| The Communion of Saints (part 2) |
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by Ronald Knox I dare say that last Sunday, when I was talking about this subject, one or two of you were asking yourselves, "Why on earth isn t he saying anything about Holy Communion?" And I must admit that, unlike many of the questions which suggest themselves to your minds, that is a fairly reasonable one. It isn t, surely, a mere accident that we use the same word, communion, to describe the bond which unites us all as Christians, and to describe the Sacrament of our Lord s Body and Blood. For the time being let s leave out of sight one side of the matter with which we were particularly occupied last Sunday, because it happened to be the first Sunday in November; I mean the fellowship which we Christian people enjoy, through faith, with our dead; with the souls waiting in Purgatory and the souls already crowned in heaven. Let s think only of the Church on earth, and ask ourselves what is the bond which really ties Christian people together, here on earth. Our Lord Jesus Christ was very anxious that Christians should love one another. He knew that that didn t come natural to us, since our nature was spoilt by the Fall. He knew that one s natural instinct was not to love the girl at the next desk or the girl in the next bed, but to tease her and wish we got as many marks as she did and criticize the way she does her hair. So he thought, "I won t just tell them to love one another; I m tired of telling them to do things which they don t do all the same. I m going to help them to love one another, and the best way to do that will be to give them grace to do it through one of my Sacraments ". And the Sacrament he chose for that purpose was the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist. The grace of the Holy Eucharist helps us to love God; but we seem to forget that it also helps us, if we use it properly, to love one another. And that s quite reasonable. Because, after all, sharing the same food is a natural symbol of friend ship. Not if you re thinking of animals; if you give two guinea-pigs one piece of lettuce or whatever it is guinea-pigs eat, the bigger one gets most of it and there s no love lost over that. And I dare say human beings sometimes feel badly about it if they think the girl next them has been given a bigger helping. No, but the old kind of family meal did bring with it the sense of a family reunion. Papa was carving and Mamma got half the breast and the eldest got the other half and then the next two got the wings and you were left with one of the legs, which was rather annoying, but it was all right because it was all the same chicken. Day after day you shared the same food, and it drove home to you the fact that you were a single family Nowadays, when you go into a snack bar and scoop up a bit of spam and a couple of parsnips for yourself, I dare say it s different. But I m talking of old days. And I suppose there is no doubt that the model which our Lord had in mind was the feast of the Pasch, as the Jews kept it. One lamb for the whole household; plenty to go round, even in those days of big families. It was, I suppose, to them something like what the Christmas dinner is to us; it was a festival of home reunion. And our Lord said, "My friends shall have a feast of home reunion like that. Only it shan t happen just one day in the year, it shall happen all the year round. And it shan t be a common meal for one family here, and a common meal for another family there. All my friends shall be one family, and have one common meal, going on all over the world, going on all the year round ". So he instituted the Holy Eucharist. And it wasn t to be just like the other sacraments; they are marvelous enough, but this was to be some thing more marvelous still. It s very extraordinary that a few drops of water which would hardly be enough to wash your face with at night should wash away all your sins; but it does, in baptism. It s very extraordinary that one or two smudges of oil which wouldn t be enough to make a midge-bite stop itching should prepare a man against the approach of death; but they do, in extreme unction. It s very extra ordinary how these material things can convey Divine grace, but the things themselves remain un altered. If you get a cheque signed by your papa which says, "Pay Mary Jane five pounds ", and take it to a bank, you can get five pounds for it, but the piece of paper is only a piece of paper still. So in baptism the water is only plain water; in extreme unction the oil is only plain oil. But in the sacrament of Holy Eucharist, as we know, the Bread and Wine aren t just plain bread and wine; indeed, they aren t strictly speaking bread and wine at all. Something has happened to them, they ve turned into something different. That s why I say this sacrament is so much more remarkable than all the other sacraments. Let s just remind ourselves about that again. I was talking about it last summer, but some of you weren t here. The simplest way to put it is that our Lord s presence in the Holy Eucharist is just the opposite of your presence in the looking-glass. When you brush your hair in front of the looking-glass, those of you who haven t thrown your brushes out into the lavender, the girl opposite, in the looking-glass, has the same appearance as you, but she has no reality; it looks like you, but it isn t you. When you were looking, just now, at the sacred Host in the monstrance, it hadn t the appearance of Jesus Christ, but it had the reality; it didn t look like him, but it was him. The substance that lies behind the appearances of bread and wine is there no longer after the Consecration; Jesus Christ himself is present there instead. And he comes right into us, unites us bodily with himself; why does he do that? Well, of course there are all sorts of reasons. He does it so as to increase the love of God in our souls. He does it so as to make us less interested in worldly pleasures and worldly anxieties, so as to tune our hearts to the music of heaven. He does it so as to make us strong against the assaults of temptation, just as bodily food makes us strong to resist the assaults of disease. But there is one particular reason I want to draw your attention to this afternoon, partly because we so often forget about it, and partly because it s what I set out to talk about. He comes to you and me, to each of us, so that we may feel he has come to all of us. And feeling that, you and I ought to feel drawn closer together, all of us. We are all united to him, and therefore we are all united to one another. You see what I mean even if this sacrament had been just like the other sacraments, it would have been quite obvious, I think, that it was meant to be a bond of union between us all. Suppose, for the moment, that there was no such thing as Transubstantiation. Suppose that you and I, when we went to