The Eucharist - Gathering in Loving Unity
by Fr. Erasto Fernandez
To most of us it would seem very logical to begin the Eucharist with a sincere avowal of our unworthiness to enter into God's presence. Deeply conscious of our habitual inclination to sin, and having been made almost self-conscious over the years about our unworthiness to come into God's holy presence, the petition for pardon comes naturally to our minds. We tend to see it as something like getting tidied up before the party begins. Yet, it might come as a surprise to us to learn that what we today call the 'penitential rite' is in the mind of the Church, not so much an acknowledgment of sin and a plea for pardon, as a joyful acclamation of the forgiveness that God has already freely and generously given us in Christ Jesus. The seniors among us would remember the old Greek 'Kyrie eleison' that constituted the penitential rite. In the early years of the Church's life, it was a joyful shout of praise. Later when Latin took over, it gradually lost its pristine joyful character and became more of an abject plea for pardon: Miserere nobis. A careful reading of the alternative ways of conducting the Penitential Rite as given in the Roman Missal used at the Eucharist will immediately convince us of this. One of these reads: 'Your raise the dead to life in the Spirit, Lord
; You bring pardon and peace to the sinner, Christ
You bring light to those in darkness, Lord
What strikes us immediately is the total lack of the "I" - 'for the times when I sinned in though, Lord
' which is the usual way we make those petitions!
God's Love/Mercy is Unconditional
The penitential rite in the Eucharist invites us to reflect attentively on the question of God's mercy - as Jesus revealed it to us. If we compare John the Baptist's preaching in preparation for the coming of the Messiah, we see that he warned them sternly: 'Prepare fruits of repentance or else you will not be spared!' A short time later, when Jesus began his public ministry, he went about proclaiming: 'this is the Jubilee year'. Now for the Jews this could only mean that what Jesus was really saying is that just as the Israelites were expected in the Jubilee Year to freely and generously forgive their neighbours of all their debts, so in this year of Jesus' coming, God had freely and graciously forgiven us all our sins. Isn't that some "Good News" worth rejoicing over? Yet it does seem odd that we rejoice at the thought of our sins and failings - and we are left with a nagging sense of doubt that we cannot really rejoice at being forgiven without first feeling miserable about our sinfulness, isn't it?
Yet, that is precisely the difference when God forgives - his forgiveness is not like human pardon. We will understand this need to rejoice at the free gift of forgiveness when we recall that the Israelites were familiar with three kinds of debts: the debt of justice incurred when a person entered into a legal contract with another but did not fulfill his part of the contract. Thus, if I were to purchase a book but not pay the full amount to the shopkeeper, then until I clear off the balance, I would be under the debt of justice. The day I go and clear up the debt, it vanishes. It is in my power then, to remove that debt of justice. The next is the debt of gratitude - which occurs when, e.g. someone does me a favour; I automatically am indebted to him and owe him a favour in return, by virtue of gratitude. In this case too, the day I repay him in some way, that debt ceases - and here again, it is in my power to remove the debt of gratitude.
We come now to the third kind: the debt of offence. This occurs when A hurts or offends B. In this case, A may go and profusely apologize to B and humbly acknowledge his fault. Yet, the rupture in the relationship introduced by the fault does not disappear until B offers A the gift of forgiveness and renewed friendship. Notice here that it is in the hands of the offended party to forgive the offender - and until he does that, A remains indebted to B. Thus, forgiveness if always a free gift, graciously and lovingly offered and humbly accepted. If this is so among us humans how much more is not God's forgiveness a free gift? No matter how much we plead or repent, that does not give us the right to obtain forgiveness. Only God's free gift could restore us to his friendship and love.
Now when we reflect that God's goodness and love pursue us even at the very moment of our sinning, would we not rejoice to know that God continually forgives and welcomes us back home, almost as if nothing had come in between us through our sin? "I will cast your sins behind my back," he assures us. So, particularly at the Eucharist, recalling that especially through the death-resurrection of Christ his Son, God has once-and-for-all forgiven and re-instated us as his genuine children, we have every reason to rejoice!
Christian Living: A Response of Love
This does not mean that because God is so good, patient and 'lenient' we can go on sinning and take advantage of his love. If we behave in this way, it simply means that we have not really understood what God's love is all about! No one who tastes God's love deeply can consciously and callously offend him again. Yet, so very often, unconsciously we keep choosing self in preference to God's will and thus break or weaken our relationship with him. In spite of this, instead of punishing us, he still lovingly beckons us to return to his love. "Come back to Me, with all your heart; don't let not fear keep us apart! Long have I waited for your coming home to me and living deeply our new life." He knows that his love is the only 'remedy' for our waywardness.
So, not only throughout our lives, but also very especially at the Eucharist, we thank and praise God for his immense forgiving love given so freely and readily each time we fail him. At the penitential rite, therefore, we should not approach God in mournfulness, abject penitence or with a beggarly craving for mercy - which is what we do so often even in the way we pray/sing the 'Lord, have mercy.' This grovelling approach is an insult to God's gracious and forgiving generosity. The meaning of the phrase 'Lord, have mercy' is: 'Lord, you are so merciful, you are so generous with your love. In spite of our sinfulness you welcome us back with tender compassion.' We need to reflect these sentiments in our stance, our tone of voice and our general bearing during the penitential rite.
