An Anglican asks, what is communion?

[Lindsay54]

Sirs and Ladies

My wife and I will soon be attending a wedding. The bride-to-be is Anglican, the bridegroom Catholic.

At the matrimonial Mass, my wife and I, both Anglicans, will be formally excluded from acceptance of the Sacrament.

This is troublesome. Is Christ there in the formalities of the (literally) forbidding Church ceremony, or rather present in the joyous communal meal thereafter?

After all, it is the sharing of Bread and Wine that makes us all participants at God’s table.

What would Jesus recommend?

 

[Fr.Vincent_Serpa]

Dear friend,

The very question: “After all, it is the sharing of Bread and Wine that makes us all participants at God’s table” precisely underscores why the Catholic Church does not have open Communion. For Catholics, the Mass is not simply the sharing of bread and wine. The Eucharist is the very body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ that we receive IF we are in the state of grace. Not all Anglicans believe this. In fact, not all Anglicans are obliged to. All Catholics are. They must prepare themselves by being free of mortal sin. Otherwise, even they are not allowed to receive the Eucharist.

On that sky-darkened afternoon when the Son of God died in agony on our behalf, the moment in which He actually breathed His last was and is an ETERNAL moment. It transcends time, affecting everyone who has ever lived or will live. But it also, we believe, remains IN time as the Eucharist. For us, the celebration of the Eucharist is not a big party in which anyone can drop in and have a good time. It is a co-union in which God actually enters the body and resides in one’s very person. Such Communion is all about Him—because WE are all about Him. Our focus is on the blood that He so willingly shed on our behalf. We don’t take such Self-donation lightly. It is the most solemn acknowledgment a human being can make. On Good Friday, God revealed more about Himself than at any other time. As we reflect on the bruised and beaten body of Christ hanging on the cross, we acknowledge that this is who God is. And we are the ones that He loves that much!

Now the Eucharist IS a joyous thing—not because we are there; but because of the sacrificial Love for which we gather to give thanks. It is at the foot of the cross that a man and a woman come to be united to each other in the sacrament of Matrimony, recognizing the Love that is uniting them. How different a take on the wedding this is, from the shallow, self-indulgent notion that our culture provides.

What would Jesus recommend? He has already spoken.

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.