E. Communion

8/14/2019 E. Communion

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I. EUCHARIST – COMMUNION AND TRANSFORMATION

Any Sacrament is a celebration and an act of community of believers. The fruit of all

the sacraments belong to all the faithful. All the sacraments are sacred links uniting the

faithful with one another and binding them to Jesus Christ. The name ‘communion’ can

be applied to all the sacraments, for they unite us to God. But this name is better suited

to the Eucharist than any other, because it is primarily the Eucharist that brings this

communion about. “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in

him”. It brings communion within the Church through the distribution of special graces

of Holy Spirit among the faithful of every rank. It brings communion with our brothers

and sisters in charity, for none of us lives for himself only, and none of us dies to

himself only. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honoured, all

rejoice together. It is in this solidarity with all men, living or dead, the communion of

Eucharist is celebrated (CCC 1331).

From its origin the Church has always celebrated the sacraments, particularly baptism

and Eucharist; and ever since then no one becomes Christian except by receiving these

sacraments. These two major sacraments give identity to the church. Christian identity

is linked to the confession of faith Christian make their own and as a consequence of the

basis of meaning to which they give their lives. This Christian identity entails a personal

commitment.1 If the daily life of Christians and Christian communities does not

correspond to sacraments then the authenticity of their professed “koinonia” is called

into question. The Emmaus story is striking parable of the journey towards ‘koinonia.’ It

tells the story of growing fellowship through an enlightening conversation and the

recognition in the sign – the breaking of the bread, Word and Sacrament. But Emmaus isonly a stage on the way to the restored full communion with the ‘eleven’ and their

companions in Jerusalem.2

1Louis-Marie Chauvet, The Sacraments (Bangalore: Claeritian Publications, 2002), 19.

2J.E. Vercruysse, “Sacraments in an Ecumenical Perspective.” in Current Issues in Sacramental

Theology, ed. J. Lamberts (Leuven: Abdij Kezersberg, 1994), 83.



Communion is the physical experience of God’s Love. In every Eucharist we intensify

our awareness of this love of God radiating in and from Christ so that we can live by

this love, immerse ourselves in it, and become sources of love for others. Communion

with God and with one another in the Spirit of God’s love is the basic of the celebration

of Eucharist. Our close relationship with our neighbours and our love for them is

meaningfully expressed in the Eucharistic celebration. Our concern for our neighbour,

kingdom of God is the reason why we seek the Lord’s presence in our daily life and

pray the ‘Our Father’. Communion does not mean only inter-personal relationship

though they are very important. But there is more to it. Communion means also

common responsibility, solidarity, dialogue, participation and appreciation and respect

for the every human person. The early Christian community tried to implement in its

own way this aspect of communion during their celebration of Eucharistic meal. Today

the basic Christian communities with new style of participation and exercise of

responsibility in the life and mission of the Church respond to exigencies of a

communional vision.

The current notion of Church as a community of worshippers of a Christ who remain

supremely neutral before the slave and master, the exploiter and the exploited, has no

meaning and perhaps it might lead to mere cultic activity. “Whoever does the will of

God is brother and sister and mother to me” (Mk 3: 34 – 35). What Jesus envisions here

is a community based not on any set of doctrines or rituals and laws, but solely on doing

the will of God which, for him, meant loving one’s neighbour in deed. Since its focus is

on the reign of God to come, one might call it a ‘basileic’ community’. A community

that is truly ex-centric, having its centre outside itself in the absolute future of

humankind. In religiously pluralistic societies like India such communities arenecessary mediation between the Jesus community and the reign of God to come. In

truth, the primary mission of the ecclesial community is to create basileic communities.

Sacramentality is not a magical prerogative but an ethical quality of the community of

believers. The same applies to the sacramentality of the ecclesial community. It is

sacramental – that is, it signifies and communicates the divine, only insofar as it, in

obedience to the divine, takes a stand against the forces opposed to the reign of God and

is committed to the total liberation of humans. Basileic communities too are sacramental



even more so than ecclesial communities because they alone constitute effective agents

of transformative action.3

Although Vatican II accepts sacraments as means of salvation, it strongly emphasizes

their function as signs of salvation and hence the common pattern of celebrating the

sacraments in the churches may be signs of salvation. In the Eucharist, Jesus builds up

the Church as a communion as He evoked the prayer, “As You, Father, are in me and I

in You, may they also be one in us” (Jn 17:21). The Acts presents the early Christian

communities as models of communion for churches in every age. The Eucharist is the

source and manifestation of ecclesial communion as well – a fraternal communion,

cultivated by spirituality of communion which fosters reciprocal openness, affection and

understanding. The celebration of Eucharist cannot but call for ecumenical union. The

problem of ecumenism is that of ecclesiological one and not of primarily sacramental

one. Hence the sacraments celebrated taking into consideration of one’s culture and

language could be on the path way to ‘koinonia’ , than sacraments celebrated according

to the ecclesiastical boundaries. If all the Churches true to its meaning of celebrating the

Eucharist strive after creating ‘basileic’ communities then there are no hurdles toward

ecclesial communion.

