The Eucharist, Source of Unity and Healing In a Polarized World
Maria del Mar Muñoz-Visoso, M.T.S.| Executive Director, Secretariat of Cultural Diversity in the Church, USCCB
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “Those who receive the Eucharist are united more closely to Christ. Through it Christ unites them to all the faithful in one body, the Church”-thus, “the Eucharist makes the Church” (#1396).
The Eucharist not only recalls and makes present Christ’s sacrifice on the cross but brings about our communion, that divine bond of love and belonging to the Lord and to one another which must guide our daily actions and relationships. Saint Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, helps us to understand that we are one body composed of many diverse members. Diverse too are the gifts the Spirit bestows to each of us for the benefit of the many. As Christians, we are called to reflect that communion of love and life that is the Holy Trinity, one God in Three Persons, the greatest example of unity in diversity.
Through baptism, we become part of Christ’s Body, and the Eucharist feeds us and strengthens us so that we remain close to the Lord, to our brothers and sisters, and firm in the faith. In other words, we need each other, and our diversity is not only willed by God but ordered to the service of His Kingdom. For this reason, St. Paul expounds, one member of the body cannot tell another member “I don’t need you,” (1 Cor. 12:21), or in other words, I don’t love you. What affects one member of the body is felt by the entire body and when a member of the body rejoices, the whole body rejoices with it.
This communion is concretely realized in history. Using the description of the Church in Jerusalem by St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles, Pope John Paul II taught in one of his catecheses that “those who celebrate the Eucharist without heeding the demands of charity and communion actually reject the Eucharist.”
Pope Francis further explores this idea. He teaches us that truly understanding and living the gift of communion is the best way to confront divisions and polarization in the Church. Polarization turns friends into enemies, destroys trust and the bonds of fraternity that communion creates, and poisons the living waters of charity. Polarization leads to division, and it is a sign of a Christianity that has become “disincarnate”, and that is not of Christ. The Eucharist, on the other hand, is reconciliation and healing. In bringing about our communion with God and with one another, the Holy Spirit heals us from division and harmonizes our differences.
We must remember that our communion does not depend on our opinions, agreements, or preferences. Something so much deeper and powerful unites us. It is not the product of a consensus, but of our cooperation with the grace of God as members of the body of Christ.
Only when we show in the way we conduct our lives that we truly believe the Eucharist unites us, reconciles, and heals us of the wounds we inflict on one another is that we become salt and light to a polarized and divided world.
Let us not allow anyone or anything to separate us from the love of God and the life of the community. Let us ask God to grant us a better understanding of the gift of communion, so that we can truly be ecclesia de eucharistia (a Church of the Eucharist).