New Focus on the Eucharist

By Russell Shaw
Herald Columnist
(From the issue of 10/2/03)

Pope John Paul and the Vatican lately have been devoting more than ordinary high-level attention to the Eucharist, and now they apparently mean to devote even more. That raises an obvious question: Why?

Before attempting an answer, it will be helpful to look briefly at the evidence that, on the subject of the Eucharist, something unusual really is happening in Rome these days.

One clear signal was the encyclical, "Ecclesia de Eucharistia — On the Eucharist in its relationship to the Church," which John Paul published last Holy Thursday. The 14,500-word encyclical, the 14th issued by this pope, combines doctrine, admonition and testimony of faith in a distinctive, highly personal way.

Another sign is the "disciplinary note" on the Eucharist which is expected in a few weeks from two Vatican congregations — Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s Doctrine of the Faith and Cardinal Francis Arinze’s Divine Worship and the Sacraments. It will contain, in the words of Pope John Paul, "prescriptions of a juridical nature" concerning abuses in the celebration of Mass.

Then there is the apparent likelihood that the next general assembly of the world Synod of Bishops, which probably will take place late next year or early in 2005, will be on the Eucharist. If so, that means another papal document on that theme a year or two after the meeting.

Considering all the issues clamoring for the attention of the pope, this is a remarkable amount of time and energy to invest in talking about the Blessed Sacrament. What’s the reason?

One thing obviously worrying Rome these days is unauthorized "intercommunion" — the practice of giving holy Communion, indiscriminately but knowingly, to non-Catholics in the context of the Mass. This happened at a Eucharistic celebration in Berlin just a month after the new encyclical appeared. By prior arrangement, 2,000 Lutherans and Catholics received.

Intentions in such cases are for the most part good — to force the pace of Christian unity. But unauthorized intercommunion reflects a simplistic view of the Eucharist and how it works.

Many non-Catholics who receive communion in such circumstances (and perhaps many of the Catholics as well) simply don’t share the Catholic Church’s understanding of the sacrament. This re-presentation of Jesus’ covenant-forming act instead is reduced to a symbolic gesture of fellowship.

Intercommunion may be a bigger problem in Europe now than it is in the United States, but we have plenty of problems of our own.

One of the largest of these resides in the mediocre quality of many Eucharistic celebrations — the ritual, the music, the homily, the other outward expressions of faith — along with the general demeanor of casualness, bordering on irreverence, that prevails at many Masses. Grave deficiencies in understanding and belief appear to underlie these things.

Still, people participating in a Eucharistic celebration, whether badly or well, at least are physically present. An even larger problem concerns those who aren’t. Simply put, the rate of Sunday Mass attendance by Catholics in the U.S. has dropped in the last 40 years from two out of three to one in three.

It would be easy to go on. The falloff in the number of priests, already a problem, points to worse problems to come. Faith in the Real Presence has declined. Tensions between Rome and the U.S. over liturgical translations still exist.

Encyclicals and synods and disciplinary notes won’t solve these problems by themselves, but they’re things a pope can do. John Paul II is in the process of doing them. Perhaps the rest of us should be looking for ways to give him a hand.

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