During Lent and Easter of each year, our Sunday and weekday Gospels come mostly from John to help us enter more deeply into the mystery of our salvation. As the last Gospel to be written, John mirrors the work of the Holy Spirit drawing the Christian community ever deeper into the mystery of Christ’s presence in the Church.
In the sixth chapter Jesus says, “I am the living bread come down from heaven, whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my Flesh for the life of the world.” Jesus’ words to us may raise the questions in our mind: Do we know not just what we eat in Communion but Whom we eat? Do we know why we celebrate the Eucharist and what effect God wants Communion, the Body and Blood of Christ, to have on us and in us and through us?
The very word “communion” means union with. Thus we are united with Christ and His Body and Blood. This is not just a spiritual union but it is to be an existential union. It is not primarily about pious feelings, though they may be helpful, but about Christ-like love in action. As the early Church Fathers said, “God became human in order that humans might become God.” What Jesus is by nature, we become through adoption. It is the grace that comes through the Paschal Mystery that enables us to become the sons and daughters of God. We are called to become the Body of Christ at work in the world. As the First Letter of John says, “God is love and whoever lives in love, lives in God and God in him (or her)” (4:16). In Communion we are nourished by Christ’s Body and Blood so that we might live in Him and do what He did – “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor, He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19).
When we receive Communion, we recognize that we and all who receive Christ throughout the world are the Body of Christ in the world and we look to Christ our Head to show us how we can be His hands and feet, eyes and eats in the world. In living through Him and with Him and in Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, we not only give glory to the Father, but we come to share in eternal life.
What does this look like? It has many faces. Perhaps your face and mine are among them.
Recent examples are Kendrick Castillo in Highlands Ranch, Colo., and Riley Howell at UNC-Charlotte, who both gave their lives to stop shooters who were killing their classmates. As Jesus said, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). Both young men were known for their unselfishness and care for others. Kendrick would often help his father on Knights of Columbus projects. The Knights are one of the faces of Christ, whether they were helping people ravaged by hurricanes on the Gulf Coast or in Puerto Rico or in the Philippines, whether they were buying prosthetics for Haitian youth after the earthquake, whether they were providing wheelchairs for the poor in Vietnam or Mexico, or whether they were providing 1,000 ultrasound machines so that mothers would know what choice they are making, or whether they were rebuilding a Christian town in Iraq, or whether they were providing hundreds of winter coats to children in states like New Hampshire. There is also the face of those in parishes, like St. Peter, who tutor children in inner-city schools, volunteer at Urban Ministries or the Men’s Shelter or Dove’s Nest or McCreesh Place, provide furniture for formally homeless families who finally have a place to live, who help refugees and immigrants with English or the transition to the U.S., or who bring Communion to shut-ins. There are faces and hands of Christ in your parish.
This is what Communion is about – to transform us into the Body of Christ at work in the world. It is such love that gives us confidence for the last day. It is this love that the Holy Fathers, Sts. John XXIII, Paul VI and John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis have called us to. As St. John Paul II said so well: “Receiving the Eucharist means entering into a profound communion with Jesus. ‘Abide in me, and I in you’ (John 15:4).” “The Eucharist is not merely an expression of communion in the Church’s life; it is also a project of solidarity for all of humanity. In the celebration of the Eucharist the Church constantly renews her awareness of being a ‘sign and instrument’ not only of intimate union with God but also of the unity of the whole human race. …The Christian who takes part in the Eucharist learns to become a promoter of communion, peace and solidarity in every situation. More than ever, our troubled world … demands that Christians learn to experience the Eucharist as a great school of peace, forming men and women who, at various levels of responsibility in social, cultural and political life, can become promoters of dialogue and communion” (apostolic letter “Mane Nobiscum Domine,” “Stay with Us, Lord,” 19 and 27).
Receive Christ and through grace become Christ’s Body laboring in the world. That is our call and the power of Communion.
Jesuit Father John Michalowski serves at St. Peter Church in Charlotte.