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the eucharist and the christian family

(Editor’s note: Following is the address given by Bishop Braxton June 16, 2008 at the 49th International Eucharistic Congress in Quebec City, Canada.)

By Bishop Edward K. Braxton, Ph.D., S.T.D.
Bishop of Belleville

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ: Peace be with you!
I am very happy to be with you in historic Quebec City for the 49th International Eucharistic Congress. We are giving thanks to God for the extraordinary gift of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. It is the gift of God for the life of the world and the life of the family.
This afternoon, I would like to reflect with you on the Eucharist and the Christian family. Even though Christ gave the Eucharist to the family of the Church, we have a tendency to think of the Eucharistic presence of Christ as spiritual nourishment for the individual, rather than the community and the family. To the extent that we do this, we deprive ourselves of the full power of this great sacrament of the altar. In this presentation I will explore the relationship between the Eucharist and the Christian family under five related topics. I. The Eucharistic Meal and the Family Meal; II. Contemporary Challenges to Family Intimacy; III. The Nature of Family Intimacy; IV. The Eucharist: The Intimate Presence of Christ; and V. Eucharistic Intimacy and the Family.

I. The Eucharistic Meal and the Family Meal

Every celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is a memorial of Christ’s death and resurrection and a participation in the Last Supper, during which the Lord Jesus gave us His Flesh to eat and His Blood to drink. He reminds us at each Eucharist that He is the living bread that has come down from heaven. If we eat this Bread we will have life everlasting.

The Mass is the great family sacrificial meal of the Church. As a result every family meal should remind us of the Eucharistic meal. There is, however, a great difference between the Eucharistic family meal and the one we share at home with our relatives. When we eat a meal at home the food that we eat becomes us. It literally becomes part of our human bodies. When we consume the Body and Blood of Christ, the opposite is true. This heavenly food does not become us. We become what we eat! We become one in Christ.
When we recognize the Eucharist as a call to communion, a call to community, we realize that it has the power to nurture families and to change communities. Catholic families, whose lives are focused on the Eucharistic liturgy, open themselves up in a special way to the effective presence of Christ in their lives. It is inadequate to think of the Eucharist in individualistic terms. It is not simply a matter of Jesus and me. It is Jesus and us. The Eucharist calls us to family life in Christ.

In the rapidly changing social patterns of western culture, we see that the family meal as a communal event and source of family intimacy has changed dramatically. Sociologists report that, as recently as thirty years ago, the evening meal was a very important, relatively stable hour for families in Canada and in the United States. The evening meal was a time for sharing. Everyone was usually present. At the table family members talked about their experiences away from home. The table was the place where family issues were discussed and permissions were granted or denied. Older children and their parents exchanged ideas about the issues of the day. The meal, the source of physical nourishment, also fed the family spirit. This remains true today for many families.
However, for an increasing number of families, the evening meal is not a time of sharing. In many households family members watch television while they eat in relative silence. The mobility of the modern family is such that the meal can become merely feeding time, devoid of real human presence. Teenage family members come home after school for a quick sandwich and return to school for extracurricular activities. Mothers and younger children often eat alone at the regular dinner hour. Fathers, often arriving late from work, eat alone later in the evening.

On those occasions when all family members do gather, they may all be in their own autonomous worlds. No one dares to raise the disputed issues of the day for fear that an argument will erupt. While this shift in the family meal is not universal, it is widespread. This decline of the traditional family meal may, in some ways, contribute to decline in the appreciation of the Eucharist as a family meal; a time of human and spiritual intimacy.

The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that, “The Eucharist is the source and summit of all Christian life. It contains the whole spiritual good of the Church, Christ Himself … .” (#274). This teaches us that our love for Christ present in the Eucharist cannot end with our individual personal expression of faith during the consecration of the Mass. Nor can it be restricted to our private adoration of Christ in the tabernacle during a visit to the Blessed Sacrament. In the Eucharist we are called as individuals and as families into spiritual contact with the Risen Lord. This dynamic spiritual intimacy with Christ necessarily moves us deeper into the Scriptures, the Church, the life of prayer, the teachings of the magisterium, the example of the saints, and the desire to live out the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our personal lives. The Eucharist calls each of us and all families to conversion.

