Communion in a Fractured World

Dear Parishioners,

The following is for your reflection from the book, “A Life of Daring Simplicity,” Meditation for Priests, but quite relevant for all.

God bless us all!

Fr. Citino

In Communion with a Fractured World

For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal 3:27-28)

I recently came across a marvelous description of the Church. The Church is the place of “the dynamic movement of gathering” first begun in Christ.

The reality of gathering expresses for me something very powerful about the Eucharist. While presiding one Sunday morning at St. Mary’s Cathedral, this was brought home to be in a concrete way. Standing before me was an amazing mixture of people. Ethnically, politically, economically, theologically, people of many types and on every place of the spectrum, responded to my “The Lord be with you,” as one, “And also with you.” As the one bread and the one cup are transformed in to the living presence of Christ, all these different people enter into that one life of Christ. From such difference, unity is made possible.

The daily Eucharist reminds me of this when I pray, ‘Grant that we, who are nourished by his body and blood, may be filled with his Holy Spirit, and become one body, one spirit in Christ” (Eucharistic Prayer lll). The Eucharist is that place where the Spirit is powerfully acting to continue the dynamic movement of gathering people into Christ.

Our world is marked by much division, enormous economic gaps, and by separations of fear and misunderstanding. In the Eucharist, I experience God not simply breaking down the barriers and closing the gaps, but gathering us with all our differences into a unity that only God is big enough to sustain and somehow transform.

In my priesthood, too, where I often feel pulled in so many directions, I am called to be many different things to different people. The daily celebration of the Eucharist is where I find Christ gathering me back together and showing me that he is big enough for all the diverse needs of the people. For me, the Eucharist is the encounter with the possibility of communion in a complicated, often fractures world.

Anthony Oelrich, “Communion in a Fractured    World,” 65-66.