The Eucharist and the Call to Witness

Every year the Biblical readings that are proclaimed in the Church’s liturgy throughout the Lenten and Easter seasons recount the dramatic transformation that takes place in the lives of Christ’s first disciples and followers as they witness to the salvific events of His life, death and resurrection. At the heart of this transformation is their deepening awareness of the gift of Himself that Christ has given them in the Eucharist and the accompanying growth in faith that takes place in them as Christ Himself appears in their midst as they remember Him and He calls them to be His witnesses. Ultimately, it is their appreciation of Christ’s gift of Himself to them that allows the first disciples to give themselves as His witnesses sent out into the world. This suggests some important considerations for the way in which young people are prepared for the call to witness that they receive and give themselves to in the sacrament of Confirmation.

One of the traits of the disciples prior to Jesus’ resurrection is their complete inability to understand what He is about and the nature of His mission. Jesus is often mistaken for a worldly Messiah who has come to liberate the people of Israel from the political oppression that they are suffering under the Roman occupation. This is not just a misunderstanding in the minds of the crowd, as demonstrated by Christ’s triumphant entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday; it is also a misunderstanding that is held by those who have intimately accompanied Jesus throughout his life, as shown most clearly in the case of Judas and Peter’s denial of Him three times. Whether it be in the Messianic secret of the Gospel of Mark, or the parables that Jesus must constantly explain to them, neither the apostles nor the disciples ever really get what Christ is about or the nature of the Kingdom that He is proclaiming during the time that they are with Him throughout His early life as a man. At this stage, these disciples are Jesus’ admiring friends and followers. They are, however, in no way prepared to witness to their faith in Him by giving their lives, nor do they understand the extent of His love for them. This understanding will only come about as they grow to appreciate what He has done for them and the extent of His love as He appears among them in the breaking of the bread following His life, death, and resurrection.

The Liturgy of Palm Sunday and the Biblical readings that are associated with it best illustrate what people thought Jesus was about and who even His disciples and apostles thought He was. Hailing and welcoming Him as the King of the Jews, the people are looking for an earthly Savior who has come to build a Kingdom in this world. However, as Jesus tells Pilate in the Passion narrative from the Gospel of John that is read on Good Friday, His Kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36). It is in light of the expectation that Jesus has come to build a Kingdom in this world that His arrest will lead all of the disciples to flee (Mark 14:50 and Matthew 26:56). In the face of this persecution, even Peter, one of His closest and most faithful disciples, will betray the Lord three times (John 18:27). Even at the Last Supper, when Christ knowingly and deliberately speaks of the Covenant and Kingdom in which he will again drink of the Cup of the New Covenant (Luke 22:18), His disciples have no idea what He is speaking about. They are in no position to witness to who He is and what this Kingdom He has come to establish is all about. At this stage in their journey, they are friends and acquaintances who accompany a popular and well-loved man of wisdom.

The disciples and apostles are completely scandalized and terrified by the arrest of Jesus and his torture and death at the hands of the Romans. As one of the disciples will tell Jesus on the road to Emmaus on the very day of His resurrection, many of them had hoped that He would be “the one who would deliver Israel” (Luke 24:21). Only as Jesus breaks open the Word for them and shares with them the bread do their hearts come to understand what His life is all about. As the first Eucharist is celebrated by Jesus with these disciples on the first day of the week, their hearts are opened to accept the reality of His saving love and they are transformed into witnesses who will run to share the Good News with their brothers and sisters (Luke 24:35). The transforming power of the Eucharist in the life of these first disciples is the story that is told over and over again during the forty days of the Easter season leading up to Christ’s Ascension into Heaven. Each time He appears, the Lord asks for something to eat or shares the living bread of life with His disciples. As He shares bread with them, they come to understand what His mission is really about and their hearts are prepared to receive the gift of the Holy Sprit that will make them truly His witnesses after Pentecost Sunday. They do not receive this gift of the Holy Spirit on the day of the Resurrection. They are prepared for this gift throughout the forty days that Jesus breaks bread with them and during which they come to understand His living presence among them in this life giving bread. Only though these appearances and Eucharistic meals that they share with Jesus do the disciples come to know His peace and become able to put aside their own fears of death in order to become His witnesses in the world.

