Is the Communion of Saints the most profound pun ever?

[NotWorthy]

I was listening to a Mary Foundation CD on 8 secrets of the Eucharist.

The speaker talks about how all the saints in heaven are united in the Body of Christ. When we receive Communion, we receive the entirety of Jesus, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity. Hence, all the saints in the Body of Christ are received by us in communion!!! Think about it, not only are we sharing the life of Christ in the Eucharist, we are sharing the life of our dead ancestors, friends, and relatives who have joined Christ in the Beatific Vision!!!

Hence, the phrase, the Communion of Saints is the most incredible pun I’ve ever heard!

Is that awesome or what? What are your thoughts?

 

[cue]

Hence, all the saints in the Body of Christ are received by us in communion!!!

We have to be careful about this point. It is true that we are united with the saints when we come to Mass and receive Comunion:

1. Finally, by the Eucharistic celebration we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life, when God will be all in all.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

However, we do not receive them. The only saint we might be able to say that about is Mary, from whom Christ took his flesh. When we receive Communion, we receive a part of her in that sense. However, in Heaven, the saints do not mingle into material composing Christ’s body and person. They are united perfect with him in the Church called his body. In their unity, they do not lose their individuality. There are two senses in which the “Body of Christ” is used. The first refers to the actually body of the person of Christ that men saw on earth, suffered death, and was glorified. This is what we receive in Holy Communion. The second sense is more precisely called the Mystical body of Christ which is the Church. While our participation in this Mystical body is most fully expressed and realized in receiving the Body of Christ in Communion, we do not receive the Church in Communion. It unites us supernaturally to that Church, but the Church is not truly or substanially present in the Blessed Sacrament as Christ is.

1. “Since all the faithful form one body, the good of each is communicated to the others… We must therefore believe that there exists a communion of goods in the Church. But the most important member is Christ, since he is the head… Therefore, the riches of Christ are communicated to all the members, through the sacraments.”

1. The Church is a “communion of saints”: this expression refers first to the “holy things” (sancta), above all the Eucharist, by which “the unity of believers, who form one body in Christ, is both represented and brought about.”

1. The term “communion of saints” refers also to the communion of “holy persons” (sancti) in Christ who “died for all,” so that what each one does or suffers in and for Christ bears fruit for all.

1. “We believe in the communion of all the faithful of Christ, those who are pilgrims on earth, the dead who are being purified, and the blessed in heaven, all together forming one Church; and we believe that in this communion, the merciful love of God and his saints is always [attentive] to our prayers.”

Nonetheless, it could be seen as a pun. The Eucharist is the Communion of the saints; it is the Communion they receive. The communion of the saints also means the group of saints in heaven. So you can see a certain pun in it.

 

[NotWorthy]

Cue, I understand your point. I’ll listen to the CD one more time.

But my first thought… We receive Jesus Christ - Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in His entirety. If the saints are a part of the Body, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me…”, then what conclusion logically follows…?

 

[cue]

If the saints are a part of the Body…

The saints are part of the mystical body, but not his glorified Body (which we receive). The saints do not add to Christ or make up a part of him. Christ is perfect and exists in his entirety without the saints. If we received the saints in Holy Communion, the further and further the Churche existed in history, the more and more would be received in Communion. So, St Paul would not have received as much as we do (2,000 years and many, many saints later). This would also imply that Christ gets better or bigger by more and more saints being assimilated into him. This is not true. He is God and perfect. When a perfect being changes he becomes imperfect. He does not change.

The mystical body is an image of the Church, just as the bride of Christ, but does mean his glorified Body.

 

[NotWorthy]

The Little Flower, St. Theresa, would probably beg to differ with you here. I got the chance to listen a little more to the CD, and in her autobiography she relates that she was crying during her first communion. The nuns thought it was because she missed her mother who had recently died.

Her tears, though, were tears of joy because she knew she was being reunited with her mother (and all of the heavenly saints) by receiving the Eucharist.

 

[NotWorthy]

The saints do not add to Christ or make up a part of him. Christ is perfect and exists in his entirety without the saints. If we received the saints in Holy Communion, the further and further the Churche existed in history, the more and more would be received in Communion.

We already receive Christ in His entirety, and Christ is infinite. Your hypothesis doesn’t seem to add up, here.

So, St Paul would not have received as much as we do (2,000 years and many, many saints later). This would also imply that Christ gets better or bigger by more and more saints being assimilated into him. This is not true. He is God and perfect. When a perfect being changes he becomes imperfect. He does not change.

Does Heaven grow just because there are more saints in it? I don’t think so. I think you are trying to place earthly laws of physics on God.

Christ is infinite. And yet we receive HIm in His entirety.

That’s why it’s called a mystery.

 

[cue]

We already receive Christ in His entirety, and Christ is infinite. Your hypothesis doesn’t seem to add up, here.

Exactly, Christ is infinite and cannot be ‘added to.’ “My hypothesis” was an attempt to demonstrate the consequences of your idea: the saints adding to Christ and then received by the faithful.

 

[dylanschrader]

I would rather say that one who receives Communion becomes more fully incorporated into the Body of Christ.

Why?

The Eucharist expresses and brings about the Communion of Saints, that is, the unity of the Church.

Thus, to receive the Eucharist is to be more fully united with the saints.

However, it is extremely important to be clear that while Christ is present substantially in the Eucharist, the saints are not substantially present in the Eucharist.

The Eucharist is Christ himself under the species of bread and wine. The Eucharist is not St. Paul himself or anyone else under the species of bread and wine.

The Church is the Body of Christ, but this means that she is Christ’s visible presence in the world, not that she is the literal Body he assumed in the Incarnation. The Body he assumed in the Incarnation, which has since been glorified, is present in the Eucharist substantially.