This has profound implication. If we are truly united with Christ and His Church in the Eucharist, we will be confronted deep within our being and challenged not to imitate the secular culture’s embrace and acceptance of actions and attitudes, which directly or indirectly undermine the family. A deep Eucharistic understanding of the nature and meaning of marriage helps us to see the moral harm done to family life by young people engaging in sexual activity before they are married, multiple marriages followed by multiple divorces, abortion, same sex “marriage,” embryonic stem cell research, and euthanasia. A Eucharistic awareness of our unity with the entire human family will also call us to ponder our positions on challenging questions such as war, capital punishment, the pollution of our environment, and our participation in a materialistic culture in the face of the poverty in which most of the world’s population lives.

II. Contemporary Challenges to Family Intimacy

The Eucharist, by its nature, calls members of families to intimacy. The Catholic Church’s concern for the well-being of the family is demonstrated around the world each day by a great variety of services that benefit families of every religious background. The documents of the Second Vatican Council frequently address the needs of families (cf. Gaudium et Spes, The Constitution on the Church in the Modern World). Pope John Paul II’s Apostolic Exhortation on Catholic Families (Familiaris Consortio) is a landmark account of the essential and irreplaceable nature of the family. If you have not already done so, I urge you to read prayerfully John Paul’s great Encyclical Letter, On the Eucharist (Ecclesia De Eucharistia).

Today there is much discussion and debate concerning the very nature and purpose of the family. International consultations on the family have failed to reach a consensus on the relationship of marriage, sexuality, and children to the family. Some argue that the traditional family came into being simply because of certain historical developments. Others argue that the family springs from human nature itself and that, while the family will fare poorly at certain times and in certain circumstances, it will not disappear unless the human race disappears.

Christianity has long held that the family, the primary unit of society, springs from the creative wisdom of God. We Catholics are blessed with an ancient biblical, theological, and cultural tradition that preserves the essential divinely established meaning of the family, which we cannot and will not abandon. But this does not mean that Catholic families are immune from the pressures, tensions, and conflicts that beset contemporary families.

Today, there are many fatherless or motherless families, due to the rapidly growing number of divorced single parents. Women are choosing to becoming mothers with no intention of marriage. Single women and men are adopting children in greater numbers. Homosexual “unions” and even “marriages” are gaining greater social acceptance and legal recognition. Some famous entertainers and athletes, idolized by the young, spurn marriage altogether. In the United States several studies have indicated that only 25% of U.S. households are made up of traditional families (husband, wife, and children).

III. The Nature of Family Intimacy

Permanent commitment, interpersonal love and family intimacy are at the heart of the traditional family structure. However, current statistics reveal that it is very difficult to achieve and maintain family intimacy today. When genuine family intimacy is achieved, the result is ongoing and shared growth. There is a mesh of complementary qualities, temperaments, needs, and attitudes. This interpersonal relationship brings joy and fulfillment to the beloved as well as a sense of warmth, tenderness, devotion and security to each family member.

Family intimacy presumes some degree of parallel growth and development in the marriage partners and a natural, unforced rapport between parents and children. However, in a world marked by instability, some question the possibility of cultivating permanent and complementary intimate relationships. Happily, for many, it is possible. For some, however, it is very difficult. For others, it appears to be almost impossible.

Because of the very structure of the family, the members of a family engage one another at different levels of intimacy. Family intimacy takes many forms. It is helpful to distinguish several forms of intimacy. Intimacy may be practical, physical, emotional, psychological, intellectual, moral, and spiritual.

Practical intimacy makes family cooperation possible. For example, in most families everyone has a particular responsibility for keeping the house in order. If there is no intimacy at this very functional level, it is very difficult to have a stable home situation.

Physical intimacy gives expression to the comfortable, familiar; “at ease” feeling that is desirable among all the members of a family. This intimacy is expressed by a warm smile, an attitude of welcome and respect, a pat on the back, a playful closeness, an embrace, a kiss or even tears. Physical intimacy is perhaps most profound in the sexual intimacy of husband and wife. Ideally, sexual intimacy is enhanced by all forms of intimacy. In this way the tender physical expression of love embodies an abiding spiritual communion.
Emotional intimacy flows almost spontaneously from living together as a family. The joys and sorrows of one family member are, or should be to some extent, the joys and sorrows of the others. Emotional intimacy plays a key role in bonding sisters and brothers to one another and to their parents. Even such emotions as anger, rage and despair play a necessary role in holding family members together. It is crucial for the well-being of the entire family that each member be attentive to the ever-changing emotions of the others, and that there be a freedom to express these emotions.

