Nobody gave me a book when I moved in; they moved straight to punishing me whenever I broke the unspoken rules. Thrown out of this or that group, we’re sorry, it isn’t your vocation, go away. Shunned by a crazy neighbor for being kind to gay people. The tittering church ladies would stage Facebook conversations they knew I would see about how scandalized they were that there was a poor family on public assistance “in this very neighborhood, while my husband chose to work hard for his money.” I couldn’t receive Holy Communion at my parish church downtown, because the new pastor refused to put out a celiac chalice; it would spoil the aesthetics of his sumptuous “traditional” Mass. He changed the policy after a few months, but I was already going to another church at that point. I ran afoul of “Father Reginald”, who appeared to make a sadistic game of forgetting the celiac chalice and the low-gluten Host too many Masses in a row to be an accident. All when it’s comparatively quite easy, in the Latin Rite, to give someone gluten-free Holy Communion. It’s only in the Byzantine Rite that you have to be creative, to give your communicant a spoonful of clear blood.
I went home thirsty so many times, without Holy Communion. So many more times, I went to Mass cringing, received Holy Communion burning with shame and praying that no one in the church would try to get back at me for my presumption, and fled in tears. So many times, I thought it was really Christ who was rejecting me. The people who proclaimed His name the loudest always hated me, after all.
Father Vasyl doesn’t know any of that, unless he heard it from somebody else. He just knows that it’s his vocation to administer Holy Communion to his flock, and that one of the members of his flock is made ill by wheat, and that Christ under the appearance of wheat may not be in actuality wheat, but still makes me sick as if it were. And so he was deeply sorry for failing to do that, even though it wasn’t his fault.
When priests administer the sacraments, they are always in persona Christi– always standing in for Christ. But after so many years of seeing priests do this badly, it’s more than welcome to see them do it well. I think that’s the best imitation of Christ I’ve ever seen– opening the iconostasis with a mortified look on His holy Face, even though none of what happened to His beloved servant was really His fault. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you’ve been waiting at the door for so long. I’m sorry for what you’ve been through. I’m sorry it seems like I forgot or rejected you. Here, take and drink. It won’t hurt you. It’s clear blood. I promise.”
The sacraments are always for healing, but so much more healing comes when the priest makes an effort to truly resemble Christ. We’re not purely spiritual beings, after all. That’s why we need the sacraments and the angels do not. We need bread, wine, water and oil for our bodies, mysterious graces for our souls, and the actions of fellow human beings for our minds. When the sacraments are celebrated in an atmosphere of spiritual abuse or just careless unkindness, the damage that can do to a person is severe.
And the lay faithful, you and I, are also, in a different sense, in persona Christi. We are icons for one another. We’re the face of Christ that others see. What we do to others, we do to Christ, but we also do wearing the face of Christ. If we took the time to be humble, to be sorry for mix-ups that weren’t really our fault, to act gently just in case the person before us is a bruised reed that another blow could break– then we could heal one another as Christ did. The Church would resemble her Bridegroom so much more.
The sacraments are always valid. But how much more beautiful to receive the sacraments in a place where people treat one another with love and gentleness. The mercy of God is always infinite, but what a consolation when you can see it just a little. One spoonful of a liquid that looks like red wine, containing all sweetness within it– every thrill of beauty, every kind impulse, act of charity, humble apology or friendly greeting, the trembling fiat from every soul’s Gethsemane, the trusting surrender of every holy death. All of these are from God, and God is not divided.
It’s just clear blood, I promise. Receive the Body and Blood of Christ, for the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
(image via Pixabay)
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