Bread for the World

***DISCLAIMER***
What is presented in this blog post is not the official teaching of the Catholic Church and is not representative of Catholics, Jesuits, Boston College, my family, my friends, or my dog. This is my own mind wandering around with this thought and running wild with it, and there may be what others could label "dangerous ideas" contained within. You have been warned.

Lord, don't let me lead others astray if I am wrong. If I am right, at least somewhat right, let me stand for that.
***END OF DISCLAIMER***

Random little thought that got in my head. Towards the end of last semester, I was walking with a couple of friends to a final, when one of them offered up the question they would have to defend, which basically amounted to this:

"Who should we deny communion to? (non-Catholics, non-Christians, anyone at all, and so forth)"

This seems to be an interesting question, considering that even among Catholics there are all kinds of debate about excommunication and what not. There was a wonderful little exchange with St. Stanislaus parish in my home of St. Louis on the matter that then Archbishop Burke (who has since been rewarded by the Vatican with a wonderful desk job in Rome, it's a joke people) got in a lot of local trouble over when he excommunicated them. It was a very complex situation, and I don't really wanna get into it, but I do think it was a mistake, just my opinion on the matter. Plus, there's been all kinds of debate over not letting politicians who openly support abortion receive communion, though I think a better idea would be just not letting politicians receive due to what I will label "crimes against humanity." For a guy who spent most of His time with sinners, there sure is a great debate about who's good enough to receive Jesus, apparently.

I also found this question interesting because, among other reasons, I had honestly never thought about it much before. It just always seemed to me that if you're Catholic, you can receive, if not, then not. After all, I argued in my head, if you don't believe that's Jesus Christ in the sacrament, how/why should you receive it? It doesn't count unless you're Catholic, right?

If you know me pretty well, then you can see where this is going. It seems, to me at least, a bit of a misnomer to say that if someone doesn't believe the same thing that Catholics believe, that somehow the Eucharist doesn't work or doesn't apply. I mean, if you truly believe that's Jesus, then it's Jesus no matter who receives it, right? And even though I, like probably most other Catholics I would wager, don't really take the time every Mass to undergo the thought process behind the idea of the deity present in a piece of bread for us, I do still believe, in some way, shape or form, that we receive God in this Sacrament. So it would seem that we shouldn't really keep anybody from receiving it. If we truly believe that we are receiving God in the Eucharist, how can we possibly keep anybody away from it?

There's a whole lot of a mess to get through that's counter to this idea, and I probably don't have every thought nicely lined up for it. So I'll deal with what seems to be the best reason counter to what I just suggested (in a really quick form): the point of being Catholic (in this instance) is that you are prepared to receive Jesus. One can only truly be prepared to appreciate and receive Christ through the Catholic church. The Eucharist doesn't matter if we are not ready to accept Christ. I do like this idea, and I think that's part of the problem. It does seem that we often take for granted this notion that we receive God in the Eucharist. We seem to be more focused on other things, like how good/bad the music is, how good/bad or theologically correct/incorrect the homily was (another story), so on and so forth, that we may forget for a moment that "Hey, you know that divine being who made EVERYTHING is here in the palm of my hand and becoming part of me, and I'm becoming part of it." I definitely agree that if we just go through the motions and elect to not see that in the Eucharist, then whether it's God or not won't really matter if we don't want to see it.

Here's the trouble with this. On a practical level, I'm willing to bet that there are a lot of Catholics who don't really contemplate this at least sometimes in their lives. Even the most faithful of us can zone out and lose our focus, it happens. If I get caught up in the horrible music and plain stupid logic of the homily, and the general laziness of the congregation, that I forget about what's going on at the altar (which I did get tempted to, though in my defense, I did stick through the stupid parts of the Mass on Sunday to get to the Eucharist, so I may be more devoted than I believe myself to be), does all of the preparation that I should have received from being Catholic make me better off than a Christian of a different denomination? If there is someone who swears no religious affiliation, yet truly believes in their heart of hearts that God is in the Eucharist, and a Catholic is sitting right next to him and doesn't care at all, but had received the sacrament as a child, who is really "prepared" for Jesus? Is having the title of Catholic worth anything if one does not act like one, and does lacking the title of Catholic mean anything if one behaves like a Catholic?

But beyond the practical level, I still do wonder about this. Jesus, in the gospels, did not come to give up His life for the Jews, or the Catholics, but for all people. It was His body that was broken for all, not for some, and His blood that was spilled for all, not for some. Furthermore, in His life, Jesus' main goal was not to divide people (they did a great job of that on their own without Jesus' radical sayings). Jesus came to bring all peoples of the world together at table, to create a new community, to create a church (real, original meaning of church, by the way, is community, more on that some other time). Jesus even frequently found people who were pagans (like the centurion) or horrible sinners (adulterous woman - who knows where the man was at, woman with many husbands, tax collectors, etc.) and found in them greater faith that the religiously astute (scribes and Pharisees, who by the way, "good" people as they thought themselves to be, were really the only groups that Jesus ever directly criticized, see John 8 for my personal favorite example).

Now, I don't want to make it seem that Jesus didn't care what people who wanted to follow Him did, because that's clearly not true. Jesus told the rich man to sell what he had, and then follow Jesus (although, Jesus didn't actually go to the rich man and command him of this, the rich man went to Jesus and wanted to know what he needed to do to be perfect, which would seem to suggest a moral of be careful what you wish for ;). Jesus certainly wanted His followers to do as He told them. You couldn't just be Jesus' disciple and not do anything about it. And this could be the way to articulate the argument that one needs to be Catholic, and I think there could be something to this. Again, the little idea I'm rolling with here are my thoughts, and Catholic tradition on this has been more or less established for two millenia, so if I could get a little benefit of the doubt it'd be nice.

But my question is this: Did Jesus ever explicitly bar anyone from Him, or was it the people who decided not to follow? I think this is a poignant question for multiple issues, and not just this one alone. When I look at the gospels, I see Jesus criticize people, but never really prevent them from following Him. Even when Jesus tries to get away from the crowds, He never really seems to actually cast them away, just tries to run to where they can't get to Him. Instead, the people who turn away from Jesus do precisely that: they turn away. The rich young man goes home sad because he had many possessions and (from context clues) didn't want to give them up. The scribes and Pharisees saw what miracles Jesus was doing, and called Him a devil for it, and condemned Him to death ultimately because of it (among other things). Jesus never said "I condemn the Scribes and Pharisees because I don't like them" it was something that they did themselves. If you really want a stark example of Jesus being open with people, consider this. In (I think all of) the gospel accounts, Jesus knows that Judas is going to betray Him, and depending on your gospel writer, addresses the issue as such. But Jesus still has the disciple with Him at the Last Supper. Jesus doesn't keep the man who is going to betray Him to death from eating with him and sharing in that meal.

And yet, if someone who isn't Catholic enters into some random church, they can't receive the Eucharist. Maybe it's right, maybe it's not. But looking back at this, I just wonder. If you really believe that the Eucharist is Jesus Christ, how can you keep that from someone else?

The song "Bread for the World" says that the Eucharist is for all people. I wonder if we really mean that. I mean, I don't know exactly what we should do, if we should just let anyone into the Communion line, or if this is exactly the way it's supposed to be right now. I'm still more of the big picture guy instead of the small details guy. I just wonder if maybe we need to really look at this more. If Jesus was back here in human flesh, would He be happy with the way things are in this Church?

But oh well, just my mind wandering off on its own (at least until it's published ;). Back to your regularly scheduled programming.