Year of the Eucharist

Archbishop Paul Etienne of Seattle has proclaimed a “Year of the Eucharist” to begin on the external Solemnity of Corpus Christi, this coming Sunday. In his recent pastoral letter The Work of Redemption, he says:

During the coming year, I ask every Catholic and every parish community to commit themselves to deepening our understanding and experience of the Eucharist, and strengthening our Eucharistic liturgies.

(The Work of Redemption, ¶4)

As a beginning, his excellency offers his pastoral letter, saying “I hope the
following reflections will help provide a roadmap for the months ahead (The Work of Redemption, ¶5). So let’s take a look at it!

Following the introduction, the letter is divided into 9 sections.

• Liturgy and the Work of Redemption
• Praying the Mass: Receiving God’s Word
• Praying the Mass: Real Presence
• A Cosmic Mystery
• The Challenge of Unity
• Postures of Prayer
• The Eucharist and Charity
• A Year of the Eucharist
• Mary, Mother of the Eucharist

Although it is not cited, I’m struck by several parallels with Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis.

There is much to chew on here. The letter is at its finest, I think, when it explores the relationship between the sacred liturgy and the mission of the church, which, as his excellency reminds us in the long paragraph 10, is us. Not buildings, not institutions, not hierarchy, but us. A particularly important point as we enter into a year or more of strategic pastoral planning.

This paragraph ends with some of the most beautiful language in the letter:

When it comes to the liturgy, it is not enough simply to be present, because we are not to be “silent spectators” or consumers, but devout collaborators with Christ in the holy work of redemption. Our active participation in the liturgy is a reflection of our active participation in the mission of Christ. Gathering time and again to celebrate the liturgy, we experience and participate in Christ’s self-offering in the Eucharist. And even as we share in the fruits of his sacrificial love, we are called to make that love the model of our own lives: We are called to offer ourselves for others. The liturgy is not only the model for our lives, but forms us to live our day-to-day lives with this same sacrificial love of Christ.

(The Work of Redemption, ¶10)

There is a lot here. There’s a treatise on the Real Presence (¶ 17-23), culminating in a call for more time in Eucharistic Adoration, which is explicitly reiterated later in ¶49. And there’s a wonderful teaching in the section “A Cosmic Mystery” (¶ 24-27), including this (emphasis mine):

What expectations do we bring with us when we come to Mass on Sunday? We expect a warm welcome, good music, excellent homily (that doesn’t go on too long), and liturgy celebrated with dignity and reverence, style and grace. And rightly so, for all of these things are important. None of them, however, is as important as our Eucharistic encounter with Christ, which must always be the focus of our ministry, our parish life, and our daily lives of faith. In this way, the liturgy will truly be in our communities “the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the fount from which all the Church’s power flows.”

(The Work of Redemption, ¶27)

After a chapter discussing the need for unity in the Church, his excellency promulgates changes in the celebration of the Mass going forward. I’m very pleased to note that we have been instructed to kneel after the Agnus Dei. He says,

Kneeling is a posture of adoration. When we are on our knees, we cannot “do” anything else! In this moment, we prepare to receive Communion by kneeling in the presence of Christ, already in our midst in the sacrament of his Body and Blood, until it is time to rise and join the Communion procession.

(The Work of Redemption, ¶35)

The section that I can see will cause the most controversy, however, is undoubtably paragraph 36, which instructs:

… unity of posture is important in the Communion procession as well. In the Archdiocese of Seattle, we will follow the norms for the United States as expressed in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal. As we move in procession to the altar, we bow before receiving the Body or Blood of Christ, and remain standing to receive Holy Communion, whether the host or the chalice. To kneel at this point, or to add other gestures, individualizes the reception of Communion. But this is not the moment for personal expressions of piety, which can distract others and draw attention to ourselves.

(The Work of Redemption, ¶36)

Here is what the General Instruction says:

The norm established for the Dioceses of the United States of America is that Holy Communion is to be received standing, unless an individual member of the faithful wishes to receive Communion while kneeling (Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum, March 25, 2004, no. 91).

(General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 160)

So, clearly, specific permission is given to all for receiving the Eucharist kneeling. Indeed, this was considered important enough that the reference to Redemptionis Sacramentum is the only inline citation in the whole of the General Instruction.

How this will shake out, I’ve no idea. Once Masses resume at our parish, I will of course instruct the altar server(s) to remain standing for Communion, but I imagine many folks will continue to receive on their knees. Paragraph 40 promises that revised guidelines for the celebration of Mass will be issued, to be implemented in Advent of this year. Perhaps this will clarify the discrepancy.

The letter goes on to proclaim the Year of the Eucharist and what that might mean. His excellency calls it “an appropriate time for parishes to provide additional training for all liturgical ministers, as well as additional catechesis for all the faithful” (paragraph 46). In my service at my parish of Holy Rosary, this is basically what I do – train altar servers and teach adult catechesis – so I’m hoping that I can be more useful in these ways this year.

It might be time to speed up my revision of my Altar Server Training Manual and make it more available. Perhaps expedite explicitly pegging it to Bishop Elliott’s great Ceremonies for Servers.

And I certainly enjoyed training the servers at the nearby parish of Holy Cross, so perhaps I can help out other parishes in this way, too. Who knows?

I encourage you to read the entire letter yourself. To chew it over and savour the reflections his excellency gives us on the Eucharist and the Church. It’s wonderful. I will conclude by quoting from the Archbishop’s hopes for this coming year.

How wonderful it would be if, during the coming year, each of us could grow in our desire and ability to be in prayerful conversation with Christ, present in the Blessed Sacrament! The Lord longs to hear from us, to know, in our own words, what is happening in our lives: our hopes, fears, joys, concerns, questions. As quoted at the beginning of this letter, the Church draws life from the Eucharist, and thus so does each of us who are members of this Body of Christ, the Church. How beautiful it is when we learn to live as Christ, when we allow Christ to live more fully in and through us.

(The Work of Redemption, ¶50)