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Wednesday, August 24,
2011 7:06 PM
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Article of Interest...
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'Spiritual Communion’:
Youths learn a traditional concept the hard way |
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By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY – More than a
million young Catholics learned the hard way about a venerable Catholic
tradition: “spiritual Communion” or the “Communion of desire.”
After a wild storm Aug. 20
at World Youth Day in Madrid left six people injured – including two with
broken legs – Spanish police collapsed the tents where most of the
unconsecrated hosts for the next morning’s Mass were being kept. Without the hosts in the
tents, organizers had 5,000 ciboriums holding 200
hosts each; they were consecrated by the pope at Mass Aug. 21 and distributed
to pilgrims in the section closest to the altar.
Distributing Communion to
just 100,000 people wasn’t a decision anyone took lightly, and apparently
there were long discussions with World Youth Day organizers and Vatican
officials trying to find a solution. In the end, it just wasn’t possible
logistically to locate another 1.5 million hosts.
A couple of hours before
the Mass, organizers announced that most of the people present would not be
able to receive; they asked the pilgrims to offer up that sacrifice for the
pope’s intentions and told them they could receive Communion later in the day
at any church in Madrid. The decision to cancel
Communion for most Mass participants was reached “with the greatest pain,” Yago de la Cierva, director of
World Youth Day Madrid, told reporters Aug. 21. Whenever there is a huge
crowd for a Mass, whether in St. Peter’s Square or at a World Youth Day,
there always are some people unable to get to the Communion distribution
point in time to receive. But in Madrid, de la Cierva
said, “almost everyone” was among those not receiving.
Obviously, receiving
Communion is the way to participate most fully in the Mass, but it’s not
always possible for everyone to receive at every Mass, nor do many Catholics
in the world even have regular access to Mass.
The idea of “spiritual
Communion” – inviting Jesus into one’s heart and soul when receiving the
actual sacrament isn’t possible – is part of Catholic tradition. In the 1700s, St. Alphonsus Liguori wrote a special prayer for spiritual
communion: “My Jesus, I believe you are really here in the Blessed Sacrament.
I love you more than anything in the world, and I hunger to receive you. But
since I cannot receive Communion at this moment, feed my soul at least
spiritually. I unite myself to you now as I do when I actually receive you.”
Jesuit Father Federico
Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, said it would be a huge mistake to believe the
Mass had no value for those who were unable to receive Communion.
“Communion is always an
extraordinary gift, and one must be in awe of being able to receive it,” he
told Catholic News Service Aug. 24.
“It is not something one
can presume to have an absolute right to as if he’d bought a ticket for it by
going to Mass. Someone who thinks that hasn’t understood who is in the
consecrated host and what the Mass is,” the spokesman said. The eucharistic
adoration and benediction at the vigil in Madrid underlined that point, he
said. Jesus is present in the Eucharist, which is why it is adored and why
Catholics spend time in its presence, even outside of Mass. The “eucharistic
fasting” many of the young pilgrims in Madrid were forced to endure could
also help them be in spiritual solidarity with other people who find
themselves desiring the Eucharist, but unable to receive it, he said.
“I’m thinking of Catholics
deprived of priests in many parts of the world for many reasons,” he said,
but there also are those “who would like to celebrate the Lord’s Supper with
other Christians, but don’t have intercommunion out of respect for the norms
of the church. Isn’t it meaningful in these situations to know we can unite
ourselves with Christ through love and desire?”
In an era when people are
encouraged to receive the sacrament frequently, they don’t hear the term
“spiritual Communion” very often, but it is still mentioned in church
documents.
The Vatican’s preparatory
document for the 2012 International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin said those
who cannot receive the Eucharist can have spiritual Communion, declaring
their desire to receiving the Eucharist and uniting “their suffering of that
moment with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.” The working document for the
Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist in 2005 addressed the idea of offering up
the sacrifice of being unable to receive Communion. It said: “Spiritual
Communion, for example, is always possible for elderly persons and the sick who cannot go to church.
In manifesting their love for the Eucharist, they participate in
the communion of saints with great spiritual benefit for themselves and the
church. By offering their sufferings to God, the church is enriched.” In “Sacramentum
Caritatis,” the document he issued in 2007
reflecting on the synod, Pope Benedict cautioned people against thinking they
had “a right or even an obligation” to receive the Eucharist every time they
went to Mass.
“Even in cases where it is
not possible to receive sacramental Communion, participation at Mass remains
necessary, important, meaningful and fruitful. In such circumstances it is
beneficial to cultivate a desire for full union with Christ through the
practice of spiritual communion,” Pope Benedict wrote. Aug 24, 2011 |