It is the fear of death that prevents the disciples from witnessing and giving their lives with Christ when He is arrested. This fear leads Peter to deny the Lord, the others to flee and all of them to continuously hide themselves in the upper room even after His resurrection. Terrified that they too might face the same fate which Jesus met under the Romans, none of the disciples dares to utter His name in public or speak of Him as their Redeemer. It is the bravery of the women which will allow the disciples to come to know of Christ’s resurrection. Perhaps because they did not have to fear crucifixion in the same way that the men might have had to, the women dared to venture to His grave. Here they discovered the Good News. Since that time, the ancient Church often associated the ambo with the empty tomb that announced the Good News. Even in light of the testimony of the women, the men are slow to believe. They must hear the Good News from Christ Himself and feel His presence within them through the life-giving bread that He will share with them. Only after He has shared this life-giving gift with them do both the men and women finally overcome their own fear of death. Knowing that Jesus has destroyed death and remains with them through His presence in the Eucharist, the hearts of the disciples are opened and they are ready to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit that will impel them to be His witnesses to the ends of the earth. They are not ready to be sent on the day of His resurrection. It is only after they come to know the depth of His love for them and His presence with them, through the breaking of the bread, that they receive the courage to give themselves to what Pentecost will call them to become. Their hearts are prepared by the living bread of life Himself, Jesus in the Eucharist.

In light of these biblical realities, the question must be asked whether a person can be called to witness in the manner that is spoken about in the sacrament of Confirmation without first having come to an understanding of the love which Christ shows for all of us in the Eucharist. In the history of the liturgy, even in those cases where the sacraments of Initiation were celebrated all together as Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist, the official sending out into the world which concludes the Easter Vigil does not come until those who are to be sent have experienced Christ’s love for them in the gift of the sacrament of His Body and Blood. It is not until the newly initiated have received Christ in the sacrament of His Body and Blood that they are expected to know the depths of His love for them and are sent out into the world to put their own lives on the line as His witnesses. Where these three sacraments are not celebrated together, does it really make sense to ask one who has not experienced Christ’s love for them through the Eucharist to be sent out into the world to give their lives as Christ’s witnesses?

The history of the liturgy is quite clear about the many powerful examples of how the sacraments of Initiation were celebrated for adults and their family members in the early Church. The three sacraments were celebrated in the order of Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist. After they received the Eucharist, these adults were sent out into the world to witness to Christ’s love for them and to give their lives in His service. There are very few examples of people being sent or understanding the extent of Christ’s love for them without having received the Eucharist. Many early catechetical writers point to the importance of understanding the Eucharist in order to be initiated into the Church and being called to live the sacramental call of Confirmation.

Once the order of the sacraments of initiation had been altered in the Western Church by the insistence on an episcopal laying on of hands for the sacrament of Confirmation, there is a confusing and ambiguous debate about whether that order always followed that of Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist. In many places the order of these sacraments seems to have been more dependent upon when the bishop was available to come and lay hands upon those who had been baptized. It was not uncommon for Confirmation simply to be celebrated when the bishop came to town. At this time all those who had been baptized, and perhaps had already received the Eucharist, would be presented for the sacramental laying on of hands and anointing that was entailed in the sacrament of Confirmation.

