The Eucharist - The Word: Nourishing Bread
by Fr. Erasto Fernandez
When we enter into the Introductory Rite in the right spirit, we find ourselves in the mood or atmosphere most conducive to engage fruitfully in the first of the two sections of the Eucharist: The Word of God. The Entrance Rite forcefully reminds us that Christ, the Risen Lord, is the centre of our celebration. In the Liturgy of the Word, it is this same Risen Lord who speaks to us, interpreting the Scriptures as he did for the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.
We need to realize from the start that Vatican II emphasized the great importance of the Word in the Eucharist. Prior to the Vatican Council, the assembly was almost totally deprived of the Word. The Scriptures were recited softly and never proclaimed to the people; when read aloud it was done in Latin which no one understood anyway. Besides, very few selected texts were used in the Liturgy. Even the preaching done at Eucharist or outside of it, generally took just a snippet of a Scripture text and built up a moralistic exhortation around it, directed more towards encouraging right behaviour than towards fostering communion and intimacy with the Lord.
The revised Liturgy on the other hand, provides that a larger portion of the Scriptures be proclaimed at the Eucharist over a two/three year cycle; also that the Word be proclaimed to the assembly in their own tongue, with the proclaimer facing the assembly. Besides, very many among the lay faithful have access today not only to the Word in Scripture, but also to its deeper meaning in the form of commentaries, Liturgy Notes and the like. And yet, the question still remains: 'Are we really nourished spiritually by the Word in the Eucharist? How eagerly, attentively and personally do our people receive the Word at the Eucharist? How far is the Word truly 'a lamp for our steps and a light for our path?' And since Christ is as truly present in the proclaimed Word as in the Sacrament, we could further ask: 'If we do not commune with Christ in the Word, what guarantee is there that we really commune with the same Christ in the Sacrament?'
The Word - A Communication and Communion
We first consider the role of the spoken word in our dealings with one another as human beings. The words a person speaks to another are not just sound-waves - they carry a meaning and more than that, they contain a symbolic efficacy. When heard properly, they produce a transformation of subjects. Our speech effects a 'work' that is produced in the listeners which encourages them to rise to a higher way of being. If it is true that a young child from six months of age gradually succeeds in recognizing itself in the mirror reflecting its own image, it is because someone has first called it by its name. The thousands of gestures and words of love of which it has been the object from birth enable it to accept not just the sound of its name as referring to itself as an object, but also its own full status as a subject that is lovable and loved. In the mirrored reflection it sees and senses that 'This is the I, the self that is loved and appreciated by those around me.'
The true self having come to birth in these spoken words is then empowered to speak to others in a loving manner in the measure in which it has been loved into being. Thus, the word nourishes and fosters life in both the speaker and the listener. Whoever in not loved, or even just feels unloved, is unable to love in return. No one can live as a subject without words of love and thankfulness. Without sufficient nourishment from this 'bread' of life-giving words, human beings can only shrivel up and die. At times, it is enough to say a few words to someone for that person to feel alive again. Recognizing this truth, we continue to speak enthusiastically to a loved one who is in a deep coma - with amazing effects very often. Some words save; some words can even kill. It is language that makes the universe into a world, or a house into a home! Conversation or heartfelt dialogue is what makes the difference between the anonymous ingestion of calories in a crowded restaurant and enjoying wholesome nourishment during a dinner fellowship round the family table.
Communication is Effective Connection
Quite often we speak to one another not merely to convey information, but simply to connect with others. When for example, on entering the office a person says to a colleague, "It's a beautiful morning," s/he is not merely conveying information which s/he did not or could not get by him/herself. The colleague, if attentive at the deepest human level, understands that beneath the words used, what the speaker really wanted to convey is something like: 'I feel good and reassured to see that you are here!' His/her answer: 'Yeah, it feels great to be alive this morning!' emphasizes more the connecting factor than the informational content. And this retort puts both the speaker and audience on a friendly footing making both feel close to each other for the rest of the day. If s/he does not catch this 'inner' meaning and says instead: 'Bah, I think it's a lousy day!' or something like 'Yeah, I can see that,' then the bond between us is ruptured, because his/her reply focuses only on the 'scientific truth' of the statement. We immediately sense how this 'informational' response shuts a person out of the other's life quite effectively. Some might even "feel" that negative statement as a sharp 'slap in the face.'
When God's word is proclaimed in the Eucharist then, we should focus not so much on the 'scientific truth', nor even on the surface 'meaning' of the words. We need to search for the symbolic meaning or power the statement has whereby it connects us with God. Fundamentally, the symbolic meaning of God's word is always: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have called you… and you are mine… you are precious in my eyes." Each particular 'story' or event narrated in the Bible gives us further nuances and insights into this fundamental message of God's unbelievable love for each of us. It is only when we are able to catch this symbolic meaning that the Word in the liturgy will become nourishing and life-giving for us who hear it. Often we 'know' we have caught the symbolic and life-giving meaning because of the 'a-ha' experience we undergo on hearing the Word. It opens up our hearts, our faces light up and a surge of energy courses through our entire being: God somehow becomes a living person, someone very close to us!
Training Needed
How then do we learn to hear God's word in such a way that we connect with him in the depths of our being? It seems to me that the first condition for such listening is 'stillness of mind and heart.' We recall the psalm that reminds us: "Be still and know that I am God!" As in the case of Elijah on Mt. Horeb, God speaks to us most effectively not in the whirlwind, fire or earthquake, but in the still gentle whisper of the breeze. As we come to Eucharist, we need to create this atmosphere of silence and stillness around us. Another important requirement is that we focus not so much on ourselves, but on the Lord! These elements do not necessarily clash with the suggestions given previously that we meet God in our neighbours as we greet them lovingly at the very start of the Eucharist. For the Eucharist is a complex reality and entails maintaining the difficult combination of and balance between exteriority and interiority - and that is why perhaps we find it so difficult to profit from our celebrations.