Sacraments do not have only a ritual significance. Sacramental action eventually aims at

the transformation of a community. They refer to moral commitment for justice, peace

and call for greater attention for the whole creation. “The celebration of the Eucharist is

a prophetic action originating in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, sacramentalized through

the ministerial action of the church, and ordered to the building up of a community of

freedom, justice, peace and fellowship. Eucharistic celebration is therefore, a liberating moment in the life of the church and a symbol of god’s kingdom in the world. It is an

assurance that the God who calls all persons to fellowship in Christ sanctifies human

life with its challenges, defeats and achievements.”4 Every Eucharistic celebration is a

prophetic call to live the Passover – passing through death to life- by transforming

ourselves and our society in view of the Kingdom of God which is God’s dream for

3 Sebastian Kappen, “Toward an Indian Theology of Liberation” in Leave the Temple: Indian Paths to

Human Liberation, ed. Felix Wilfred (New York: Orbis Books, 1992), 153.4 Errol D’Lima, Sacraments in General (Bangalore: TPI, 2005), 127.



humanity. The Eucharist is a perennial energizer of Christian hope. The very purpose of

Eucharistic celebration is to enable us to have hope in alternative community in which

new human beings are born in Christ. The focus of the Eucharist is a new human being

and a loving community in a transformed society. Participation in the Eucharist is a

pledge to commit ourselves to the cause of integral human liberation.5

In the Eucharist, the risen Christ is present reassuring those who believe in him that they

will experience courage and strength in their Christian commitment and ultimate

fulfilment in their live. He gives the power to transform the earthly temporality to divine

kingdom of God.

Karl Rahner in his theological anthropology indicates that our potential for a dialogical

relationship with God is in fact what is most essentially human about us, and that such a

relationship with the transcendent, absolute mystery is implicit in all the activities of

daily life as the very condition of their possibility. It presupposes that we do not merely

relate to God as a distant and aloof horizon of mystery, but that in fact when we worship

we experience a God who draws near to us and transforms us. 6 The transformation that

is positive is not confined to individuals. A person lives in a community and hence god’s

communication is directed also to bringing about transformation in society. We can truly

recognize god’s communication to humankind in a transforming society when we

observe it becoming more humane, more especially when we see that it is concerned

with the suffering of those who are marginalized.7 The Eucharist is a call and a

challenge for the transformation of the world into a just, equal, loving sharing

community of sisters and brothers. It offers and demands not only new hearts and minds

but a new world, new heavens and new earth. Every form of oppression and disparity

which affects the human dignity must be challenged with struggle for everyone’s humandignity and rights. This is very much acknowledged by the Lima documents. “The

Eucharist embraces all aspects of life. It is a representative act of thanksgiving and

offering on be-half of the whole world. The Eucharistic celebration demands

reconciliation and sharing among all those regarded as brothers and sisters in the one

5Samuel Rayan, “The Eucharist Today” in The Eucharist and Life, ed. Kurien Kunnumpuram (Mumbai:

St. Paul’s, 2006), 224.6 Michael Skelley, “The Liturgy of the World and the Liturgy of the Church: Karl Rahner’s Idea of

Worship” Journal of Worship 63, (1989): 119.7 Errol D’Lima, Sacraments in General (Bangalore: TPI, 2005), 17.



family of God and is a constant challenge in the search for appropriate relationships in

social, economic and political life (Matt. 5:23f; I Cor. 10:16f; I Cor. 11:20—22; Gal.

3:28). All kinds of injustice, racism, separation and lack of freedom are radically

challenged when we share in the body and blood of Christ. Through the Eucharist the

all-renewing grace of God penetrates and re-stores human personality and dignity”

(Lima document No: 20).

The Christian involved in transformative action is better attuned than worshiping

Christian. Only Christians who harken to the divine’s call to march forward from

slavery to freedom can grasp the original character of the church as the community of

disciples, conscious like Jesus, of the mission to preach good news to the poor. Only

those who sought first the kingdom of God and its justice and were prepared to contest

the forces of injustice and oppression had a place in it.

Not only the sacrament of Eucharist but all the sacraments are celebrations in the

present which recall the past and which point to the future fulfilment. The sacramental

celebration reminds us that past and present will be taken up into a future of hope and

fulfilment as happened in the life of Jesus Christ. This future is the realization of the

reign of God in its fullness. Through the sacramental action, the Church will show itself

as an authentic symbol of the liberation that Jesus inaugurated in his own life.

Sacraments are moments when the church in its members commits itself again and

again to bringing them about the kingdom of God visibly among people.8

8

Errol D’Lima, Sacraments in General (Bangalore: TPI, 2005), 102-104.

E. Communion

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