The Catholic Weekly 5 July 2020

8 5, July, 2020 F rom the archbishop catholicweekly.com.au We follow in His Way Communion, service, sacrifice and salvation are all inextricably interlinked in Christ The Last Supper, 1578. IMAGE:WIKIMEDIA COMMONS, PUBLIC DOMAIN F or some weeks now and perhaps many more to come, the COVID19 pandemic has meant no public Mass- es.* Not gathering physically is hard for most people, since human beings are made for relationship, proximity, inti- macy. It’s especially hard for Catholics as our religion is so incarnational and touchy- feely. Our worship and sacra- ments engage all the senses. We gather in sacred spaces with particular architecture, art and furnishings. We bow and sing and exchange the Sign of Peace. And we com- mune with brothers and sis- ters kneeling all around us and with a God so tangible you could eat Him! Being forced to sepa- rate is all the more difficult in Holy Week. If there’s any time we should be together, it’s amidst the jubilant Palm Sunday crowd waving palms and singing Hosanna; along- side the terrified disciples go- ing out into the night after the Last Supper; at the foot of the Cross on Good Friday with the dying Jesus and His griev- ing followers; with Christ, His angels and saints, celebrat- ing Easter triumph. This year, however, it’s not to be, at least not in the ordinary way.  Happily, thousands can still gather by live-streaming, making spiritual communion where they cannot make a sacramental one, and joining present sufferings to the Sac- rifice offered by the Lord Jesus on the night He was betrayed. If ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’, it may be that, rather than becoming accus- tomed to doing Church from home, our hunger to gath- er for and receive the Holy Eucharist will only intensify. Then, when things get back to ‘normal’, we may value our Sunday gathering more than ever. In the meantime, our enforced retreat is a chance to meditate upon what Holy Communion means to us. COMMUNION What do we think of when we hear the word ‘communion’? In ordinary usage it connotes fellowship, rapport, sharing. We also talk about the spiritu- al union between the faithful in a particular locality, be- tween the churches, and of the Church around the world with the Pope. In the Creed we profess faith in ‘the com- munion of saints’ between the faithful living today and those who’ve gone before us and are now in heaven. Above all, it’s communion with Christ we seek, through conversation in prayer, hear- ing the Word of God, receiv- ing the sacraments, and serv- ing Him in the poor. In ‘Holy Communion’ we gather up, celebrate and strengthen all these realities in the Mass, and are given Christ’s Body and Blood under the appear- ances of bread and wine. SERVICE It’s hard to maintain com- munion while being driven apart by a deadly disease and distancing regulations. But the Last Supper was not only Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP