can I better prepare for the Holy Mass? Do I create for myself the possibility of such preparation?
Am I open to God’s action in me during the mass? Am I open to other participants of the liturgy?
Let the resolution after this meeting be finding one thing at the Eucharist that I will try to realize more after returning. (E.g. let it be finding time to prepare for mass, a deeper look at the “sign of peace”, an attempt to understand other participants of the liturgy, and not just complaining about them.) However, during the nearest Eucharist, let us thank God for this community that takes place through receiving the Body and Blood of Christ. Let us thank God for people, for brothers who together with me constitute the Body of Jesus Christ.