#holy communion

Ecce Agnus Dei, 1900

Albert Chevallier Tayler, 1862-1925

Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK

The Holy Communion of a Carmelite Saint, end of the 17th century

Anonymous Artist

12 March: the Feast of St Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome from 3 September 590 to his death.

The Mass of St Gregory is a favourite depiction in Christian art.

Tradition has it that, once when celebrating Mass, a woman smiled when receiving Communion. Questioned, she laughed at Gregory’s reverence for the host, insisting that it was nothing more than bread she had baked that day. Legend holds the host then appeared as a finger. Subsequently, tradition asserted that the image of Jesus as the “Man of Sorrows” appeared on the altar during the Mass.

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton lost a lot when she converted. Numerous friends and family deserted her. Her husband’s death left her struggling to provide for their five children. Thankfully, she was invited to “found a school in Baltimore” which gave her a way to provide.

Raised in a well-to-do Episcopalian home, Elizabeth’s life outwardly looked worse after becoming Catholic. Life was hard and I imagine lonely at times.

But… her conversion gave her the greatest gift — Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. In reality, she had gained so much and she knew it.

“There is a mystery, the greatest of all mysteries: not that my adored Lord is in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar — His word has said it, and what is so simple as to take that word which is truth itself? — but that souls of His own creation, whom He gave His life to save, should remain blind, insensible. He has given the free, the bounteous heavenly gift [so that we] shall approach His true and holy sanctuary, taste the sweetness of His presence, feed on the Bread of Angels. My poor soul is lost in wonder at His forbearing mercy.”

—Catholic Pilgrim

HOMILY for 3rd Sunday after Epiphany (Dominican rite)

Romans 12:16-21; Matthew 8:1-13

Domine, non sum dignus, ut intres sub tectum meum: sed tantum dic verbo, et sanabitur anima mea. Echoing the centurion of today’s Gospel we say these words three times before Holy Communion: “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof: but only speak the word, and my soul shall be healed.” (Mt 8:8) The repetition of this sentence three times implies that the prayer is addressed to the Holy Trinity who is addressed as Lord, Domine,Kyriein the original Greek text of St Matthew’s Gospel. For it is the Holy Trinity who is invoked in this work of healing the soul, of restoring us to full health, salus, salvation. For salvation comes to us when the Blessed Trinity comes to dwell under our roof, to dwell in us through charity. In the Holy Mass, therefore, the prayer of the centurion is perfected and fully realised, even more powerfully then through the miracle recounted in today’s Gospel. For in the Holy Mass, through the miracle of the Eucharist given to us in Holy Communion, God himself enters in to unite us to himself, the Blessed Trinity. Thus St Augustine heard the Lord say to him: “I am the food of strong men; grow and you shall feed on me; nor shall you change me, like the food of your flesh into yourself, but you shall be changed into my likeness”.

I wish to highlight in particular two aspects of these words to St Augustine. Firstly, there is mention of growth so that we can feed on the Lord. The implication is that as we grow in faith, in fidelity to Christ and his commandments, in Christian maturity, then we shall feed better on the Lord. And secondly the result is that we shall be changed into Christ, and this is something gradual, interior, transformative of who I am.

It is important to remember this, lest we think that the Eucharist is magical, that is to say, that it acts and causes our salvation independently of us. For if we look at the centurion’s statement, he says: “sed tantum dic verbo”, but only speak the word. What is this word that the Lord must speak in order to heal our souls? Is it a word of command like a military leader’s? Is it a declarative word like a king’s who thus makes laws? How does the word of Jesus cause the health and salvation of our souls?

A nominalist view would take it that Christ, perhaps through a juridical act, or through an act of will, just saves us by declaring us to be saved. So, Christ gives the word, declares one to be free of sin and righteous in God’s sight, even if one hasn’t repented nor turned from sin, and so it is; one remains passive in this view of salvation. This, sadly, is a common view even among Catholics these days, but it is a classically Lutheran view. As Luther says, God imputes the righteousness of Christ to the sinner, because he is just “covered under the shadow of Christ’s wings” such that his sins are not counted as sins. So, by his word, God just declares a sin to not be sinful any longer. This is nominalism. And it is also wrong. This is not what is meant when we Catholics pray, “just speak the word, and my soul shall be healed.”

