Communion
A reader asked about receiving Communion in a Catholic church when one is not a member of the Roman Catholic Church. My practice on the Camino in Spain (where every church I went to was Catholic) was to get in the Communion line but, at the front, to cross my arms and indicate (more by a bowing of my head than by words) that I wished to receive a blessing. I remember two with particular joy. The priest at Burgos cathedral—at a pilgrim mass that was packed—was tender and had a very gentle face. At the cathedral in Santiago, where there were many Communion lines, the priest I happened to meet said to me “English?” I nodded, and then he gave, in English, an elaborate blessing that, dear reader, included you! (His prayer over me covered everyone in my life.)
I learned this practice—to request a blessing rather than taking Communion—as part of my engagement with the ecumenical movement. A principle of true ecumenism, I am persuaded, is to respect other churches’ practices and beliefs especially when you are participating in worship with them in their church. It is Roman Catholic teaching that to receive Communion in their church indicates, and flows out from, being in full communion with their church. Although a degree of communion is recognized with all Christians, and at times has been stated to be especially true with Anglicans, we are not in full communion.
Some churches have taken a different approach. It is the teaching of the Episcopal Church, for instance, that if you are visiting an Episcopal Church in a service that includes Communion, and you receive Communion in your own church, and you recognize that Jesus is really present in the consecrated Bread and Wine, and nothing in your conscience prevents it, you are welcome to receive at that service. Our view is that receiving Communion together can be a step on the way to full communion, rather than being the endpoint of the process.
I know people, on both sides as it were, who bristle at the other church’s practice. They might describe the Roman Catholic view as hostile and rigid. Or they might describe the Episcopal view as sloppy thinking. Such bristling does not reflect a deep ecumenical spirituality. It is humbler to submit to the practices of the church which you are visiting rather than to grumble about how they ought to be different. And not only humbler: when one submits, in charity, one is open to surprising grace. I think I received much grace in the churches in Spain, even though I understood little of the Spanish and never received Communion. It wasn’t a grace that made me want to leave my church home; it was a gift that was given precisely in our difference. A gift that, as is obvious from my writing here, was beyond words.
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We moderns don’t let go enough. We bristle, grumble, and make sarcastic posts on social media when other people or institutions do things in ways we would not. We are always wanting our world and the things in it to measure up to our desires.
We always have a consumer attitude towards everything.
We never let go and just submit to the world that is there.
I’ve said this before—in a way, I was saying it last week—it is important for us all to learn to let go. The world does not exist to measure up to my expectations! And when I am willing to thank God for the rain (even though my plans for the day called for sunshine)—when I let go of my plans and receive the world as it actually us—then unexpected grace can appear.
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Out & About. Sunday, June 14, I am to preach at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Dallas, at 9 and 11:15. Then at 5 p.m. at St. Matthew’s, the Good Books & Good Talk seminar will meet to discuss Tolstoy’s great fifty-page story, “The Death of Ivan Ilyich.” Everyone is welcome to attend, and if you read the story you are welcome to talk. To find the seminar: Park in the covered apartment parking just south of the cathedral (church parking is clearly marked). When you walk out of the garage, you’ll be facing the cathedral close. The building to the right of the close is Garrett Hall. I’ll be at the door from about 4:45 to let people in.