Body of Christ, Then and Now 

One of the most spiritually moving experiences of my life happened when I first served as a Eucharistic minister, distributing Communion at Mass. Before the changes brought on by Vatican Council II, only priests gave out Communion. In the1970s, laypeople were invited to serve as “extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist.” The first time I performed this ministry, I initially paid attention solely to the mechanics: hold up the host, say “The Body of Christ,” wait for the “Amen” in reply, place the host on the recipient’s outstretched hands. After a while, though, I slowed down and looked into the eyes of those receiving. Often young people were smiling, looking almost playful while receiving the host. Others had a devout, pious demeanor. Some people had a pained expression, as if walking down the aisle and raising their hands was itself difficult, or they wanted this reception of Communion to give them peace from a burden they had carried for too long. Some who knew me winked and let me know that they were happy to be receiving Communion from someone they knew. As one after another person stood before me, I soon realized: These people are the body of Christ!

It came to me that saying the words, “Body of Christ,” as each person received Communion had deeper meanings and profound implications. “Receive who you are, the body of Christ.” “Christ be with you, Christ within you, Christ one with you.” “Go forth and be the body of Christ in all you do.” As more and more people approached me with outstretched hands and I looked into their eyes, I was becoming overwhelmed by the presence of Christ coming towards me. Later, the experience reminded me of words from a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins:

    For Christ plays in ten thousand places
    Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
    To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

My insight that day into what is the body of Christ actually reflects both a traditional Catholic Incarnational/sacramental worldview as well as what cutting-edge theologians are saying. The history of Catholicism tells many stories of people who embody Christ. St. Elizabeth of Hungary, at the time the young queen of her country, offered her bed to a homeless person in need of rest. When her unsympathetic mother-in-law heard of this overly zealous act of kindness, she sent for her son, the king, to investigate and repudiate what Elizabeth had done. However, when they opened the bedroom door, they saw Christ himself sitting on the bed. Saints tend to have a sense that Christ’s presence surrounds them and they respond accordingly. Theologians attuned to modern science, such as the Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, also see Christ present in Jesus, in the Eucharist, in people, and in the universe itself. The creative life-force at work 13.8 billion years ago revealed itself as a love-force in the person of Christ and continues to be manifest in every act of love and wherever two or three are gathered in Christ’s name. In the spirit of Teilhard, John Haught tells us that our lives and actions are “transformed by divine creativity into a beauty to be enjoyed both by God and ourselves everlastingly.” The beauty I saw in the mosaic of those partaking with others in receiving and humbly uniting with the body of Christ goes to the heart of the Christian message. There’s a point and a purpose to our lives, interwoven with the body of Christ, past, present and future.