For almost four decades English-speaking Catholics have been greeted at the opening of Mass with the familiar salutation: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”
The gracious phrases are taken verbatim from the final verse of St. Paul's Second Letter to Corinthians, c.13:v.13 as currently read in the New American Bible, the standard Scripture version for American Catholics. The letter to the Corinthians addressed rather stormy social issues in early church life. Divisions between rich and poor, marital indiscretion, and liturgical irregularities were depriving the church in this Greek city of the peace and tranquility in which the Gospel could thrive. Clearly St. Paul had fellowship in the sense of camaraderie and solidarity in mind when he expressed his classic prayer for this infant church. The Greek word he employed for fellowship - koinonia - has a certain down-to-earth, community aspect to it. In fact, everyday Greek was labeled “koinay Greek,” that is, common usage Greek. St. Paul's prayer for the Corinthians was very practical. Respect one another; esteem one another; value one another.
Over the centuries the church adopted these words of St. Paul for liturgical purposes - as the church has done appropriately with much of Scripture. Now these Scriptural words are no longer employed at the end of a disciplinary letter but rather at the beginning of the church’s solemn act of worship. The prayer here is not so much for respect among the community but rather for reverence for the divinity who is about to become powerfully present. The slight adjustment that English-speaking Catholics will note at Mass this Advent will indicate a change of emphasis from the ecclesial community to the divine order. Catholics will now be greeted with the words, "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you." The Latinized word “communion” will replace the English word “fellowship,” in a deliberate effort to raise the minds and hearts of the worshipping assembly to God's lofty heights. “Communion" in this context is undeniably a 50-cent word that bids the congregation to relish the intrusion of eternity into time, to sense a presence that is both lofty and deep, to focus on God for the next 50 minutes.
Clearly there is nothing wrong with fellowship. In fact, a recent book on religion in America cited that Americans go to church for the experience of community more than for any other purpose. Even believers want to be greeted, recognized, appreciated, and comforted. This is what fellowship is according to tradition. Fellowship is the same ushers, the same pew, the same clergy, the same sacrament every week. Fellowship is the monthly coffee hour, the covered dish dinner, the recognizable names in the parish bulletin, the memorial Mass for the deceased neighbor. There's something very Methodist, very Presbyterian about fellowship.
While the church certainly wants to build community, our bishops want even more to affect the deeper communion of all worshippers with God through the Spirit. In fact, communion is the only lasting foundation of community. A deep spirituality is the enduring basis of true fellowship. When the priest invokes the communion of the Holy Spirit on the congregation he is praying that the gathered faithful will perceive the presence of God in their own souls, the power of God in the proclaimed Scriptures, the work of God in the eucharistic prayer and the vigor of God in the sacramental body and blood of Christ. The Mass is a celebration for the spiritually alive on the deepest level. It is an occasion for communing with God.
Since the mid-20th century the American Catholic Church has had almost two generations of liturgical relevance, practical symbolism, unadorned ambience and plain talk. The church at Rome and the bishops of America sense that it is time once again for American Catholics to raise their minds and hearts to God, to experience the singularity of God’s divine presence through the superiority of our liturgical experience. The verbal transition from fellowship to communion signals an urgent ecclesial effort to restore the church's interior life as the basis for all true community.
