The Art of Communing
by Fr. Erasto Fernandez
Reception of Holy Communion is one of the most important sections of the Eucharist and could perhaps be regarded as the climactic point or zenith of the entire celebration. Even what most would regard as the core and important section, the Institution Narrative (formerly called Consecration) remains at the service of this aspect of communion! For, if Jesus did give himself up to death on the Cross it was out of obedience to the Father and love for us his brethren – his objective and mission was “to gather together the lost sheep of Israel” and also the other sheep that do not belong to the fold (Jn 10:16)… ‘that they all may be one, as you Father in me and I in You’ (Jn 17:21). Covenant is the goal of all of God’s dealings with us – and the essence of Covenant is oneness of life with God and with one another. So, we reflect a little more deeply on this important aspect.
Church as Communion
It would not be too far from the truth to say that most Christians have not yet understood the meaning of being Church, the Body of Christ! Most baptized persons would basically see themselves as individuals who happen to be together in this one place (parish or diocese). Fundamentally they believe that they are supposed to work out their salvation as individuals, each one working for her/himself; and what is worse, implicitly they believe that they do this on their own steam – the reward for their efforts will be heaven, granted by the divine Judge on the Last Day. And so they energetically busy themselves working to ‘save my soul’ and ‘to ensure that ultimately I get to heaven.’ Further, most of the means proposed by the Church add to this individualistic attitude – personal novenas, prayers, pilgrimages, the entire system of indulgences and merits and the like. Rarely is the community aspect stressed in the liturgical services that are the lifeline of the Church!
Writing to the Romans Paul reminds them that when a person is baptized, s/he is immersed into the dying of Christ so as to rise to a new life in him (Rom 6:2-7). In this process of dying-rising, what is shed is primarily the sense of individualism, of separateness from others in the Body of Christ. With Paul we believe that ‘it is no longer I who live but Christ, who lives in me!’ (Gal 2:20). Just as the branch cannot exist unless it is joined to the vine, so we too perish the moment we try to separate ourselves from Christ and from others. For to be joined to Christ, the Vine, means that at the same time we are one with all the other branches or Christians.
We could profitably use a more vivid image of what it means to be Christian: most baptized people today would compare themselves to marbles in a glass jar – all collected in that one enclosed space. However, each marble is an entity by itself and if some marbles are removed from the jar, basically nothing happens to the remainder, except that now there would be more space in the jar! A more correct way of picturing the reality of ‘church’ is to think of ourselves as the different ingredients that go to make a cake. To make a decent cake we need flour, sugar, butter, eggs, chocolate and several other items. All these are thoroughly mixed up and finally the batter is placed in the oven to bake. Once baked no one can say, e.g. that since s/he is diabetic, s/he would not like to have the sugar in the cake, but would have only the egg! Such a proposition is preposterous, for the entire cake is egg, the whole cake is sugar and so on. All the elements or ingredients have been blended into one another and the result is the delicious cake. Thus, in the Church each individual Christian loses his personal (egoistic) identity, so to say, to form the one body of Christ. Paul reminds us that ‘As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:27-28).
The fallacy that each is just an individual in the entire group of people that goes to make the Church is best seen when the following question is put to most Christians: ‘When you receive Jesus in Holy Communion, who receives the grace of that reception?’ Spontaneously and immediately they would answer: ‘Why, I, of course!’ And they look at the questioner as if there was something wrong with him/her for asking such a stupid question! But when given this comparison to mull over, things change: ‘When we have our meals, the limbs directly linked with the act of eating are the hands, mouth, stomach, eyes and a few others. But four hours after the meal is over would anyone say that the strength of that food we ate reaches only the hands, mouth, eyes and so on?’ Now, of course, they vociferously exclaim: ‘No the entire body benefits!’ So then, why should the same not happen when we receive Holy Communion? Shouldn’t the entire Body of Christ be the beneficiary even when only one person (limb) actually receives the sacred species?