The saints “are received” only in a spiritual sense, not literally.

 

[cue]

dylan,
you have stated it more clearly than I. Thank you.

 

[NotWorthy]

But you are both ignoring the fact that we receive Chirst’s Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity.

As the Body of Christ are we in Christ or are we not? You guys are sounding like this is only symbolic.

When we receive the Body of Christ, do we receive His Entirety?

 

[NotWorthy]

dylan,
you have stated it more clearly than I. Thank you.

Actually, Cue, I think you are not giving yourself enough credit, as you are stating the case quite adequately, IMHO.

It seems to me that I am not presenting the case of the priest on the CD and St. Theresa adequately at all.

BTW, God Bless you both for putting up with me!

 

[dylanschrader]

But you are both ignoring the fact that we receive Chirst’s Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity.

As the Body of Christ are we in Christ or are we not? You guys are sounding like this is only symbolic.

When we receive the Body of Christ, do we receive His Entirety?

Yes. When receiving the Eucharist, one receives the whole Christ.

The point is just that the Second Person of the Trinity is present in substance while the saints are not present in substance.

 

[NotWorthy]

Yes. When receiving the Eucharist, one receives the whole Christ.

The point is just that the Second Person of the Trinity is present in substance while the saints are not present in substance.

Wouldn’t God the Father and the Holy Spirit also be present in the Eucharist?

 

[dylanschrader]

Wouldn’t God the Father and the Holy Spirit also be present in the Eucharist?

In a way, yes. Substantially, in the same way Christ is present? No.

The Second Person is present in substance just as the Second Person was the one who became Incarnate, not the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Of course, “whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” Christ is not the Father, but he is consubstantial with the Father. Thus, in the Eucharist, we consume the Second Person, Jesus Christ, and in that way receive also the Father and the Holy Spirit, who are of the same substance as he is, although they are not present personally in the Eucharist as is the Second Person.

 

[NotWorthy]

Dylan,

You seem to keep dwelling on the Body and Blood, and not the soul and divinity. Where Jesus is present, the Father and the Holy Spirit are equally present.

If we receive Christ in His entirety, then we receive the Father and Holy Spirit in Their entirety.

 

[dbacks5439]

Were the Apostles considered part of Jesus’ body? If so, then at the Last Supper, did they essentially received themselves? What is different between the Church Triumphant and the Church Militant is that those on Earth can receive grace or they can lose it. Those in Heaven can’t do either. Their grace is fixed. Therefore, they cannot give us grace. Only Jesus can. Since Jesus has infinite grace, He is able to give us that grace in the Eucharist. The Saints can’t, therefore we do not receive the Saints in the Sacrament. We are, however, in communion with them as we sing to the Lord together, hand in hand.

 

[NotWorthy]

Were the Apostles considered part of Jesus’ body? If so, then at the Last Supper, did they essentially received themselves? What is different between the Church Triumphant and the Church Militant is that those on Earth can receive grace or they can lose it. Those in Heaven can’t do either. Their grace is fixed. Therefore, they cannot give us grace. Only Jesus can. Since Jesus has infinite grace, He is able to give us that grace in the Eucharist. The Saints can’t, therefore we do not receive the Saints in the Sacrament. We are, however, in communion with them as we sing to the Lord together, hand in hand.

Did I ever claim that the saints give us Graces? No.

Jesus gives us His Body. Who and what consists of His Body? That’s the claim that the Marian Foundation makes on their CD. That’s the claim that St. Theresa makes in her autobiography. That, to me, makes sense.

When we enter the Mass, we enter into Heaven with the Saints. I know that. That’s different, though, with what I’m talking about.

 

[batteddy]

When we recieve the Eucharist, we don’t recieve the saints, but we are united with them.

One reason the Eucharist builds up the body of Christ is that…when you recieve the eucharist along with everyone else in a church…you are all sort of “linked” by the fact that the same substance is in all of you. The saints do not literally have Jesus in their stomachs in the same way, but they are filled with his divinity in the beatific vision.

 

[dylanschrader]

Dylan,

You seem to keep dwelling on the Body and Blood, and not the soul and divinity. Where Jesus is present, the Father and the Holy Spirit are equally present.

If we receive Christ in His entirety, then we receive the Father and Holy Spirit in Their entirety.

I say again and again that Christ is substantially present. Substance is a technical term used by the Church to mean that Christ is present according to the manner of that which makes him what he is. The whole Christ is present: Body and Blood, soul and divinity.

Thus, Christ is present in the Scriptures, but the Scriptures are not Christ (except as a manner of speaking).
Christ is present in the people at Mass, but the people are not Christ (except as a manner of speaking).

Christ is present in the Eucharist, and the Eucharist is Christ. Literally, not as a manner of speaking, but in objective reality independent of our mind.

The Scriptures are still the Scriptures. The people at Mass are still the people at Mass.

The bread and wine, however, have absolutely ceased to exist in the Eucharist. The only substance that remains is the substance of Christ.

I am not saying that the First and Third Persons are not present. They are present everywhere, but they are not present in the same manner as the Second Person is present in the Eucharist.

Why?

The Eucharist is Christ.

The Eucharist is not the Father.
The Eucharist is not the Holy Spirit.

 

[NotWorthy]

Why?

The Eucharist is Christ.

The Eucharist is not the Father.
The Eucharist is not the Holy Spirit.

And you don’t understand that you can’t separate the Three.

The Father is fully present in the Eucharist. The Holy Spirit is fully present in the Eucharist. The Father and the Holy Spirit are fully present in Jesus’ Body. They ARE inseparable.