Psychological intimacy builds upon emotional intimacy and is manifest in the many different ways that spouses and offspring communicate with and understand one another. Because they live in constant contact, sisters and brothers come to know each other’s thoughts, feelings, needs and attitudes at an intuitional and instinctive level.
Because of psychological intimacy, a sudden change in the mood, disposition or feelings of one person in the home may be felt at some level by everyone else.

Intellectual intimacy is usually less spontaneous. Greater effort is needed if it is to be developed. It is the result of genuine and frank exchange of ideas, thoughts, and opinions. It usually flows from discussion of world events, books, movies, sports, television programs, neighborhood, and family matters. Intellectual intimacy can only come about in a family where all the members are given the freedom to candidly express what they actually think and believe about life, religion, sexuality, politics, drugs, and other subjects. Intellectual intimacy does not mean a process by which all the family members come to think alike. It is a process by which all the family members come to appreciate each other’s thoughts. When intellectual intimacy is not permitted, deception, dishonesty, and withdrawal are likely to result.
Moral intimacy comes about when certain fundamental values are shared by the family members. This is a very high level of intimacy and many families do not attain it. Where moral intimacy exists members of the family do not simply share ideas, they commit themselves to the same values, and they consider the same things to be worthwhile. Moral intimacy makes the family members aware of those central life commitments and values for which they would be willing to risk their lives. Moral intimacy is essential if parents hope to convey successfully to their children their convictions concerning loyalty to their country, family life, love, the dignity of every human person and the importance of Catholic faith.

Without moral intimacy it is difficult for parents to explain why they want their children to live by the Ten Commandments and the Eight Beatitudes, to be sexually responsible, to reject sexism, racism, excessive materialism, religious, ethnic or cultural prejudices, and to be responsible citizens. When moral intimacy is authentic in a family, value formation and development is mutual. Not only do children learn from their parents’ values, but parents learn from their children’s as well.

Spiritual intimacy is perhaps the most difficult to achieve. Spiritual intimacy is the integration of all the other forms of intimacy from a spiritual perspective. Thus, in a family where spiritual intimacy is present, spiritual values have been personally appropriated and interiorized. Religious beliefs are not simply a matter of private devotion or public debate. The mystery of God, the call to follow Christ, the life of the Spirit in the Church, and the social implications of the Gospel in daily life become vital realities when spiritual intimacy is attained.

Where spiritual intimacy is present, husbands and wives are able to pray together. They are not uncomfortable exploring the spiritual significance of their sexual love. Nor are they embarrassed to speak openly to their children about the importance of Christ in their lives. Children will not be afraid to ask questions about the life of the Spirit. Disputed and controversial issues in the life of the Church can be examined honestly, while respecting the teachings of the Church.

Where there is spiritual intimacy, prayer is a regular part of family life. Serious effort is made to read and study the Scriptures together. By its very nature, spiritual intimacy will foster a deep sensitivity to people of other religious traditions and to those who follow no religion at all. Unfortunately, because it can be very difficult, a Catholic family may abandon the effort to reach spiritual intimacy. Sadly, some families never even make an initial effort to attain this level of family communion.

