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Online Edition - Vol. VIII, No. 3: May 2002

About Letters to the Editor
READERS' FORUM

Readers' Forum -- the lively "Letters to the Editor" of the Adoremus Bulletin provides a forum for exchange of ideas, comment and information on the sacred liturgy -- but the letters column is not published online. (See below for a sample letter and response from the current issue).

If you are reading the Adoremus Bulletin in the "online edition" only, you are missing one of the most popular and useful features of the journal. To become a member of Adoremus -- and receive the "hard-copy" edition, including the "Readers Forum", see Membership page.

We are grateful for your letters. While we read every letter, we get so many that it is impossible to answer or publish all of them. In selecting those to appear in "Readers Forum", preference will be given to subjects of widest interest. Letters should be 250 words or fewer, preferably typed. They may be e-mailed. Please include your name, address, city and state (which may be withheld on request). If a letter refers to a previous issue of AB, please include the date of that issue and name of article. All letters may be edited for publication. Be sure to indicate clearly if your letter is NOT intended for publication.

Readers' Forum for May 2002
Who is the Body of Christ? -- Gospel at Communion services -- More Gospel queries -- Children's Mass -- Bilingual Masses -- A note on lectors -- Immersion fonts -- Adoration chapel -- Communion in the hand -- Intinction protocol -- Missing Link -- No "blind obedience" from SSPX -- Tasty -- Altar girls

Who is the Body of Christ?
Letter
I am concerned about something I heard in our parish mission last night. We had a Capuchin, Father Michael Crosby, leading us.

Yesterday, he spoke about the Eucharist and briefly spoke about the "rules" and what Jesus wants during the celebration of the Eucharist. He commented on the things we fight about (kneeling, speaking in church) and commented on how some people in a parish once got very upset when someone reported using bread that had honey used for Communion (which he admitted was wrong) and on how that argument detracted from the good of the parish community. He then asked us who was present in the Eucharist. Father Crosby proceeded to repeat answers that he had received in the past, like "Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ", but then concluded that we receive our neighbors in the Eucharist.

He also asked whether we received "Jesus on the Cross" or "the Glorified Body of Christ". His answer was that we receive the glorified Body of Christ in the Eucharist. He then said that, because we receive the glorified Body of Christ, and because by our baptism we too are part of the glorified Body of Christ, we receive each other in the Eucharist also.

I am very confused. I grew up as part of a generation that was not taught theology (while attending Catholic Schools). I am trying to understand all this, but I do not know if this is Father Crosby's personal interpretation, or if it is based on theologians' views, or if I somehow missed the boat. I have never heard that we receive anyone else when we receive Communion, but I do understand that receiving the Eucharist makes us one.

Lourdes Smith
via e-mail

Response
In receiving the Eucharist, we receive Christ alone, "Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity". When we receive the Eucharist worthily we become closer in union with Christ ("He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him", John 6:56). One of the fruits of our union with Christ is unity with other believers ("Because there is one Bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread" (I Cor 10:17)); charity toward others and concern for the poor.

But the "Body of Christ" we receive in the Eucharist is not the same as the "Mystical Body of Christ", which is all members the Church -- past, present and future. The first is the reality of the Eucharist (Christ's Real Presence), while the latter is a metaphor of the unity of all members of the "Mystical Body" with its Head, Our Lord Jesus Christ.

In order to understand Church teaching more fully, we strongly recommend that you read (or re-read) the section on the Eucharist from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "The Sacrament of the Eucharist" (Article 3 - paragraphs 1322 and following).

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