The celebration of the Eucharist reaches its climax in the receiving of Holy Communion.  All that has gone before in the celebration is aimed at this moment.

We take bread and wine and place them on the altar (Offertory).  The Eucharistic Prayer is prayed over them as Jesus prayed the prayer of thanksgiving over bread and wine at the Last Supper, thus identifying our bread and wine with the bread and wine of his Last Supper.  We then eat that bread and drink that wine as our means of entering into communion with the Risen Lord.

We are indeed entering into communion.  This is about union with the Lord Jesus and through and with him with the Father.  This union can only come about by the actions of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit ‘concelebrates’ with us as we celebrate the Eucharist enabling what we do and say to take on an entirely new dimension – that of communion with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  We become one with Jesus, the Son, in his relationship to the Father.  We become one in the unity of the Holy Spirit who gathers us into the body of Christ.

Notice that it is the word ‘we’ that is used in talking about communion.  The whole Eucharist is the action of the gathered people of God; it is our communion rather than my communion.  In receiving holy communion, we are being drawn into unity with each other.

It is also a personal communion with the Lord but it is that in the wider context of being drawn into the unity of the body of Christ, the Church.

There will be more segments on the meaning of communion over the coming weeks.

By Fr Frank O’Loughlin