Practical, physical, emotional, psychological, intellectual, moral, and spiritual intimacies do not come about automatically in family relationships. Some degree of awareness of the possibility and desirability of intimacy must be present to light the fire of love. Where deep intimacy is present family members experience what Canadian Jesuit Father Bernard J. F. Lonergan called “common meaning”; a shared set of experiences, understandings, judgments, and commitments, which are the foundation of community. When there is a breakdown in common meaning family members should look to the Eucharistic heart of Christ for the example of compassion and patience.
Parents and children in a Catholic family develop a maturity that frees them from the religious indifference of secular society, when the various forms of intimacy and common meaning are present. They more readily see the value of going to Mass and Communion together as a family. They make the effort to get to Mass on time. They sit in the front so they can participate more fully in the great Passover of the Lord. They are not embarrassed to remain after Mass for prayers of thanksgiving for the Eucharist they have received. Once they are home the Eucharist is not forgotten. Family members begin to see the value in turning off the television, the computer, and the ipod, in order to reflect on the Scriptures and homily they heard at Mass. While this may seem idealistic, it is actually quite realistic if we grasp the true relationship between the family and the Eucharist.
This was brought home very clearly to me when Jonathan, a young man I recently confirmed said to me, “Bishop, on Easter Sunday my family had a great day. We went to Mass, we had a terrific meal at my grandmother’s, and we had an Easter egg hunt in the back yard. But, as we were watching a movie at the end of the day, I realized that we had never shared anything about the true meaning of Easter. We were going to go to bed without ever mentioning Jesus even once, without talking about what it means to receive Holy Communion on Easter Sunday. I’m going to be confirmed soon and I would like us to talk about our faith as a family. I’m glad I had the courage to bring it up. We had the best talk about what really matters to us as a family that we have ever had.”

IV. The Eucharist: The Intimate Presence of Christ

In light of the very real challenges and problems facing Christian families in every part of the world, it is only natural for Catholics to turn to the Eucharist as a source of support, help and strength. But there must be theological and pastoral honesty in this regard. In order to speak in a meaningful and credible way about the Eucharist as a source of genuine strength for family life, pietistic assertions reducing the wondrous sacrament of Christ in the Eucharist to a magical charm must be avoided.

It is not helpful to give people false assurances and unfounded hope. It may not be wise simply to say: “If you and your wife are having difficulties, then go to Mass and Communion together every day and Christ will solve your problems.” “If you are worried about your teenage children because they are not active in the Church, because they are sexually irresponsible, because they cause conflict at home, then, receive Communion for their intention every Sunday and you will see them change.” “If you are under a great deal of stress, feeling depressed about your life and work, in bad health, anxious about suffering, old age and death, then turn to the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord will lift your burden.” It may not be wise to say these things in a tone that suggests that these difficulties will certainly be overcome automatically by a renewed Eucharistic piety.

All Catholics gratefully acknowledge the great value of the prayer of petition. We must always give thanks when our prayers are answered in the way that we hoped they would be. However, the true and Catholic way in which the Eucharist can renew and support the family is not the automatic result of a mechanical approach to devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. We must never forget that God is not God the way we would be God if we were God. Catholics who go to Mass and Communion regularly experience acute suffering like everyone else.

It is wrong to imply that Eucharistic devotion will force Our Lord to solve on command the serious problems that families face. The family struggling to come to terms with a father who is an alcoholic, violent or unfaithful, a son who is addicted to drugs and steals to support his habit, a daughter who has had one abortion and is pregnant again, a mother who lives in the shadows and requires constant care because she is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, or a newborn who is severely retarded will not be helped in the long run by a few pious exhortations lacking in spiritual depth. If the manifold gifts of Christ in the Eucharist are to touch the members of our families, a sound and authentically Catholic theology of the intimate presence of Christ in the Eucharist must be the starting point.
This can be done by reminding everyone that each member of a Christian family, whether a grandmother or a newborn, lives in the presence of the absolute mystery of God, who has been graciously revealed as Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier of all. When Catholics celebrate the mysteries by which we are reborn, in word and sacrament, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are re-presented and Christ Himself is present under the appearance of bread and wine, for those who believe. This abiding apostolic faith makes it possible to approach the altar of sacrifice and the table of the Lord’s Supper with confidence.

Only in the depths of this ecclesial faith, this resurrection faith, can families begin to grasp why and how the Eucharist affords them the spiritual strength that they need. The Holy Eucharist is nothing less than the real presence of Christ in the family of faith, the gift of God for the family. It is the inestimable and utterly unmerited participation in divine life. It is, as Thomas Merton has written, the living gift of divine love. This is why we can have complete confidence that, while God does not always remove our suffering, the Eucharistic Christ is always with us through our sufferings. In the same way, the Father was with the Son from the agony in the garden to the crucifixion.

