Papal encyclical: vehicle for reminiscence

Catholic New Times, June 1, 2003 by Ronald Trojcak

Papal encyclicals appear to have multiple purposes and ends. They are used to instruct, threaten, inspire, condemn, elucidate, warn, encourage, dismiss and, occasionally, to break new pastoral-theological ground. In the case of John Paul II's latest encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, the pope, as he had done in a variety of ways, adds another, by touchingly using the encyclical as a vehicle for reminiscence.

In the case of the present encyclical, the pope uses his letter to serve all of these ends and purposes Let me list what seem to be the central preoccupations of the Pope throughout the encyclical. Its opening sentence is pivotal: "the Church draws her life from the Eucharist." The rest of the letter could be understood as an explication of that assertion. John Paul is at pains to insist on the sacrificial character of the Mass, continually connecting the Eucharist and Calvary. The value of this move is to relate the career, or at least the end of Jesus' life, to the present life of the Church and of individual Catholics. The pope emphasizes the eschatological dimension of the Eucharist: its connection with the fulfillment of the Eucharist, which is the reconciliation of the human family.

It is heartening to hear the pope refer to the word of artists in contributing to the human plenitude of the eucharistic celebration, even if it is only Slavic artists who are specifically mentioned. But the pope seems also to be aware of a decline in the Catholic faithful's belief in the "real presence," and he repeats the "perennially valid teaching of the Council of Trent, as it speaks of transubstantiation." Finally, the pope warns about the qualifications of those who are to receive the Eucharist.

Catholics who have not sacramentally confessed serious sin are to be excluded, while he allows that "the judgment of one's state of grace obviously belongs only to the person involved." And non-Catholics are to be excluded in that the Eucharist "absolutely requires full communion in the bonds of the profession of faith, the sacraments and ecclesiastical governance." But there is also the following concession: that under special circumstances, the Eucharist may be given to individual Christians not in full communion with the Catholic Church.

Any encyclical is written to satisfy the needs of its author, the pope. However, how about the needs of those who are to read it?

Let me suggest, at least my own needs in response to the letter. The word, "communion," is used more than any other in the letter. But it is a highly clericalized view of communion. The pope writes that "the Church makes the Eucharist," but again and again, throughout the letter and in multiple contexts, it is the hierarchical understanding of the Church which is intended. For example, there is no. mention of the Vatican's one-sided treatment of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), regarding liturgical translations.

The pope, almost in an aside, speaks of the "cosmic significance" of the Eucharist, but does not enlarge on what that might mean. For example, the ecological significance of the Eucharist, the sanctification of nature substances, is not developed at all. I think here, longingly, of Teilhard de Chardin's stunning "liturgical meditations" in The Divine Milieu, and Hymn of the Universe.

The encyclical continually emphasizes the community-building function of the Eucharist. But it mentions, again only in passing, Ignatius of Antioch's description of the Eucharist, as the "medicine of immortality." The community-building described by the encyclical seems only an augmenting or stabilizing of the Catholic community. But the Eucharist as "medicine" would seem to refer to the healing of a broken community, whether within the Catholic fold, or in regard to non-Catholics who share our understanding of the Eucharist.

Given the denial of the real presence by a fair percentage of Catholics, it is helpful just to reiterate the philosophical understanding of the Eucharist as transubstantiation, when this notion, and its underlying metaphysics, are simply lost on most people today. And I suspect that the radical decline of the notion of the Mass as sacrifice is largely due to what one theologian has termed the "disastrously inadequate" common understanding of sacrifice, i.e., as destruction.

I would propose that at least all of these matters demand further attention, if the Eucharist really is to be the centre and source of the life of the Church. And given the absence of the Eucharist for so many communities in the world right now, I would hope that a reconsideration of celibacy and maleness as pre-requisites for the priesthood, would occur. I dearly hope that a subsequent letter from this Pope, or from his successor, will speak to these concerns.

Fr. Ron Trojcak teaches scripture at King's College in London, Ont.