Communion, received a small round piece of unleavened bread, that and nothing more. Even so, it would be a sacrament; that round piece of unleavened bread would confer grace on us, every bit as much as water does in baptism, or oil in extreme unction. And we should say to ourselves, " Here was I, this morning, receiving a piece of bread, exactly like the person next me and receiving exactly the same grace from it as she did; it wouldn t do to call her a nasty stuck-up toad after that". But, you see, it isn t like that. It isn t simply that you ve received something exactly like what she received; you ve received exactly the same thing which she received, the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. It isn t as if you had received one part of Christ and she another. Each of you received the whole of Christ, each became part of him, in making him part of herself that is what Transubstantiation means. Each of you has been united, sacramentally, with one Person; all of you, then, have become one Person in Jesus Christ. And there s another thing which makes the sacrament of Holy Eucharist different from all the other sacraments; it is an action, whereas they are only transactions. What on earth do I mean by that? Why, by an action I mean something that you do for the sake of doing it; by a transaction I mean something you do for the sake of getting it done. When you go out skating, for example, you do it for the sake of doing it; you spin it out as much as possible; you don t say "Thank goodness that s over" when you ve finished that is an action. But a transaction is like, say, having your hair cut. Perhaps I m wrong about that; perhaps you do enjoy having your hair done, and all that nice oozy feeling of being shampooed. But I m talking of myself now; and when I get my hair cut I like to get it over as soon as possible. I go into the shop with my hair long, and I want to come out again with my hair short; and the less time the barber wastes in between, by chatting and going to look out of the window and snipping vaguely round the edges, the better I m pleased. That s a transaction. Now, most of the sacraments, if we may say it without irreverence, are transactions; you are doing something for the sake of getting it done. When you go to confession, for example, you go in feeling guilty and you want to come out again feeling innocent, and the sooner that happens the better you re pleased. Of course, there again I may be wrong; some of you may be going to grow up into the sort of ladies who enjoy going round to the nearest big church and spending half an hour talking to the priest about their souls. But most of us, I think, have rather different ideas about it; we like to be in the position of the Irishman who knew the parish priest very well, and the parish priest knew him very well, so whenever he went into the box the priest used to say, "Well, Pat, same old sins? " and he said;" Yes, your Reverence ", and the priest used to say, "Very well, Pat, same old penance ", and that was that. It s the same with the other sacraments; baptism does take a good long time, but everybody there, really, is wanting to get it over as soon as possible, including the baby. And Con firmation is the same; you may, of course, get a longish sermon from the bishop, but that, you feel, is just bad luck; the ceremony itself takes about ten minutes, and that s about what we want it to take. And if you ever get married I expect you ll find the same about the wedding. The Church s instinct about sacraments is always, "It s got to be done, so let s get it over as soon as possible". But not about the Holy Eucharist. Because the Holy Eucharist is really a part of the Mass, and the Mass isn t just a transaction; it s an action. It s true you can go to Communion outside of Mass, when that s the only manageable way of doing it; but going to Communion is really part of Mass, and the Mass is an action. The Mass, you see, is not only a sacrament, but a sacrifice. It is a supreme act of worship which we are privileged to offer to God, and we don t want it to be all over in ten minutes; we want to spin it out and make the most of it. Our Lord hung on the Cross for three hours offering himself as a sacrifice for us, and wherever and whenever Mass is celebrated he renews that action of his. When a composer makes up a tune, in a sense that s all over and done; there s the tune, finished. But people can go on playing that tune day after day, renewing it by performing it afresh. So with our Lord s sacrifice on Calvary; in a sense it was all over and done; there was the sacrifice, finished. But priests can go on saying Mass, day after day, renewing that sacrifice by performing it afresh. And whenever that happens, we naturally want to be there, joining with the priest in this splendid act of worship. It s something we want to do, not something we want to get done. And, once again, that brings us back to the Communion of Saints. Because this sacrifice, this action of ours, is a common action, we are all doing it together. You may have noticed that I turn round and say something inaudible just at the moment when you are putting your penny into the plate, or dropping it on the floor as the case may be. What I am saying is this, "Pray, brethren, that my sacrifice AND YOURS may be acceptable before Almighty God ". My sacrifice and yours it s true that if I go to bed suddenly with a cold you don t get Mass in the morning. You can t have Mass without a priest, any more than you can have skating without ice. But it s your sacrifice as much as mine; and it s a common effort. You are doing your part of that effort, as long as you are saying your prayers and not looking round and giggling. You don t need to say, "I m going to ring the sanctus-bell "; the sanctus-bell isn t what God is waiting to hear, it s the prayers of each of you, the prayers of all of you. In one great sigh of prayer you are you ought to be united every time you go to Mass. And the Mass is not merely the common sacrifice of this particular rather jolly lot of people living at Aldenham. It s the sacrifice of the whole Church; in the very middle of it we pray for the pope, and for all good Christians who observe the. Catholic and Apostolic faith. We pray; a bit later, for all the dead who are at rest in Christ. We join ourselves in Communion with our Blessed Lady and all the Apostles and a whole string of Saints besides; we pray that we may have part and lot with St. Felicity, and St. Perpetua, and St. Agatha, and St. Lucy, and St. Agnes (aged thirteen), and St. Cecily, and St. Anastasia, and all the Saints. So, once again, we find ourselves at one with the living and the dead; there is a rush and a stir about us of the angels wings, and we hear the hum and bustle of the Church s prayer, all part of ours, and ours part of it. And then we go to Communion. Taken from The Creed in Slow Motion, Chapter 24; by Ronald Knox. |