Once this deep truth is understood and accepted, the implications are almost frightening! First of all, we understand better what Jesus said to Saul on the road to Damascus, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ It was not Christ but simply the Christians whom Saul was persecuting. Yet to persecute Christians is to persecute Christ himself. Again, Matthew reports in the Last Judgment scene: ‘What you do to the least of my brethren, you do to me!’ We are all members of the one body of Christ, and so what affects one member affects all. The poet wrote ‘When the bell tolls for the dead, do not ask for whom it tolls! A part of you has perished in the death of any person who dies!’
If our communion with God and one another is that deep, then no one can grow and prosper all by oneself. Or as is often said: ‘No one goes to heaven alone, nor does one descend to hell alone either. We always take others along with us, either way!’ We are so closely knit together as one living organism that what happens to one person has to affect the others positively or negatively. Thus we would need to develop a consciousness that our lives are not entirely our own – we have surrendered ourselves to Christ at the time of our Baptism and from then on, we belong to him and so for all things, we would need to look up to Jesus, to get our cues from him. As Jesus himself said: “Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise” (Jn 5:19). This is a quality that naturally develops from the sense of a deep communion with God. Already in the Old Testament we are told that this was a characteristic of King David of whom it is written: ‘David consulted Yahweh’ – and he did this for almost every major decision he needed to take.
Growing in Union
While it is true that we are inserted into the Body of Christ, the Church, at the time of our Baptism, it stands to reason that all through our lives we would need to deepen and strengthen that unity, not only between ourselves and God with whom we made Covenant, but also among ourselves and all people who form part of that Covenant, at least potentially. The important truth to be kept in mind here is that we cannot be united with God without at the same time being united with one another. St John says: “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen” (1 Jn 4:20). So, we can say that the ‘communion’ we experience or wish to experience during the Eucharist as we receive the Sacred Host, has to be validated or verified during the rest of the day as we work to deepen the bonds of relationship with everyone around us.
This would obviously need to begin in the family where we spend the most amount of time and rub shoulders with our kith and kin. We are aware, of course, that it is precisely in the family that it is most difficult to attain the kind of communion we speak of in the Eucharist – a deep interpersonal love and unconditional acceptance of the other. Somehow our experience is that in the family we tend to take one another for granted and so it is possible that a person can be truly ‘lonely’ even in the midst of his own family and close friends. When this happens it is not surprising that the person seeks this intimacy outside – any place or group where s/he can share at length and often at great depth, while in the family s/he could be quite reticent and unwilling to share anything at depth! The key-point however, is that unless we make the effort to enter into deep personal relationships with at least a few others, we would find it very difficult to truly commune with the Lord.
What is Communion?
For most Christians, the reception of sacramental Communion at Eucharist has become almost magical. While all acknowledge that the reception of Holy Communion is practically the most sacred part of the Eucharist, very few would know and be able to explain how exactly we ‘commune’ with God, and how we need to prepare ourselves to derive the maximum benefit of such communing. There is no doubt that in the minds of most Christians, including priests and religious, communion between God and us is seen as happening almost ‘automatically’. With the least expenditure of personal effort, all expect the greatest possible spiritual ‘grace’ to flow from this communion. But experience shows us that this does not happen – at least not effortlessly. The almost casual manner in which some receive Holy Communion invites us to investigate more deeply into what ‘communion’ really means. We approach the search with an analogy.
The communion we speak of here is an inter-personal communion and follows the same dynamics as when two human beings interact in a deep personal relationship with each other. An example to illustrate this would help: let us suppose that I enter a suburban train, and even though I do not see him at the beginning, a very good priest friend of mine is also seated further down in the same compartment. Since we have not seen nor recognized each other, at this stage we are present to each other with only a material presence – we are in the same compartment together. But some time later, I look up and spot him, recognizing him immediately as my good friend. We are now present to each other in a slightly deeper or incipiently personal way – it is only a one-way communication. After a few minutes, our eyes meet and we hail each other, though seated at a distance. Now the presence is personal and deeper still than in the previous case – now it is mutual.