So, what is the word that we refer to in this prayer? How is my salvation, the healing of my soul, caused by the Word of God? And how does Christ speak the Word?

St John tells us, as we hear in the Last Gospel after every Mass, that God creates all by his Word, the divine Logos. And so the Word of God is creative, causes things to be, and actuates the good. God’s Word is not nominalist, it doesn’t declare something to be what it is not. God’s Word, after all, is truth and so he can neither deceive nor lie. Rather, God’s Word effects that which it signifies, it causes reality to be. So too do Sacraments, for they are actions of Christ the Logos,the Word of God. Sacraments, therefore, also effect what they signify; they cause our healing and salvation.

Therefore, during the Mass when we pray: “speak the word, and my soul shall be healed” we are referring to the Eucharist, to Holy Communion, by which Christ, the Word made flesh, enters under our roof sacramentally. The divine Word, therefore, is spoken and comes to dwell among us in the Holy Mass, and we receive him into our own bodies that we might be healed of sin, and so saved for eternal life. So when we echo these words of the centurion, let us speak with the faith, trust, and humility of the centurion, a faith which moved the Lord so much in today’s Gospel: “Truly, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” (Mt 8:10) Hence, before we receive the Eucharist, we say these words, Domine non sum dignus and so we make an act of faith: faith in the power of the Sacrament; faith in the power of Christ, the living Word of God to heal us, to save us, to vivify my soul.

Hence the Catechism teaches that “Communion with the flesh of the risen Christ, a flesh ‘given life and giving life through the Holy Spirit,’ preserves, increases, and renews the life of grace received at Baptism. This growth in Christian life needs the nourishment of Eucharistic Communion, the bread for our pilgrimage until the moment of death, when it will be given to us as viaticum.” (CCC 1392)

However, does this Eucharistic Word of God, spoken in the Mass, and entering under our roofs through Holy Communion heal us and save us immediately? It certainly has the grace and power to do so, but it seldom actually does so. It is not our human experience to be instantly changed into Saints just as we do not suddenly grow or age or change. Rather, it is fitting and proper that human beings grow gradually, as St Augustine suggests.

And yet, it is also possible that God’s Word is spoken, that we receive the Eucharist frequently and even daily, but we do not seem to be healed of our sinful addictions and vices. Why might this be? The Catholic theology of grace is that Christ’s righteousness is not imputed to us as Luther imagines it to be, but rather, it is infused. As such, the grace of Christ truly changes us from within. As such, when we speak about receiving the Sacraments and especially the Holy Eucharist we must speak about doing so with worthy and proper dispositions so that we are open to the graces and spiritual power and healing contained in the Sacraments.

The revered Dominican spiritual doctor, Ven. Louis of Granada thus said that “The more excellent the Sacrament, the more it demands good preparation for its reception and purity of intention… the Eucharist demands actual devotion and reverence in the reception of Communion. This devotion cannot be present without attention, and therefore, one should rid his mind of all distractions and fix his mind on God.” Like the centurion, we approach the altar, therefore, with humble faith. As Louis of Granada says: “The first thing required for a worthy Communion is that one recognize, with great humility, that no human efforts will suffice to make this preparation if God does not assist him. As no one can dispose himself for an increase of grace without grace, so no one can prepare for the reception of God but God. Therefore, one should beg Him with humble and burning desires to cleanse and purify the house where He is going to dwell…

Another requisite for a worthy Communion is purity of intention, which means that we should receive Communion for the proper purpose. For the intention of an action is the principal circumstance of a human act; therefore it should be especially considered… The principal and most proper end of the Eucharist is to receive into our souls the spirit of Christ by means of which we are transformed into Him and we live as He lived, with the same charity, humility, patience, obedience, poverty of spirit, mortification of body, and disdain of the world that He manifested…

[And] the third thing required for the reception of Communion is actual devotion [so] we should approach Communion with the greatest humility and reverence and at the same time with the greatest confidence and love, and the greatest hunger and desire for this heavenly bread.”

Do we not see all these qualities in the centurion who approaches the Lord in today’s Gospel? With humility and faith but with confidence and trust in God’s mercy too, he says: Lord, I am not worthy… Therefore, we too approach the Lord, and we are disposed to receive him as we say today: Domine, non sum dignus, ut intres sub tectum meum: sed tantum dic verbo, et sanabitur anima mea.