Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Fr. Zach Mabee, who used to serve here in Flint (and who is probably best known as the tallest priest in the Diocese of Lansing), likes to share funny memes on Facebook. His full time job is teaching at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, but some days he posts so many memes that you would think that posting memes is his job. Anyway, he recently posted one meme that said, “Why would you say ‘half a dozen’ when you can literally say ‘six’?” It is interesting to think about how we use a phrase when we can use just one word.
The word Eucharist comes from two Greek words, 𝜀𝜐 and 𝜒𝛼𝜌𝜄𝜍, which, when put together, means “give thanks well,” The Eucharist is the way that we give thanks to God well, because it is Jesus’ perfect sacrifice that unites us to the Father and opens heaven for us. The Mass, where we celebrate the Eucharist, is our prayer of thanksgiving that Jesus gave us.
But we do also rightfully call the Eucharist “Holy Communion.” We all know what holy means: set aside for God or belonging to God. Communion is also a common word, which comes from the Latin word comunio, or union with. When we receive Holy Communion, we have union with Christ, and, therefore, union with the entire Trinity. How often do we think about this reality: that when we worthily receive the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, we are becoming one with God?
St. Paul affirms this teaching in the sixth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians. He writes, “whoever is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.” Certainly, receiving Jesus into our bodies in the Eucharist is joining ourselves to the Lord. Later, in that same letter, in chapter eleven, he encourages people to think about (he uses the word discern) whether or not they should join themselves to Christ through Holy Communion, because those who partake of the Eucharist unworthily “will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord…[and bring] judgment on himself.” He even goes on to say that the reason that “many” are ill and dying, and some are even dying, is because they are joining themselves to Christ when they shouldn’t be.
The Eucharist isn’t something that we should receive only out of habit, without considering the state of our soul. We do not want to join a life that is objectively and gravely contrary to the same Person that we are receiving. Communion means that we are, in the major ways, one with the other. Think about it in terms of marriage. Married couples sometimes have disagreements, but they are not necessarily major. But if, hypothetically speaking, a husband were to forget his wife’s birthday, or their anniversary, that union might be damaged in a major way, and the man may find himself sleeping on the couch; hypothetically speaking, of course. Because of the major offense, they do not engage in union with each other in the marital act, because that spousal embrace means that they are one, while forgetting such important dates denotes a lack of union or care for the other.
So for us as Catholics, following what St. Paul says, we are to discern whether or not we should have Eucharistic union with Christ, or if we need to be reconciled to Him first. Again, going to the marriage analogy, forgetting an important date is bad, but it does not mean that reconciliation cannot take place. There should be an apology, and then possibly roses, or chocolates, or some gesture of contrition. So with God, when we have failed to live according to His teachings in major ways, we first need to reconcile before we can have that great and Holy Communion that God gives us in the Eucharist. We cannot ignore that wound that we caused without causing a greater wound. Go back to the marriage analogy: telling your wife she has a birthday every year or that you’re always married when you forget those important dates does not help. Just so, we cannot receive Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin without making a sacrilegious union with God, seeking to unite our sinfulness to His holiness.
We shouldn’t approach Holy Communion and receive the Eucharist if we have any unforgiven mortal sin on our soul. Recall that mortal sins are sins that are grave, that we know are wrong, and that we freely choose to do anyway. Neither should we receive Holy Communion if our life is, in a public way, contrary to what Jesus (whether in Scripture or through the official teaching of the Church) teaches us is part of following Him.
What are some major ways of rejecting God? The Ten Commandments are a good rule of thumb. Yes, that includes taking God’s Name in vain, or unnecessarily skipping Mass on Sundays. It also includes the offenses against our neighbor, like murder (including abortion), adultery or sexual sins, stealing when it involves a larger value, and lying under oath or to legitimate authority. Living in a public way contrary to Christ is not only working publicly against Church teaching, but includes not being married in a way that is recognized by the Church (whether it’s a first marriage outside the church, or a second marriage without an annulment).
Union with Christ means that we are in union with all that Jesus teaches us as necessary for salvation, whether in what we believe or in how we live. That is also why non-Catholics cannot receive Holy Communion: they often reject one or more of the official teachings of the Church in faith and morals. But if they do believe everything that we do, not only about the Eucharist, but about the pope, the sacraments, the Bible, the moral life, etc., then they should become Catholic, at which point they can receive Holy Communion.
