The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, which was solemnly promulgated by his Holiness Pope Paul VI on 21 November 1964, presents the Church as being a communion. In itself, the word koinônia (communio in Latin) suggests what is common, fellowship, participation, communion and solidarity. These are also the feelings one gets when one reads Lumen Gentium attentively and with an open heart.
The Church is a communion of love. In St Cyprian’s words, she is “a people brought into unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit”. She has its beginning and end from and in the Trinitarian communion. The great Cardinal Newman summarised this reality very well when he said: “The Church is the Trinity in exile and the Trinity is the Church at home”. The Church is continually perfected because the ongoing saving Trinity continues to work and change the world through her.
In the Church it is the Holy Spirit who knits the bonds of communion, especially as expressed in the unity of faith and teaching, government, works in ministry and his charismatic gifts. Every gift of the Spirit is there to consolidate the Church’s communion.
Hence, the pneumatic Petrine ministry, exercised by the Roman Pontiff, is essentially one of unity. The Pope is the servant who confirms in faith and unity the body of Christ, the Church.
The Spirit is the one who is at work in those seven saving signs of Christ. By being fully present in these different stages and important moments of Christian life, the Spirit not only gives birth, increases, heals and guides the Church’s life of faith but, above all, he unifies her. In no other sacrament is the power of the Spirit manifested so eloquently than the ‘Sacrament of sacraments’, the Eucharist.
Through the Eucharist, the Spirit orders all the sacraments and the faithful to the person of Jesus Christ. He makes the Church one via the Eucharistic sacrifice. In its turn, the Eucharist makes the Church, since all the members of Christ’s body are made one by the real partaking of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. Moreover, the Church makes the Eucharist, especially through her ordained ministers on the words of Christ: “Do this in memory of Me”.
Thus, the Eucharist is the sacrament of the intense communion with Christ and one another. It is the sacrament of fellowship, which concretises itself into everybody’s participation from the one bread of life and the saving cup, the real body and blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ.
The presence of the priest who presides the Eucharist brings to mind and heart the affectionate and necessary communion with the hierarchy of the Church. Since the Eucharist is the sacrament of unity, how can its ministers be divided among themselves or with the Christian faithful? What a contradiction that would be, celebrating something when reality shows otherwise.
The Eucharist challenges its partakers to seek communion with one another at all costs. For instance, a bishop’s credibility is always to be found and tested by the intensity of his communal bond with the Pope, the successor of Peter, and with his brothers, other bishops, the successors of the apostles. Even the Roman Pontiff is duty bound to be a champion of communion within the Church. Hence, a Pope’s legacy is not just the teaching he leaves behind him but how he maintains communion with the apostolic college (the Pope and the bishops joined together) of which he is the head.
Encouraged by their bishop’s faithfulness and communion with Christ, as represented by the apostolic college, priests are to be outstanding examples of communion within the diocese in which they perform their pastoral activity. While participating in the grace of the bishop’s office, priests are to protect and refresh the bond of their priestly communion via their obedience and loyalty to their bishops as well as a fraternal affectionate love and collaboration towards other priests. In doing so, they bear a powerful witness before the believers of the one Lord Jesus Christ, our Brother and Minister.
Inspired by such an intimate priestly brotherhood, the Christian faithful cannot fail to consider one another as brothers and sisters of the one family of Christ. How can they not be one heart and soul (Acts 4, 32) when they see their pastors caring for one another in Christ’s ministerial brotherhood?
When love is lived with altruism, generosity and joy, its resonance is transposed beyond this world of space and time. Every time a Eucharist is celebrated, the ecclesial communion in this world remembers with great care and trust in the Triune God, those who departed from this life. The Church prays for the assuring hope that those who have left in the peace of Christ will rise again. Therefore, the communion of the pilgrim Church on earth includes the communion of those who are being purified in purgatory till the day when they too will be forever with God in the eternal blessedness.
Being aware of the power of heavenly help and protection, the Church looks with great hope to the intercession of the communion of saints in heaven. She addresses the ever-Virgin Mary, Blessed Joseph, Blessed apostles, and the entire host of holy men and women, to accompany, comfort, encourage and intercede for her in her ongoing journey of communion and fidelity towards the Father.
We, who are still on our way to the heavenly Jerusalem, let us pray with great zeal and love for peace and unity in the pilgrim Church. Be they the pope, bishops, priests, consecrated men and women, Christians, people of good will, those departed in purgatory, and the saints in heaven, all have their role to play in the constant prayer for the upkeep and deepening of the Church’s communion. Let us pray to Jesus Christ to hold and immerse his Church in that sublime Trinitarian communion towards which we aspire to be and live forever.
Lord Jesus Christ, you said to your apostles: I give you peace, my peace I give you. Look not on our sins, but on the faith of your Church, and grant us the peace and unity of your kingdom where you live forever and ever. Amen.