Some time later, I get a chance to sit next to him and engage him in conversation about politics, sport and various other topics. Now our presence is even deeper as we actually communicate with each other, though on topics that do not directly involve our real inner selves. The presence is personal, yet impersonal and definitely not ‘inter-personal’ for we are simply a neutral ‘It’ to each other, sharing objective pieces of information. But as the conversation continues, I notice that my friend is not his usual outgoing, happy-go-lucky self and so I ask him about it. In response he pours out all that is troubling him presently, while I listen with deep interest and empathy. At this level, our communication is at its deepest and is truly ‘inter-personal.’ We are to each other truly an ‘I-Thou.’ As he finally rises to leave the train he reports that he already feels a lot lighter for through my empathic listening to him I truly shared his burdens. It is now two persons sharing the burden that one was carrying alone! The two have truly become one!
Of all these levels, it is only the last that truly constitutes ‘communion’ of two minds and spirits, of two persons! If this is what communion between two human beings means, then it must also be true of our communion with the Lord. Yet, for most of us this deepest level of inter-personal communication is rather a rare occurrence not even in our daily interactions with neighbours and friends, leave alone with the Almighty. Most often, while engaged in Eucharist or even in prayer, the Lord is only vaguely present to us, as far as we are concerned; we don’t often allow ourselves to experience his presence as deeply and personally as when talking or interacting with a friend or family member. And yet, true inter-personal interaction is not all that different or difficult either. In this process of communication, all that the Lord asks of us is just the bare minimum: that we ensure that we are fully there, attentive and receptive; he will do the rest through his Spirit. “Be still and know that I am God…”
In practice
On the practical level, this means that when receiving the Body of Christ, (and the same applies when we listen to the proclamation of the Word), we consciously make ourselves aware that Jesus has something to say to us personally; he wishes to engage us in an interpersonal transaction. So, we would need to be alert, attentive and open to his personal presence to us. Besides, if we have been able to catch his message for us earlier in the readings, this understanding and consequent union at Communion time would be a lot easier. All we need to do is to allow him to deepen and personalize the message much more. One such loving and personal ‘encounter’ with the Lord is worth much more than a thousand Holy Communions received mechanically and impersonally. It was this kind of a personal message given on the road to Damascus that brought about the radical conversion in Saul, or again changed the entire life of a Zacchaeus! From that moment on till his dying day, he was a different person! From Saul, the rabid and violent persecutor he was transformed into Paul, an ardent and passionate follower of the Risen Lord. And the same happened to Zacchaeus and can happen to us too, when we are ready to pay the price.
During the distribution of Holy Communion, it is customary to sing a Communion song. While this is a good practice, care should be taken not to so distract ourselves that we fail to remain in deep silence so necessary for effective personal communion with the Lord. Rather, the Celebrant should make every effort possible and provide a sufficiently conducive ambience of silence so that each person in the assembly can truly commune with the Lord in the deepest recesses of his/her being. If any suggestions are to be made for reflection, they should be along the lines of Jesus’ desire to commune personally and deeply with each of the participants. He could invite the assembly to listen deeply to the Lord speaking to each one in a personal manner. Reciting prayers composed by someone else is the least effective way of promoting real communion with the Lord, even when the prayers are carefully and beautifully composed. In an exercise of that kind, one’s attention is inevitably on the words being recited – and if the leader interjects his/her own pet themes, that makes it all the more difficult to attend to the Lord present to us at that all-important moment. Instead, brief suggestions could be made linked with the key message of the Liturgy of the Word or any other section that has been highlighted in a given Eucharist, allowing a fair amount of silence in between.
Developing Intimacy
This kind of communion entered into regularly at each Eucharist will flower into a deep intimacy between the Lord and us and it will continue throughout the day. For, the process of growth in intimacy (communion) with the Lord is very similar to the growth of friendship and love between two human beings. The first requisite for intimacy to develop between two humans is: proximity and some interaction that facilitates personal insight into the character and nature of the other. One cannot develop a deep friendship with someone who is absent or operates at a distance, or with whom one seldom if ever, interacts. As the interaction increases both in frequency and intensity, each partner begins to see several good qualities in the other. Each begins to see the other as “suited” for me, friendly and beneficial to me! It is these insights that bind the two together – the more we experience the ‘goodness’ and desirability of the other in view of the qualities one has perceived in the other, the stronger the bond between the two.
