Experiencing Church Unity
Recently I had a deep experience of church which began on a Saturday night. I had a few extra minutes after finishing my night prayers, so I perused a copy of the June edition of Give Us This Day. The article that opened to me was “Real Presence” by Bob Hard.
Hard conceded that we commonly recognize Jesus’ presence in the bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ. In addition, there are three other real presences that require our reverence and participation.
The first of these is the Church itself. We are the church! Christ is present when we are assembled – where two or more are gathered in my name, I am there in their midst. (Matthew 18:20).
The second is Christ’s presence in the presider, in the ordained priest who leads the liturgy. Proclaiming the Gospel and leading the Eucharistic prayer enlivens Christ’s presence. The third presence is in the Word. The Church has always proclaimed that Christ speaks to us through the word of God.
The presence of Christ in us follows from the recognition that we are to become what we receive. We are to serve others as Christ serves us. The Spirit in us enlivens us to pour out our love to our neighbour.
This is the experience that struck me on the particular Sunday morning I have been describing. I took communion to shut-ins and the hospital before the 11:00 a.m. Mass. As I visited a patient in a hospital room, I shared the penitential rite and the brief gospel of John 6:15 - “Whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
I concluded the communion service and blessings and proceeded to the hallway. There my eyes connected with a patient in the room across who was not on my list to be visited. The exchanged looks led to my asking if she wanted a visit. She did.
She said to me, “I could hear you in the room across. I was aware that a holy man was visiting the patient next door (I have been called worse).” I asked about her church affiliation, and she said, “I’m evangelical.” I observed that we are all church and members of the Body of Christ. She agreed saying, “We are the church.”
She was struggling with pain, and we shared the understanding that our sufferings united with the suffering of Christ is for our salvation, that of our families and the universal salvation of all. She mentioned the cross and its consolation. I asked if she had a cross with her. She did not, so I gave her a rosary which had a fine cross on it.
She accepted it graciously, and I alluded to the bronze serpent in Exodus and how when the Israelites were bitten by a serpent, they had merely to look on this prefiguration of the cross and they were cured. The cross gives us much consolation when we are suffering.
I left that morning’s experience with a new realization of and the wonder of what unifies us all in the Body of Christ. I have been active in the Canora Ministerial Association for the better part of fifty years, but I had never realized how deeply we are ONE in the Church. My smug Catholic attitude of earlier years had changed to a new realization of Christ’s presence in the universal church.
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