Christians: Reconciled and Reconciling
God's love is transformative and forgiveness is not just a cancelling of an objective debt - 'out there', as it were. It is something living and involves a complete renewal of the person forgiven, particularly of the relationship between God and us. And so, the test of our having genuinely received his forgiving love is that we can also reach out to others with an equally generous forgiveness when they offend us. That is why when teaching us to pray, Jesus included as one of the key phrases the petition: 'Forgive us our debts as we also forgive all those indebted to us.' Further, the parable of the 'Unforgiving Servant' reminds us that God's gracious forgiveness cannot be only accepted and hoarded for oneself: it has to be passed on. In fact, the way Luke presents the Lord's Prayer emphasizes that it is precisely in the very act of forgiving others that we ourselves are forgiven. St. Matthew has us pray: 'forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors!' Our prior forgiveness of others is the basis of our petition for our own petition for forgiveness from the Father. Luke introduces a much closer and tighter link between God's act of forgiveness and our own extending that same forgiveness to our offenders. In practice, this means that if we harden our hearts in unforgiveness to others, our hearts and whole being for that matter remain stony even when God's forgiveness knocks at our doors.
Hence during the penitential rite, we not only focus on God's gracious gift to us of a new beginning, but also look more outwards to see whether we have really forgiven all those who have hurt us. We recall the words of Jesus: "If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that you brother has something against you
" (Mt. 5:23). We also note what Matthew adds at the end of the Lord's Prayer: 'For, if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses' (Mt. 6:14-15).
Again, we recall the parable Jesus told Simon the Pharisee about the creditor and the two debtors, one owing five hundred denarii while the other owed only fifty. Once both have been forgiven, they are on an equal footing as forgiven sinners and hence can and should relate among themselves as brothers and sisters, children of the same merciful Father. To be forgiven by God means that the debt of both has now come down to zero - and on this level both are on the same level or footing before the Father. Pleading for mercy for ourselves will do us no good unless with childlike confidence and love we generously and consciously reach out to other in forgiveness.
Positive Attitude Towards our Failings
Somehow over the past few centuries, Christians have become almost obsessed with the idea of their sinfulness. Ralph Keifer puts it this way: [The period before the Reformation] "was a world gone mad in its preoccupation with human sinfulness, with its pervasive guilt internalized into a nagging insecurity about the afterlife, heightened to a fever pitch by all the other anxieties of the age." Or again, "Vatican II names the church as an institution, as being sinful as well as holy. [This official statement, however, remains] to be integrated within our understanding of what we are doing in Church. We are not a pack of individual sinners come to share in the perfect and timeless rites of the one, true Church. Rather, we come together as a sinful yet graced people to share in actions that are limited and flawed as we are limited and flawed, yet graced as we are graced."
Richard Rohr in Hope Against Darkness, has his own way of expressing the same truth: "Western civilization has failed to learn how to carry the dark side. We did not evangelize through our living icon, Jesus. Instead, we brought a system involving winners and losers, which is not Jesus. Now because we did not teach our people how to carry the paschal mystery, it is coming back to haunt us. Catholics have no ability to carry the dark side of the Church either, nor the dark side of the papacy, nor the dark side of the clergy. It is always all good or all bad, never 'both crucified and resurrected at the same time,' as Jesus is
"
When we focus on God's liberal and gracious forgiveness, given even before we sin, we do not mean to condone wrongdoing nor approve of licentious living. That kind of an attitude, where it is present, stems from the fact that we do not really look steadily at God and his marvelous qualities, but rather at ourselves only. Jesus came to reveal to us the almost unbelievable love of the Father. So, rather than focus on our proneness to fail, we need to be positive and emphasize more our gifted capacity to respond in love. It is true that quite often we do not exercize this capacity, but the fact remains that God has endowed us with this power - and sometimes we do find ourselves loving as God loves us.
Our paradigms control our behaviour and so if we see ourselves as being already raised to the level where we can respond lovingly, our actions will conform to our thinking, thus proclaiming the very same message. This would further make us less critical of others, less inclined to grumble when things go wrong, when people let us down or disappoint us, and correspondingly more appreciative of all the good around us.
Conclusion
At our next Eucharist we would do well to consciously pause and ask ourselves: When was the last time that I consciously and gratefully accepted God's gracious gift of forgiveness of my sins? Is there anyone in my life whom I need to forgive now even as I praise God for his gift of forgiveness to me? Am I in the habit of keeping score of the wrongs others have done me? Do I realize that if I still feel hurt at what others do/don't do to me, is it not because I am not yet fully secure in the Father's love of me? Since the Father holds me tenderly in his arms, no one can really hurt or harm me. "For those who love God, everything works for their good
who will separate us from the love of Christ?" (Rom. 8:30-39). Again, 'freely have you received, so give freely' (Mt. 10:8).
It is worth recalling also that the celebration at the Eucharist is something that the Father initiates to mark our home-coming. "Come, let us celebrate for this son of mine was dead and has come back to life, was lost and is now found!" Can we deliberately be 'wet blankets' at God's own celebration by our mournfulness as we celebrate Eucharist? In view of all this, what changes in our attitudes do we need to introduce in this section as we celebrate Eucharist? What difference would this realization that we are 'forgiven or graced sinners' make in the way we live our Christian lives the rest of the day?
There is greater joy in heaven when one sinner repents
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Copyright © Fr. Erasto Fernandez. All rights reserved.
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