Another strange phenomenon is worth noting also. In order to pick up the desirability and other good qualities of the other with whom one interacts, there has be an initial faith or love invested in the other. This can happen through what one has heard from others, though often it is almost instinctive. People often refer to this as: ‘we just clicked’ or ‘the chemistry between the two worked.’ With subsequent meetings and experiences the initial deposit of ‘faith’ or ‘love’ will either keep growing or will diminish and finally disappear. However, once the minimum amount of trust needed for the relationship to continue has been crossed, the bond will break almost irreparably. Having tasted the goodness of the other, we then consciously or unconsciously seek out the ‘friend’ and set up more and frequent encounters.
Intimacy Deepens
Again, once the initial desirability has been internally established and registered, the ‘closeness’ begins to grow. One sure sign that the two are really and deeply bonded together is that the ‘conversation’ between the two continues even when they are apart. Each now begins to carry the other ‘within’ her/himself, mentally talking and sharing with the other everything, even the most secret thoughts and feelings. Every now and then both would experience a deep emotional longing to be with the other, to spend time and share deeply with the beloved. As the bond of friendship deepens, the two lives mesh more and more: they spiritually commune with each other almost constantly through the day. Everything experienced is viewed in terms of the other – they literally enter into the fabric of each other’s lives. It is at this stage and in this way that the ‘presence’ is internalized and cannot be erased except through neglect or by a conscious choice.
While we are aware at least superficially when all this happens to us in a human relationship, we must remember that exactly the same dynamics work in our relationship or communion with Jesus. The moment Jesus becomes someone real for us we will begin to notice this process occurring within us. From then on our ‘communion’ with him is not restricted only to the celebration of the Eucharist but continues all through the day and night. There are no secrets between us, and just as we share everything with him, so too would he share everything with us. As he said to his close associates: ‘To you has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but to those outside, everything comes in parables… (Mk 4:10-12).
Further, often the ‘beloved’ is the only one who detects some of the innermost qualities in the person loved. Others, even those reasonably close like family members, would hardly see these qualities and in fact, find it difficult to understand how the beloved can see them at all. And the reason the beloved detects these qualities is that s/he looks on the other with love. Applying this fact of our experiential observation to our relationship with the Lord, we realize that it is important to approach him with a deep conviction that he loves us with an infinite and unconditional love (‘God our Father looks on us with love – all the time…’!) and we too approach him with our simple, humble yet grateful love and admiration. It is very important not to neglect this growth because the relationship is a living one and as such needs to be nourished constantly through periodical contacts, deep sharing and interchange, through reminders, souvenirs and various other gestures of love. The more genuine and frequent the efforts to ‘meet’, the deeper and more lasting will be the communion. The final stage in all friendship (between human beings and also between us and God) could be called the ‘mystical stage’ wherein both parties ‘dwell/abide’ in each other; each is set ‘as a seal upon my heart!’
Communion – a Lifelong process
Since this dynamic applies to all relationships or communion even with the Lord, frequent and personal contact is essential as the first step, either in times of deep quiet prayer or in other circumstances. Where this happens and is consciously fostered, we have the opportunity to discover the qualities of God in a much more personal manner. These enable us to ‘dialogue’ with him not only during times of prayer but almost all through the day. Soon we experience the truth that ‘God is dwelling in my heart, he and I are one!’ From then on, even the words of Scripture will take on a new and different meaning – we no longer see the Gospel stories as accounts of what Jesus did long ago, but of what he does in our lives today. We begin to see Jesus as a real and living person, sometimes reflected in the lives of people around us. We discover many changes in ourselves too because of this deep intimacy with the Lord: we notice, e.g. that we are a lot less sensitive to criticism and rejection, that we can take failure and disappointment in our stride, that we can appreciate the good in others more easily and praise them selflessly and spontaneously – all because we are more secure in God’s love for us personally; he has become the centre of our lives, and all the rest has become relatively less important. All these changes are signs of our definite assimilation into Christ – the two are becoming one … really, if only gradually!
