The Real Presence – Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity – of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist has been given popular as well as theological credence for centuries, in fact, for millennia. Believers often crossed their foreheads or tipped their hats when passing in front of a church as act of faith in the Real Presence therein. Parishioners still genuflect before taking a seat in their pew as a sign of belief in Christ’s Presence in the tabernacle. Silence has been fostered in church, even if lately with decreasing effect, as an acknowledgement of Christ’s Divine Presence. Articles that might come in contact with the Sacred Species are accorded with extra reverence. Chalices, patens, purificators, and corporals are especially respected. A consecrated Host fallen to the floor is considered particularly unfortunate. And of course parishioners will still visit an otherwise empty church assured of the Divine Presence in the tabernacle.
This abiding Presence of Christ must be not only respected but truly adored by all Catholics certainly during the celebration of the Eucharist but during private opportunities as well. The twenty-first century Catholic has gone beyond thinking that it is a sin to talk in church or to touch a chalice. But this easing of some old-time customs has led some observers to believe that present day Eucharistic beliefs have diminished not only in pious practices but even at their core. A recent letter from the editor of ADOREMUS, a respected liturgical publication, cited a quote in this regard from the late Pope Benedict XVI: “...the Church is in danger when the primacy of God no longer appears in the liturgy nor consequently in life.” And indeed, it may be argued that attention given to managing a Missallette, to singing and reading and responding, to gift-bearing, to standing, sitting and kneeling, to signing peace and to “Amen” at Communion do interrupt what in former times might have amounted to a devout Holy Hour.
The opening act of the Second Vatican Council – some sixty years ago – was a reform of the Church’s liturgy with the hope that, at Mass and at the other sacramental celebrations, the laity as well as the clergy may express through sacred signs and devout rituals the true inner meaning of their religious lives. The gathered bishops decreed first of all: “This sacred Council has several aims in view: it desires to impart an ever-increasing vigor to the Christian life of the faithful...The Council therefore sees particularly cogent reasons for undertaking the reform and promotion of the liturgy. For the liturgy, ‘through which the work of our redemption is accomplished,’ most of all in the divine sacrifice of the Eucharist, is the outstanding means whereby the faithful may express in their lives, and manifest to others, the mystery of Christ and the real nature of the true Church.”
The fathers at the Council deliberately choose to empower the lay faithful to express through the liturgy their necessary place in the Christian life. It is at Mass especially that “the faithful may express in their lives, and manifest to others, the mystery of Christ and the real nature of the true Church.” Certainly, the priestly celebrant at Mass has had centuries to manifest his integral role in the Christian life. But the Council fathers happily grasped that a more “active participation” on the part of the lay faithful would better express for their own benefit and better convey for the benefit of the larger community the true nature and role of a lay Christian. What lay Catholics celebrate in sacramental ritual at Mass would hopefully and productively direct their apostolic life in the world as well.
Inviting the lay Catholic who sat quietly in the pew fingering the beads for centuries to assume an active role in the celebration of the sacraments was indeed a novel step for the mid-twentieth century Church. And indeed, there were liturgical episodes of communal high spirits and casual informality. Pope Benedict’s lament that the “primacy of God” had diminished or even disappeared was often regrettably accurate. Some, of course, lament the entire effort and long for a return to sacerdotal dominance. Ceremonial miscues notwithstanding, the present day Church must continue to take evermore seriously the decreed words of the Council: “...in the liturgy the whole public worship is performed by the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is, by the Head and His members.” Yes the great variety of members – clergy and religious and laity, priests and deacons, readers and extra-ordinary ministers, acolytes and choristers, greeters and collectors, those kneeling and those serving – must know their places and relish their roles and sense that, in different but important ways, Christ is again being made truly at hand through their agency.
