The Eucharist in the Early Church
Part V: Communion and Unity
This is the fifth in a seven-part series on the Eucharist in the Early Church.
St. Augustine (4th c.) poetically describes the relationship between receiving Holy Communion and becoming the Church: “therefore receive and eat the body of Christ, yes, you that have become members of Christ in the body of Christ.” That is, receiving the True Body of Christ (the Eucharist), we become the Mystical Body of Christ (the Church). How does this happen? We turn to the Church’s living tradition for clues.
The Didache (1st c.) connects the bread consecrated and the people united: “Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let your Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into your kingdom.” Several allusions are packed into one: the many grains of wheat combined and pressed into one unleavened host, the bread broken and scattered among the crowds at the Feeding of the 5000 (Jn. 6:1-15) that prompted Jesus’ Bread of Life Discourse, the bread broken at the Last Supper with his disciples (Mt. 26 et al.), and the many Christians brought into unity in the Church through the Eucharist (Acts 2:42).
St. Cyprian (3rd c.) explains how the Eucharist unites the Church: “The Lord's sacrifice proclaims the unity of Christians, who are bound together by a firm and unshakeable charity. For when the Lord calls the bread, which has been made from many grains of wheat, His Body, He is describing our people whose unity he has sustained.” It is the charity (love) of Christ on the Cross present in the Eucharist that binds believers together. Cyprian continues, “Just as Christ’s sacred flesh has power to make those in whom it is present into one body, so the one, indivisible Spirit of God, dwelling in all, causes all to become one in spirit.” It is for this reason that we beg God the Father during Mass: “grant that we, who are nourished by the Body and Blood of your Son and filled with his Holy Spirit, may become one body, one spirit in Christ” (Eucharistic Prayer III).
One effect of this unity in the Body of Christ is that we can overcome barriers of nationality, ethnicity, language and culture. Already by the 2nd c., St. Justin wrote, “Yet there is not one single race of men—whether barbarians, Greeks, or whatever; nomads, vagrants, or herdsmen living in tents—among whom prayers and thanksgiving are not offered through the name of the crucified Jesus.” Anyone who has traveled abroad and been to Mass recognizes (albeit cultural distinctions) the essential unity of the Catholic Church!
Christ Jesus, God and man, has united us to Himself and to one another through the Eucharist, which makes us the Body of Christ. We’ll learn next week how the early Church thought it best to prepare to receive Jesus in the Eucharist!