Remembering in the Eucharist

Often in liturgical tradition, we participate in experiences without much reflection. At the center of who we are as a Christian and Catholic community is when we gather to share in the Lord’s Table. We share in communion by receiving the Lord present in the consecrated bread and cup. Each time we share in the Eucharist we are invited to remember the Lord present among us.

Strangely this past weekend, I had the opportunity to engage the community about the Eucharist. In reviewing how one might come to communion due to the flu situation, we had the opportunity to have a communal conversation about what we engage in when we come to the Lord’s Table. What we do normally in receiving community had to be reflected on. The traditional ways of sharing at the Table of communion received in the mouth or in the hand and drinking from the cup became something to think about and reflect.

How we approach the Lord’s Table for communion is more than a practical set of directives; is reflective of what we believe and how we perceive the Eucharist. This past weekend’s conversation points to the intimacy of Communion within the community. Each believer is joined intimately with the Lord and with other believers within the Body of Christ. The Greeting of Peace before the Eucharistic moment is a time of personal blessing and embrace of other people within the community. There are no strangers within the Eucharistic community.

Liturgical Remembering
We are invited in the scriptures by Jesus himself to remember his death and rising by this pattern of liturgical gestures. How are we directed to remember the Lord? The scriptures which are reflected in our liturgical tradition is fourfold: Take, bless, break and give [the Bread] and take, bless, [pour out] and give the Cup. In this we remember the death and rising of the Lord until he returns among us. We read in St. Paul’s first Epistle to the Corinthians: “Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.”

In Luke’s account of Jesus risen from the dead with his disciples we read that their hearts burned within them as Jesus spoke with them and how “they came to know him in the breaking of the bread.” Such liturgical remembering is the style and content of Eucharistic prayer.

Celebrating First Communion
For the next two weekends at Christ the Redeemer, we have reminders of the importance of the Eucharist in the life of the community. This weekend we celebrated First Communion with our young children. Again next Saturday we will gather for the First Communion of our Spanish-speaking young children. As usual, these celebrations come with special clothes, flowers, music, and all kinds of family visitors. It’s all because the Eucharist is an important event, not only for the children, but for everyone within the community.

There is always a certain nostalgia attached to First Communion. We remember our own First Communions and the warm and familiar experience it was in our lives. The community helps us to recall our initiation into the Body of Christ, begun in Baptism and sealed in Confirmation. We literally remember that we are in full communion with the Body of Christ, the Church.

Beyond the nostalgia, we remember what the Eucharist actually means in the life of the church and in our personal life. As we gather with the young children, we can recall the many years of communion. We recall the many occasions when we have received communion. Some were joyous and others sad. We have been gathered in the Lord in many places and with many diverse people. We have changed and matured in life and also in our relationship with Christ.

Liturgical remembering is to make actual the actions of the Father in Christ within our communities. We appropriate what Jesus’ death and rising mean for us. As we see our young parishioners come forward to the Lord’s Table, we know their Christian journey will continue. The path begun in Baptism enlivened by the Spirit will take them and us through death to life, through the ups and downs of walking with Christ. Nostalgia looks only backwards, while liturgical remembering looks to the present and the future.

Easter at the Table
Easter Season is a great time for First Communion within our community. Like the disciples after the Resurrection, our hearts burn within us as we hear his Word. And like the early believers in the Church, we come to know the Lord in the breaking of the Bread. How blessed are we in seeing the action of God among our children and in being able to gather them in Christ among us.

CDH