There are many today who insist that young people who are receiving the sacraments of initiation separately as they come of age ought to receive them in what they term the “original” order of Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist. The purpose of this reflection is to suggest that it is not clear that this is the order that they were celebrated in the scriptural accounts of the first days of the Church. The first disciples of Jesus had shared in the baptism of John and become friends and followers of Christ. At the Last Supper, Jesus initiated among some of them the Eucharist. Following this, during the forty days leading up to His Ascension that He appeared to them, they shared in the breaking of the bread with Christ. It was only after this sharing, after the awareness of Christ’s living presence among them had penetrated their hearts, that they were prepared to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit that would allow them to become His witnesses in the world. Only then were they prepared for the gift of Pentecost. In the early Church, when adults received the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist together, the catechesis which prepared them to receive these sacraments was often centered on the Eucharist and their understanding of Christ’s love for them that was communicated through the Eucharist. They were most often not actually sent out into the world to witness to Christ’s love until after they had received the Eucharist and had the personal experience of Christ’s love for them that is encountered in the gift of His Body and Blood. To this day, a powerful conclusion to every Mass in which the gift of Christ’s Body and Blood is received is the sending to witness in the world from which the Mass itself takes its name — “Ite Missa est!”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Ritual for Confirmation both speak of the call to witness to Christ’s love that is given to those who receive the Sacrament of Confirmation. This call is no doubt given with the gift of the Holy Spirit that is given in this sacrament. It comes principally through God’s grace. However, it cannot be ignored that the apostles themselves were not ready to receive this gift of the Holy Spirit immediately after Christ’s resurrection. Their hearts had to be prepared by His presence among them in the breaking of the bread. Only after these Eucharistic encounters leading up to Christ’s Ascension were the first disciples sufficiently prepared to understand His love for them that they too might be called to witness to this love. Even in the Church’s oldest liturgical traditions, liturgical catechesis of those preparing for the three Sacraments of Initiation often centered on the gift that Christ gives of Himself in the Eucharist that would be received by the newly initiated at the Easter vigil. The newly initiated were very rarely, if ever, sent out into the world to witness to Christ’s love until they themselves had received the gift of the Eucharist. The sending of the newly initiated into the world to witness was always connected to the celebration of the Eucharist which was, and is, the heart of the Easter Vigil.

Today many liturgist argue for the necessity of preparing young people for initiation in the order of Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist, these last two sacraments sometimes being separated by months or years. This argument, they would contend, is based on an argument from history. The question needs to be asked: “whose history?”

The Eucharistic appearances of the Lord throughout the forty days prior to His Ascension seem to point to the importance of the Eucharist in the preparation of His first disciples before they received their mission on Pentecost. The liturgical catechesis of the early Church bear witness to the central place of the Eucharist in preparing those who would receive all three sacraments of Initiation as adults. More importantly, those adults who were received into the Church by celebrating all three of the sacraments of Initiation at once have always received the Eucharist before they were asked to give their own lives in witness through the official sending at the end of the Easter Vigil. If the Eucharist has always had such a powerful role in the preparation of the first disciples, apostles and adults initiated into the Church, is it fair to suggest that people today should be asked to witness through the sacrament of Confirmation before they have experienced the love they are being asked to witness to in the sacrament of the Eucharist? It seems likely that our young people need the same preparation that the first disciples, the apostles, and the adults being received into the Church have always received. It seems unreasonable to ask people to witness to a love they have yet to experience. The unconditional love of God should be experienced in the mysterious sacrament of the Eucharist before one is asked to testify to this love as Christ’s witness in the world. The liturgical tradition of the Church has always associated sending to witness with the Eucharist and its profound love through the “Ite Missa est” of the dismissal. This reflection would like to suggest that the scriptures and the Church’s tradition have always allowed new initiates into the Church to have a real experience of Christ’s love for them in the Eucharist before sending them out into the world to be His witnesses. This same tradition ought to be respected in the sacramental preparation of our young people today by giving them an experience of Christ’s love for them in the Eucharist before calling them to witness to this love through the celebration of the sacrament of Confirmation.

One who receives the call to witness to Christ’s love for them ought to have first experienced this love in the celebration of their First Holy Communion prior to their celebration of the sacrament of Confirmation. If for some this is not doctrinally possible, at the very least, they should receive their First Communion at the same celebration in which they celebrate the sacrament of Confirmation, as both scripture and tradition witness to the necessity of being fed on Christ’s Body in order to witness to His love.