Since the Council 50 years ago, I for one have been conflicted about the emergence of a model of the Eucharist as a Passover-type meal that ignores or denies the "temple" aspects of holy sacrifice and abiding Divine Presence.
This model emerged strongly after the Council but is not an expression of the actual decrees. It moves decisively away from a temple model of ritualism, sacrifice, formality, solemnity, fasting, elaborate artistry, restrain and humility before the Holy and Sacred.
It replaces such for the informality, intimacy, personalism, authenticity, interaction, spontaneity, and subjective expressiveness of the Eucharist as a remembrance of the Last Supper, a relaxed, affectionate communion of Jesus with his disciples, in accord with Jewish practice and memory.
It takes place outside of a sacred place (Church or chapel), in a living room, or outdoors, or an activity center. It is largely stripped of the accoutrements of worship. It is relaxed, affectionate, intimate, humorous, spontaneous. It involves personal witnesses about God's grace or confessions of personal weakness and need for such. It is engaging.
On the positive side, such a model is experientially rich and enjoyable, personal, non-threatening, exhilarating, interactional, delightful and meaningful. It is not boring, mechanical, formal, alienating.
On the negative side it is casual, normal, and lacking in protocols of reverence and solemnity before the Sacred. It can degenerate and become superficial, sentimental, emotional, ephemeral and monotonous in its own way.
At its worst, it resembles the surrounding culture of subjectivity, narcissism, encounter-sensitivity groups, emotivism, therapy, consumerism and bourgeois indulgence. For example, communion might be offered to all participants, including non-Catholics, without regard to their preparedness...doctrinally, morally, psychologically...for the sacrament. After the service, the Sacred Hosts that are not consumed might be treated as unconsecrated hosts, sacrilegiously.
It is a break with Catholic tradition of many centuries. It may reject the ordinary Catholic mass as formalistic, monotonous, inauthentic. Implicitly or explicitly, it may seek to retrieve an ideal of the early Church liturgies as Passover meals, unencumbered by alien associations with temple, ritual, sacrifice, formality and solemnity. It may reflect the reformer's temptation: in the zeal to purify a contemptable Church, there is an "originalist" return to a pre-Constantinian Church of simplicity prior to the descent of the Catholic Church into power, ritual, and prestige. In this it can harbor a disgust for the actual, concrete, institutional Church of recent centuries.
However, I cannot deny that this celebration deeply, beautifully impacts many people, in many situations. I have seen this at our class reunions, retreats, family and friend gatherings, and most pronouncedly in the Neocatechumenal Way. Oftentimes those far from the Church participate and are deeply touched by a sense of God's love. This cannot be bad, can it?
The resolution to my ambivalence and conflict? I have come to see that these must be pleasing to God as they touch people so deeply. But in the right order. Specifically, the Eucharist as Word and Banquet cannot entirely detach from the Liturgy as Sacrifice and Abiding Presence. Indeed, the power, depth and beauty of these celebrations draws mysteriously from the communion with the broader, normal, parochial Church. Protocols must be respected. Non-Catholics or those who have rejected Catholic practice cannot be reverently given Communion. The Host that is not consumed must be properly reverenced as the body of Christ. A tone of reverence and solemnity must prevail, although informally.
This Eucharist as Banquet, as Last Super, is not the normative liturgy of the Catholic Church. It is an outflow, a development, an extraordinary expression. It is an outreach. It flows out of and back to the ordinary parish mass as Word, Meal, Sacrifice and Presence.
It is an expression of God's extravagant love. As such it flows out of and back into the more normal, even mundane parish Church building as "Temple of Worship."
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