Secondly, we need to remind ourselves that the Word that is proclaimed is meant primarily to reveal God's qualities to us - and not so much to get us fixated on our own sinfulness. "No one has ever seen God," says St. John. And also "no one knows the Father except the Son and he to whom the Son reveals him." Another way of saying the same thing is that the Word is nothing more than a 'finger' pointing to God. What is important here is not so much that we focus on the text or the story which is the finger, but that we look at God to whom it points. We need to realize that at the Liturgy, we are not supposed to hang onto the text, (become slaves of the text) but to hang the text onto our lives (make it expressive of our life-experiences), and our lives onto the text (shape our lives according to what we celebrate). Hence, we need to become very conscious of the attitudes we bring to the celebration of the Eucharist - especially our openness and readiness to change.
A mere 'passive' listening to the Scriptures will never produce any connectedness. We have to listen eagerly to get beyond the text and glimpse the 'hidden' or surprising elements of God's qualities. This is the point made in the parable of the sower. The seed is the Word of God; yet, that seed needs a fruitful soil if it is to be productive. Varying kinds of soil produce varying results - even though the seed is the same! But notice that the sower does not cease sowing when he sees that his efforts have not been very productive. Rather than give up on us, God continues to sow the seed of his word in our lives until one day it does produce - maybe thirty, maybe sixty or even a hundred fold.
The further catch involved here is to always remember that 'God's ways are not our ways.' And so, rather than reduce God's qualities to the level of our own human and limited experience, we need to rise to his level of the impossible and unbelievable. Thus, when we say that we have experienced God's forgiveness we do not refer to the same kind of experience we have when a human being forgives us. The process may be similar, but there is a world of a difference between the two experiences. And perceiving this difference requires conscious effort on our part. And when we do perceive it we want to shout our God's praises and also approximate God's ways as much as we possibly can.
Next, having 'tasted' the unbelievable goodness of the Lord, our immediate reaction generally is to figure out what 'we need to do' by way of response. This approach short-circuits the power of the Word. "Agere sequitur esse' goes the old Latin adage and it means that behaviour follows our thought-patterns. Hence, it is important to let these insights we have gained by listening to the Word sink into our deeper consciousness and from within change our very way of thinking about God. Like Mary, we would do well to 'ponder these things' in our hearts. The Responsorial Psalm and particularly the antiphon generally give us the essential insight of the first reading, inviting us to reflect while the Alleluia verse captures the gist of the Gospel text. Once we allow our thought-patterns to change from within, our external behaviour will also change almost imperceptibly but quite definitely.
The Word - A Proclamation
It has been said that in the Bible God does not speak to you and me directly as individuals (the reader of the stories today). Rather, we are like eavesdroppers listening in on the conversation Jesus holds with Peter, John or the characters depicted in the story. Yet, we notice a very strange thing: what Jesus says to the Gospel characters of his time, is exactly what he would say to you and me today in our circumstances. Jesus is valid for all times, and so what he said and did twenty centuries ago, happens today in our lives too. In other words, we need to read the Gospel as telling us not so much about what Jesus did in the past, but as recounting what Jesus does for us today! This 'contemporary' reading of the Bible is very important if we are to truly encounter Christ in the Word. Otherwise, we would be reading the Bible purely as a book of history which tells us only of the past. The Risen Lord is ever-present to every situation in our lives. It is important to meet him personally, in the here-and-now, as we listen to the Word - so that it can nourish us as our lives unfold. Incidentally, this is the meaning of the technical word: proclamation. It makes his-(s)tory into my-ste(o)ry!
Finally as we seek to respond, perhaps the more effective question to keep before us is: "What would be the most loving response to this revelation? How best can I show my love for God in return for all that he does for me/us?" It is helpful to remind ourselves here that God's preferred answer from us is that we show our love for him by loving our fellow-humans. At the banquet, the sinner woman showed her great love and gratitude to God for forgiveness received by ministering to Jesus as a person. So we too should listen in order to understand how we can be ever more loving, gracious, forgiving, thoughtful and enterprising towards our needy neighbour. Only then would the bread of the Word be truly nourishing.
One of the surest signs that we are alive is that we are active on all levels: intellectually, physically, emotionally, socially and so on. Death renders us totally inactive. In the spiritual life too, the parallel holds good. If the Word of God is truly nourishing and life-sustaining for us, we will notice a new kind of activity within us. The deeper awareness of God's love and acceptance endures even at the conscious level throughout the day and that gives us new 'strength' to respond more lovingly in the daily challenges we face. In other words, the Word we listen to attentively and lovingly during the Eucharist must continue to be active and alive throughout the day. But, this does not happen automatically: it calls for intelligent and concerted effort on our part. For one thing, we would need to recall the life-giving message we received at the Eucharist several times during the day. One way to do this effectively is to frame that insight in a phrase or a line from a popular hymn (e.g. 'My God loves me, his love will never end') and hum that tune right through the day.
Underneath all these suggestions is the assumption that we have really made God the centre of our lives. "Seek first the kingdom of God and all the rest will be given to you." When this truth is the foundation of our lives, then truly would God's Word be life-giving and inspiring for us: a lamp for our steps, a light for our path, the nourishment that sustains us throughout our journey through life!
Lord, to whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life!
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Copyright © Fr. Erasto Fernandez. All rights reserved.
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