This space is not often utilized much anymore. The theological has become wholly subsumed into the political nowadays, making any musings here subject to the reduction into ideology that has ravaged almost every academic and spiritual field in the land.
A great deal is being said lately regarding "Eucharistic Coherence" - a topic that strangely became an imperative in mid-November 2020 and has found prelates taking to the standard places of theological conversation like "Tucker Carlson Live," Breibart News, and "The World Over with Raymond Arroyo," Here in these august venues of sober conversation and contemplation various musings on what "Eucharistic Coherence" is offered for consideration.
The proposed document from the U.S. Bishops proposes to offer a reflection on the meaning of the Eucharist in the life of the Church and for individual Christians. The document will provide a restatement of teaching on the Eucharist and provide a reflection on how this applies to the life of a disciple of the Lord. These aspects of the forthcoming document are welcome and necessary for our common life together as a community of faith. The mystery of faith requires constant and continual theological and spiritual reflection in our lives to provide ever new inspirations and insights as individuals and as a community.
The Eucharist contains within itself the entire mystery of faith, and as such has two fundamental dimension - one as object, the other as action. In the first, the Eucharist is a gift offered to humanity and to be received with humility and gratitude. As a gift it is not something anyone can claim to have by right before God. As an action, however, the Eucharist is an obligation placed upon us all - the obligation to offer thanksgiving, the duty to offer oneself as a sacrifice for others just as Jesus did for us, the duty to be in communion with one another as a people of God - the body of Christ.
In determining one's worthiness of approaching the sacrament, these two dimensions must be kept in mind. The Eucharist is not a mere object; it is also a duty and an action. What is more, the Eucharist is not an object entirely of our control. It is, at the end of the day, a free gift of God offered for all.
To be disposed worthily to receive the sacrament is one of great personal challenge. On the one hand no one is indeed worthy - we say as much in Mass and they are not mere idle words. At the same time, the Church provides for us minimum requirements for such worthiness, and in doing so presents them to us so that each individual discerns whether they will approach to receive the Eucharist. Such a discernment and examination of conscience is a daily obligation and is a demanding task for each person.
In my own life I have often found myself conscious of sin and have refrained from taking communion. Those who know me well know this about me. While I find myself qualified to make such a judgment about myself, it is not a judgment I am qualified to make about anyone else. The task of examining one conscience is time consuming and demanding enough. The time commitment and burden of undertaking this task for others is utterly immense.
Thanks be to God that apparently there are a great number of people qualified and eager for such work in the Church! I wish them well. Many of these folks have already notified me of my unworthiness, for which I am most grateful. As you can see, I share your judgment of myself often. It is my hope that technology will advance soon that will enable the creation of Worthiness Detectors that can be installed in church aisles - much like a TSA screening machine. Everyone can then pass through the machine to see if one is worthy to approach, and like the TSA process we can have a pre-screening line for those exempt from such detection measures. This will free up a great deal of time and labor in the Church workforce so that we can attend to other things like caring for the poor and marginalized and other things that we've been unable to get to on the to-do list because of this screening work.
