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| St. Justin Martyr |
(Corpus Christi 2015: This homily was given on June 7, 2015
at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read Exodus 24: 3-8; Hebrews 11: 9-15; Mark
14: 12-16, 22-26.)
[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Corpus Christi 2015]
Baptism—Belief—Behavior
Those are what I
would call, “Justin’s Three Bs”.
“And who is Justin,
Fr. Ray?”
I’m so glad you
asked! The Justin I’m speaking about
here is none other than Saint Justin,
who was a great philosopher and defender of the Christian faith—in addition to
being one of the early martyrs of the Church.
In fact, he was born right around the year 100—which means he was almost
a contemporary of the Twelve Apostles!
He definitely goes
back a long way.
In his writings
Justin gives us a pretty clear picture of the life and teachings of
Christianity in its infancy. In this regard, he’s both an
authoritative—and a reliable—resource. Some
of his writings, not surprisingly, relate to the Mass and the Holy Eucharist—including
this sentence, which is the one I want to focus on today:
“No one may share the Eucharist with us
unless he believes that what we teach is true, unless he is washed in the
regenerating waters of baptism for the remission of his sins, and unless he
lives in accordance with the principles given us by Christ.”
There, in that one very simple sentence, we encounter all
three of Justin’s Bs:
·
Baptism: “No one may
share the Eucharist with us unless he is washed in the regenerating waters of
baptism for the remission of his sins.”
·
Belief: “No one may
share the Eucharist with us unless he believes that what we teach is true.”
·
Behavior: “No one may
share the Eucharist with us unless he lives in accordance with the principles
given us by Christ.”
How often have you been to a funeral or a wedding in a
non-Catholic church during which the minister invited EVERYONE to come to Communion? How often have you been to a Liturgy in a Catholic church during which the priest
did the very same thing—just to be “nice” and “inclusive”?
It happens a lot—unfortunately.
And because of that, priests like yours truly—who try to
give people clear guidelines for receiving the Eucharist based on the authentic
teaching of the Church—are sometimes called “uncharitable” and “insensitive”
and a lot of other negative things.
And I have the emails to prove it!
Well, I don’t think it requires a lot of scholarly research
to figure out where St. Justin and the early Church stood on the matter. All you need to do is read that one line I
just quoted to you and think of Justin’s “three Bs”—and you’ll have your
answer.
The first requirement for receiving the Eucharist worthily and
fruitfully according to Justin is Baptism—a valid Baptism in the name of the
Blessed Trinity. In fact, that’s a
requirement for receiving any one of the other six sacraments. If, for example, your unbaptized neighbor is
on his deathbed, and he tells you that he wants to receive the “Last Rites” of
the Church (i.e., the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick), your priest will
not anoint him—until after he
baptizes him! As it says in paragraph
1213 of the Catechism of the Catholic
Church, “Holy Baptism is the basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway
to the life in the Spirit (vitae
spiritualis ianua), and the door which gives access to the other
sacraments.”
Baptism: Justin’s first B.
His second B—his second requirement for receiving the
Eucharist worthily and fruitfully—is Belief: “No one may share the Eucharist with us unless he believes that what we
teach is true.” Notice that Justin
does not say, “No one may share the
Eucharist with us unless he believes that what we teach ABOUT THE EUCHARIST is
true.” If that’s what he had said, I
know some Episcopalians and some other Protestants who would fulfill the
requirement. They will tell you, in
effect, that they believe in the Catholic teaching on transubstantiation, which
basically says that after the consecration at Mass the substance (in other
words, the inner reality) of the bread and wine changes into the substance of
the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ—while the accidents (in other words, the
physical properties) of the bread and wine remain the same.
That much they believe.
They believe in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed
Sacrament. The problem is that they
don’t believe in a lot of other things that the Catholic Church teaches. (If they did, they’d be Catholic!) But the Eucharist is the sign of our unity in faith—which is the point
St. Justin is making with his second B.
St. Paul says the same thing, essentially, in 1 Corinthians 10: 17 when
he says, “Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for
we all partake of the one loaf.”
So Catholics should not be receiving at funerals and
weddings at Christ Episcopal Church (or at any other Protestant church for that
matter)—even if they’re invited to do so by the minister—because we Catholics are not sufficiently united with these other
Christians in what we believe. (And also
because, from our perspective, their Eucharists aren’t valid—which is another
story that I won’t get into today.)
I remember being at a big Charismatic conference at the
Providence Civic Center in the late 1970s, and hearing a very dynamic
Protestant minister give an excellent talk—a talk in which he spoke about
another conference he had attended previously that was ecumenical in its
makeup. In other words, there was a
group of Catholics in attendance as well as groups from many different
Protestant denominations. And he said
they spent most of each day of the conference together: they prayed together,
they sang together, they shared their faith with one another in discussion
groups, they listened to the same talks—but when the time came to celebrate the
Eucharist (or something akin to the Eucharist), each group gathered separately. The Catholics went to one room for Mass; the
Episcopalians gathered in another room for their liturgy, etc.
And that’s exactly what they should have done! Rather than pretending that they were all
fully united in faith (when, in fact, they weren’t), these people came together
and affirmed and celebrated their common beliefs about Jesus, but they also
acknowledged the fact they were not united enough in their beliefs to share the
Eucharist together.
That’s real ecumenism!
Which brings us, finally, to Justin’s third B—his third
requirement for receiving the Eucharist worthily and fruitfully—Behavior: “No one may share the Eucharist with us
unless he lives in accordance with the principles given us by Christ.” This is why St. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11: 28, “A man should examine himself first;
only then should he eat of the bread and drink of the cup.” An honest examination of conscience should
always take place before we approach the altar to receive Jesus Christ in the
Blessed Sacrament. And if, in the
process of doing that examination, we realize that we’ve missed Mass without a
good reason—or committed some other serious sin—we should not go to Communion again until we’ve repented and made a good sacramental
confession.
Hopefully you can
see that this is not just “Fr. Ray’s idea” or “Fr. Ray’s personal opinion”. St. Paul said it in the first century (which
is when he wrote 1 Corinthians), and St. Justin Martyr said it in the second
century when he wrote about his three Bs.
This has been the
consistent and unchanging teaching of the Church for 2,000 years—and it’s given
to us for OUR BENEFIT!
We need to remember
that. You see, the Church wants us to be
open to all the graces that come to us through the Blessed Sacrament! But that openness will only be present if we
receive the Eucharist while we’re in the
state of grace—in other words, worthily. Otherwise, it becomes a sacrilege.
So the bottom line
is this (and I’ll leave you with this thought): We need to take Justin’s three
Bs very seriously in our lives, if we want to experience “the Big B”
someday. Getting baptized, believing the
Gospel as taught by the Church, and keeping tabs on our behavior, lead to a
worthy and fruitful reception of the Eucharist in this life; but, even more
importantly, they ultimately lead us to what I would call “the Big B”—the Beatific Vision—which, of course, is
just another way of saying “heaven”!