Breaking the Bonds of Charity

Ever wonder what goes on in the head of someone who leaves Mass early, say just after Holy Communion? Well, we must not be too judgmental, because as the saying goes, everyone's dealing with something. Perhaps they're doing the best they can.

Yet, we can't help but notice when folks come down the line for the Eucharist with their coat & cap on, keys already in hand. We know they're going to head straight up the aisle & slip out the door. They will miss the most precious & fragile time of prayer - physical communion with the Lord, they will miss the post-Communion prayer, they will likely miss announcements about the various activities of parish life - the life in Christ that we are meant to live in service of God & others, & they will miss the final blessing. In the more fortunate parishes, they may also miss an appropriate & well-sung closing hymn.

In my parish, the Saturday vigil Mass is where these people are prominent. Many times I have been present at a sign-up table or ready to distribute Little Blue Books or something else & watched these folks leave in droves after Communion, sometimes what seems to be the entire back third of the congregation! And, man, is it difficult to catch their attention! Eye-contact is avoided at all cost. On some occasions, I felt compelled to literally chase someone down in the parking lot to hand them their prayer book.

But we know that an action of one member of the Body of Christ is never a matter private to them alone - it affects the entire Body. So, I think deeper down we feel a little betrayed & hurt by those who seem to want "a minimal experience of the Faith" as one pastor of souls said about "down-n-outers." What is betrayed is our understanding of ourselves as the Body of Christ, indivisible under Jesus himself. It is a tacit denial or at least a diminishing of the reality that is the Church & of the bonds of spiritual communion that exist among the members of said Church. In fact, one of the primary fruits of the sacrament of the Eucharist is an increase in those bonds of charity.

With all this in mind, I was taken back a bit by this passage of the Didascalia, a 3rd century liturgical manual presented in Mike Aquillina's book, The Mass of the Early Christians:

"When you teach the people, O bishop, command and exhort them to come faithfully to church , and never forsake it for any reason, but gather together continuously. Let no one diminish the Church by withdrawing themselves. If they do, they deprive the body of Christ of one of its members."