A time for Thanksgiving
We have entered the Lenten season now, and I want to draw your attention to something we no longer do.
In the 1960s most theologians believed in the traditional Thanksgiving after Mass. They did so on the assumption that bread was still bread and wine was still wine until digestion was completed. The substance of Jesus was still there then until the form of bread and the form of wine was gone.
Today I suspect most theologians still believe in the traditional Thanksgiving after Mass. But they do not share the assumption of their earlier brothers. For them the reception of the Eucharist is a spiritual thing mediated by physical realities. The substantial Christ remains with the believer, therefore, long after the physical realities of bread and wine are gone.
But look at what happens after a normal Sunday Mass. The celebrant sits a very short time after communion. The final prayer follows, and the final blessing. He and the servers process out, and the people file out to greet him and one another. It is a festival of fraternity, and hand-shaking, and back-slapping, and coffee drinking, and non-stop talking.
But, whether you agree with the old theologians or the new theologians, what happened to the Divine Guest we have just received? Is he not still with us? Does not what we now do drown the Guest in a sea of distraction? Do we not prefer human conversation to the more difficult Divine Conversation?
The German theologian, Karl Rahner, once related a boyhood memory of a priest who sent two servers with lighted candles to follow a man who left the church right after Communion. It is a scene to remember and to think about.
How can we recover some of that? Perhaps through a longer silence after Communion, though it will be uncomfortable at first. Perhaps through a recommended time of Thanksgiving with the church doors closed. Perhaps through sending those who want to talk to a separate place, the cafeteria, for example.
Rahner’s image is something to remember and to think about.
Bishop of Dodge City