What is Communion?

As promised, I've decided to spill some digital ink explaining why all that stuff that happens at Mass after Communion is worth sticking around for. It's a common thing for people to receive Communion and then bolt, but I want to insist that the concluding rites of the Mass are very important and shouldn't be treated like movie credits.

I'll go through all the post-Communion elements of the Mass one by one, but before I do, a note on what Communion is.

If you're Catholic, you're undoubtedly aware that the Blessed Sacrament we receive in Holy Communion is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. That probably has something to do with why you stay long enough to receive it. It is clearly the high point of the Mass, and everyone knows this. Thus, even though some may arrive late, they will not dare to leave prematurely (that is, before having received Communion), because even if their faith is not strong, they at least know to some degree that there is something of great value in it.

People stick around at Mass, why? To get what is coming to them. Whether it is ashes on Ash Wednesday, palms on Palm Sunday, throat blessings on the feast of St. Blaise, Catholics show up to get stuff. And that's no less different on Sunday. Very many people show up to Mass on Sunday to receive Communion, and once they have, they're gone. They got what they came for.

I think that's because we misunderstand what Communion is. We fall prey to the arrogance of assuming that we have a merely personal relationship with God. While it truly is a wonder that God is present to us in the Eucharist and that such an unprecedented intimacy between Creator and created is achieved, that's not the end of the story. Communion isn't a bunch of individuals finding their own one-on-one intimacy with God. The church is not at that moment full of a set of exclusive connections between God and this or that human being. Individuality is meaningless in the reception of the Blessed Sacrament. Holy Communion is the Christian community as a whole entering into union with Christ, the Body united with the Head.

Imagine if the different parts of the body were united individually to the head: a finger sprouting from the forehead of a severed head, or the head balancing as it is attached directly to a leg above the knee. These monsters, in addition to being gruesome, are also meaningless. None of them constitutes a human being. None of them is a whole. They are fractions, incomplete, and disgustingly so.

That's how wrong it is for us to persist in the error of believing merely that my reception of Communion is only about me and my situation. We are one Body of which he is the Head.

So while there is something natural about kneeling silently in private thanksgiving after receiving Communion, it also fails to grasp the weight of the moment, if it is in truth private. Silence is good, and individual effort and focus is necessary for a sincere sacrifice of praise, but anything that ignores the individual's place among the community of believers furthermore ignores the true meaning of Communion.

And if that's the case, then getting up and leaving altogether immediately following Communion is far more nonsensical. It is completely opposed to what is happening as the Church receives Holy Communion. That's reason número uno that you shouldn't rush out of Mass before it's over. The posts to follow will address more specifically the elements of the Mass that you miss if you do.