When we receive the Eucharist, we receive the risen body of the resurrected Christ. This presence is made real by His actual and effective openness to each person who comes forward to receive Him. But, just as a husband and wife mutually contribute to their presence to each other, the sacramental presence of Christ in the Eucharist cannot have its full impact if the one receiving the Sacrament is not personally open to entering into communion with Christ.
Jesus Christ does not force anyone to accept the offer of His presence in faith. He can be rejected. But His offer and His presence are real. Yet, this presence of Christ to His Church and to each faithful communicant is not a mere passive biological presence. It is the aggressive, active, personal, spiritual, total and complete sacramental presence of the Risen Lord (“Body and Blood, soul and divinity”) that challenges everyone to be present to Him and to their sisters and brothers.

In the abiding presence of Christ in the Eucharist Christians are made aware of His great desire to be available to us, to be a companion with us, breaking bread with us. He wishes to walk with us on the road to Emmaus and opens our eyes and our hearts so that we may understand all the things that happened in Jerusalem. When Catholics do not know or experience this presence, it may be due to a lack of spiritual openness. As a result, Christian families may be spiritually impoverished.

This personal presence of Christ is an intimate gift given to each person. But it is not a private or exclusive gift. It is a gift that must be shared in every aspect of life; at home and in the neighborhood. Christ is the overflowing manifestation of God’s love and the Eucharist is the overflowing manifestation of Christ’s love. Each of us and each member of a Catholic family are called to be an overflowing manifestation of the Eucharist. Thus, every fully-initiated Catholic is called to show forth Christ’s real presence in the world.

V. Eucharistic Intimacy and the Family

Christ present in the Eucharist calls his disciples to personal and communal conversion. It is only by responding to this call with all of its ramifications that Christian lives become genuinely Christocentric. With St. Paul we will be able to say it is no longer we who live, but it is Christ who lives in us. Christ strengthens the family by acting in all of the members and enabling them to become more fully human and to integrate their family relationships at various levels of intimacy.

When this spiritual intimacy with Christ in the Eucharist is central in their lives, they will find that more and more often they will be able to say not their will, but His be done. This, in turn, will have a very definite impact upon the life of intimacy in their family. Practical, physical, emotional, psychological, intellectual, moral, and spiritual intimacy will be affected by the personal appropriation of a spiritual intimacy with Christ.

This Christian intimacy does not mean that there will be no conflicts, frustrations or anxieties in the family. The life of Jesus Christ was not a life of utter tranquility. The great saints of history who were devoted to the Eucharist still had their share of trials and disappointments. Intimacy with Christ does not take away the cross of suffering in the family. But that cross is easier to carry where spiritual intimacy is present. Family members will be more likely to have the necessary inner resources needed to be patient with small difficulties, as well as those needed to endure and transcend heartbreaking crises, separation and untimely death.

I realize that what I am suggesting is not easy. For some it may take a lifetime to attain spiritual intimacy with Christ in the Eucharist. Certainly no family would presume to boast that it had achieved fully the harmonious integration of the various forms of intimacy that we have examined. Like every other authentically human and authentically spiritual reality, this is an ongoing process, not a once-and-for-all accomplishment.

However, as difficult as some may find it to come to family and Christian intimacy, the effort to achieve it is of great spiritual value. It does require rejecting any temptation to embrace a mechanistic approach to the work of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament that does not do justice to what is known about human nature and to the Church’s perennial insight that God’s grace builds upon and transforms what is given in nature.

If there is a renewed and deepened faith in the living gift of divine love, then the Eucharist may be strength for Catholic families in ways that have never been conceived or imagined. It may lead to the joy of being one with everyone and everything in that hidden ground of love that is beyond our wit and beyond our understanding.

Dear sisters and brothers: You have gathered here by the thousands from around the world in order to deepen your relationship with the Eucharistic Christ. If you have found some of my reflections on the Eucharist and the family a challenge to some areas of your life, know that your example of the love Jesus Christ, your deep commitment to the Catholic Church, and your unswerving devotion to the Eucharist have been a challenge and an inspiration to me as well.

O Sacrament Most Holy! O Sacrament Divine! All praise and all thanksgiving be every moment thine!