Communion then is not just something that ‘happens’ automatically and effortlessly when we receive the sacred Host. It should begin at the very start of the Eucharist as we joyfully welcome our brothers and sisters and join with them to Eucharist. For if we cannot commune with our neighbour whom we can see, how can we expect to commune with the God we cannot see? It continues through the Penitential Rite as we discover the attitudes and actions in our lives that block such communion (basically these are actions done in opposition to God’s will). These harmful un-Christian attitudes must be seen against the background of God’s own tremendously unbelievable love for us. It further moves into the Liturgy of the Word where we listen attentively to the story of God’s love for human beings (myself included) and then through the rest of the celebration reaching its climax in the interpersonal communion through the sacred signs of broken bread and shared Cup.
Further this communion is extended throughout the day with each effort we make to see every event in the light of the Gospel: ‘What would Jesus do if he were in my place?’- this should become our watchword as we live our work-a-day lives. As we consciously practice this ‘communion,’ we find that we commune with our neighbour also much more freely, effortlessly yet genuinely. This kind of living out of our Eucharist brings us to the next Eucharistic celebration with renewed vigour and enthusiasm, eager to encounter the Lord even more deeply.
Eucharistic Values
When we are earnest and sincere about our communion with the Lord and with one another at the Eucharist, we cannot but become persons who are ‘people-friendly’ or person-oriented. It is amazing how some persons would be prepared to lose even a long-standing friendship rather than see their self-inspired and self-generated projects compromised in any way. For them success is more important than maintaining good relationships. Jesus’ triple question to Peter after the Resurrection is significant: ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? Eucharistic communion always orients us towards persons making us look first for their interest and advantage.
This approach is linked very much with the servant attitude that Jesus wished us to have. “I have given you an example, that you may wash one another’s feet, as I have done for you (Jn 13:14-16). Of Peter’s mother-in-law we are told that no sooner Jesus raised her up to her feet than she ‘began serving them’ (Mk. 1:29-32). Our readiness to humbly serve the other is a sure sign that we are deeply united with the Lord and that we have risen with him and share in his passion to win people over for God’s kingdom.
The interactions we enter into with our brethren will provide ample opportunities for dying to self which is the only condition needed for fruitful and healthy relationships with people. All our quarrels and differences with others arise out of our selfish or self-centred attitudes. The more we die to ourselves, in the best sense of the term, the more we would be able to live a “win-win” approach in all our transactions with others. “He must increase, I must decrease” would be our motto! And then, most certainly each of us would become a ‘channel of peace’ as St. Francis prayed. Like Jesus we would go about doing good to all we meet. In each encounter we would be able to ‘leave a blessing behind us’ as we go. As true children of God, we would transform bitter valleys into places of spring.
In so far as we develop intimacy with the Lord and the people around, we would also notice a certain measure of harmony within ourselves. The division we experience within ourselves is a constant source of tension and stress leading to several serious psychosomatic ailments. We will find that we can be at peace with ourselves and the surest sign of this is that we can handle fairly long periods of silence and solitude. No longer would we experience the restless need to have something going, to have music playing in the background while we move from one place to another, or engage in manual work. Silence would no longer frighten us, nor the fact that we find ourselves totally alone. This ‘being comfortable with oneself’ is perhaps the biggest gift that our intimacy with Jesus will have brought us.
The communion we consciously seek during the Eucharist would also flower out into a closeness with the whole of Nature. The result would be that we find ourselves more at home wherever we are, in any place in the world. There would possibly evolve a greater bond between us and animals too – something like what we read of in the life of St. Francis of Assisi; all of creation too would feel at home with us and we with them. Basically this is because we will have achieved, to a certain extent at least, the very purpose of Covenant with God – a ‘oneness of life’ with God and all of creation! When this happens then we will truly worship the Father in spirit and in truth, without needing to go to this mountain or that. We will have discovered the centre of creation within ourselves, at the very core of our being!
Expressing these Eucharistic values schematically we have the following:
- We become people-friendly
- We relate to others humbly, ready even to serve the other
- In our relationships, we seek the good of the other, readily dying to self when needed
- We develop harmony within ourselves
- We also are one with the rest of Creation, especially with animals and Nature.
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Copyright © Fr. Erasto Fernandez. All rights reserved.
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