2005 Prayer Theme
The Holy Eucharist: The Sacrament of the Assembly

My Brothers and Sisters in the Lord:

Our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, has asked that the Church throughout the world prayerfully reflect on the mystery of the Lord's presence in the Holy Eucharist from October 2004 through October 2005. In the Archdiocese, during this calendar year 2005, we will be giving special emphasis to the Holy Eucharist in a number of ways, including an Archdiocesan Forty Hours coinciding with the feast of Corpus Christi at the end of May. The event will be held at Blessed Sacrament Cathedral and you will be hearing more about it in the future. In your vicariates, there will also be special services centered around the Holy Eucharist. For my part, I intend to use my monthly column in The Michigan Catholic to reflect on various aspects of the mystery of the Holy Eucharist. For January, I shall focus on the theme of "The Holy Eucharist: Sacrament of the Assembly."

January is one of the coldest months of the year and because of the challenges of traveling through ice and snow, our natural temptation might be simply to stay home. And yet, something in us urges us to go out and connect with other people. In fact, in many ways, January is a month of the year when there are many public events. For example, coinciding with the beginning of the new civic calendar year, many organizations hold their annual meetings and our nation's president will be inaugurated. In many ways, therefore, January is a good time for us to reflect on the nature of the Church as the "Assembly of God," people "called out" of the darkness of sin into a life with God and one another.

Whenever we "assemble," we gather to remember and to plan; we come together to give thanks and to express concerns and hopes for the future. For example, every January 22, as we recall the tragic 1973 Supreme Court decision of Roe vs. Wade, thousands of dedicated pro-life people gather in solidarity in Washington, D.C. or at local sites to witness on behalf of the dignity of all life. This month, as we observe Martin Luther King Day, there will also be many gatherings to renew our common commitment for greater social justice and an end to racial prejudice.

When our Holy Father wrote his recent Encyclical on the Holy Eucharist, he entitled it "The Church from the Eucharist" (Ecclesia de Eucharistia). In other words, the Church comes into existence precisely as it gathers for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. The gathering, or assembling of the people of God, is a very important part of the mystery of what we celebrate in the Holy Eucharist. God's Holy Spirit inspires us to come together; it is not just our human action!

In one of the oldest and most treasured passages of the New Testament on the Holy Eucharist (I Corinthians 11), St. Paul recalls the tradition of the institution of the Eucharist with the phrase, "When you meet as a Church…" He then goes on to underscore the necessary and sacred connection between how we gather—prayerfully and peacefully, humbly and lovingly—and how we experience the presence of the Lord in the breaking of the one bread and the sharing of the one cup.

The very act of assembling is one of the ways that Christ is present to His Church. This message was clearly taught in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. In article 7, the Council Fathers of Vatican II described the many ways Christ is present to His Church: in the sacrifice of the Mass, in the person of the minister and most of all, in the Eucharistic species. He is present in His Word and "when the Church prays and sings, for He has promised 'where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.'"

One of the major themes of our Holy Father in his Encyclical on the Eucharist is the fact that the Eucharist belongs to the whole Church; it is truly the "Sacrament of the Church." Sadly, over the centuries, we have sometimes so focused on the spiritual nourishment of the individual believer that we have not adequately emphasized the necessary role of the whole community, the assembly.

The Byzantine or Eastern Rite Church reminds us that the gathering of God's people should properly be called a "synaxis," that is, a drawing together of heaven and earth and all creation in Jesus Christ. In other words, our assembly is not simply the gathering of a particular local community; the very act of gathering links us to the Church of every time and place.

Even the way churches are constructed and the way our liturgy is structured both underscore the important and vital role of the assembly. There is a correlation between the presider and the assembly, a "dialogue structure" between them, a constant process of greeting and response. Gathered for the Eucharist, the Church sacramentally expresses the Body of Christ, and the priest, for his part, represents Christ the Head of the Body.

A very important but often underappreciated part of our Eucharist is the "Entrance Rite" or "Gathering Ritual." At the very beginning of the Mass, the presider and ministers process into the already-assembled people of God. We are reminded that the Eucharist is a movement; we are leaving the world and stepping into the Kingdom of God. We gather to hear God's Word, offer our gifts, and share His life; then we will go forth to extend this mystery and bring it back to our daily labor and family living, thereby transforming the world.

As St. Augustine explained in the late 4th century, to understand the mystery of the Holy Eucharist, believers must see themselves as the Body of Christ; the mystery we receive in the Eucharist is something that sums up our very identity together in Christ. In his own words, he says: "What you hear, what you see, is the Body of Christ and you answer, Amen. So be a member of the Body of Christ in order to make that Amen true."

The mystery of Christ's abiding presence in the Holy Eucharist as "Sacrament of the Assembly" challenges us to consider whether we focus too much on our own individual relationship with the Lord. While each of us has a truly personal encounter with the Lord in this Sacrament, we experience Christ precisely as we are also joined to one another in a public, communal service. Given the many potential frustrations at a liturgy (crying babies, the choice of music, crowded conditions, etc.), we might be tempted to prefer a Eucharist that is more private. And yet, the very nature of the Eucharist emphasizes the fact that our communion with the Lord has everything to do with our bond of love and service with our fellow believers, and indeed, with and for the rest of the world.

In fact, as I mentioned earlier in this column, the very context in which St. Paul gives his historic teaching on the institution of the Eucharist, is the setting in which he emphasizes respect for every person in the assembly. Perhaps this month of January 2005, it would be good for us to take stock of the way God speaks and acts in and through the whole community of faith—the presider, the ministers who serve in various capacities, and all the members of the assembly, even if they have no designated role. Every one of us plays a very critical part in the mystery of the Holy Eucharist simply by our presence itself! Rather than critiquing or judging others around us, let us resolve to be more aware of our solidarity in faith with and for one another as we gather at the Lord's Table.

In the months ahead, I will be reflecting on other aspects of the Holy Eucharist. For now, since it is the month of January, it seemed appropriate to begin with one of the foundation stones of the Eucharist—the very act of assembling itself.

†Adam Cardinal Maida
Archbishop of Detroit