The Holy Eucharist and the Moral Life: Part IV

Part IV: The Eucharist, Interior Union with Christ, and the Perfection of Charity

Some years ago, when I was living in Rome, I was a chaplain for a group in the LaSalette Parish there. It was the group a parish group associated with the national movement called Rinnovamento nello Spiritu Santo (The Renewal in the Holy Spirit). The Cardinal Vicar of the Diocese of Rome, Cardinal Ruini came to the parish for his visitation. I was asked to attend. There were a number of groups in the parish such as scouts, a group for the elderly, probably peace and justice, and more to the point, greeters, lectors, extraordinary ministers of holy communion, and I cannot recall what else. A representative from each of the many groups made a brief presentation on their numbers and activities and I will never forget the Cardinal’s response when he stood up to address those assembled there with the Pastor. It was essentially this, Father, I have enjoyed hearing about all the activities in your parish. Now, I would like to ask what you are doing in respect to the spiritual lives of your parishioners. In my experience, up until that time, I suppose I had been given to think that these things, because they were centered around the parish, were indeed directed to the spiritual development of the faithful of the parish. Have we allowed our people in our parishes to think that these things are what the Christian life is essentially about? Perhaps. That is due to what many of us in leadership have come to accept as the way to lead a parish. And that is due, in part, to a misunderstanding of what the concept of active or, more accurately, actual participation means.

In a 2009 article on the subject, Dr. Jeff Mirus states, “Over the past generation, there has been considerable confusion over what it means to fully participate in the Mass as called for in Vatican II’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. The Council Fathers emphasized the need for the laity to participate in the Sacred Liturgy in a manner which is “plenam, consciam, atque actuosam” (“full, conscious and active”). For years this mandate has prompted an insistence on vigorous responses, community singing, and a multiplication of lay roles in the liturgy, but very little has been said about the need to unite ourselves fully to the essential action of the Mass.” https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/actual-participation-in-mass/.

Before the Second Vatican Council, that exhortation for actual participation was present in the Church, undeniably. After the Council, however, its meaning took on different characteristics to the point that it has, to a significant degree become a liturgical issue with important moral implications. In the documents the word actuosam is translated as active. There is dispute about that and any number of people insist that it should be translated as actual. My interest is not the argument over translation. The moral issue is clear no matter if the translation is not.

The Decree on the Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium, establishes that participation at Mass is first and foremost interior. Having heard the moral teaching on the virtue of religion and worship, you can say with me, of course it is. It is expressed outwardly in the responses, singing, etc., but the wording in the council document was not meant to express liturgical hyperactivity on the part of those assembled for Mass. It was meant to express what “Pope Pius XI had already said decades earlier, namely, that the faithful should not be inert spectators at Mass, but should enter into it with mind, heart, and body.” https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2015/03/a-note-on-participation-what-can-we.html

Now, in order to avoid getting myself in more trouble with the liturgical experts, I am going to stop trying to interpret liturgical documents. I wish only to emphasize, morally speaking, that participation at Mass is first of all an interior act. This corresponds precisely to the moral dimensions of the virtue of religion. It begins with genuine devotion.

In the case of the Holy Eucharist this devotion is closely identified with the principle fruit of receiving the Eucharist in Holy Communion, an intimate union with Christ. One’s understanding of the power of the Eucharist grows in line with the devotion with which it is received. The receipt of Holy Communion achieves in the spiritual life everything and more what material food does for the bodily life. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1391-1392. This is bread for the pilgrimage until the moment of death. As our religious virtue grows and the reception of the faith expands, the intimacy of the union does as well, leading us closer to the true goal of human existence.

The Eucharist is a support to us because it strengthens charity which is the perfection of all the virtues. On a daily basis, our charity, which is the perfecting quality of the new man in Christ, tends to weaken. Reception of the Eucharist, which is living charity, wipes away venial sins, revives love, and enables one to break from away from disordered attachments to creatures and root ourselves in God.  CCC 1394. It also strengthens us against future mortal sins on account of this same charity.

Those who receive Holy Communion are to be conscious of the effect of being united ever more closely to Christ. Through this interior union, Christ unites the faithful in one, mystical body. Again, we are looking at a moral dimension of the Eucharist that reaches its ultimate fulfilment in the communion of the saints, a completion of one of the basic human inclinations and the natural law of the social order.

Conclusion: John 17

The Priestly Prayer of Jesus. 1When Jesus had said this, he raised his eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you…