JOINING HANDS: THE MATTER IN COMMUNION

Photo by bhuvanesh gupta on Unsplash

To say that I miss receiving the Eucharist during this pandemic would be a massive understatement. My parish provides a virtual Holy Communion service on YouTube every Sunday now, since in-person worship was suspended. I say the prayer for Spiritual Communion every week during our YouTube liturgy, as our priest partakes of the consecrated elements on behalf of us all. Although I feel the spiderweb-like connection between my longing heart and all the others of my parish who watch from their own homes, connected in this invisible web of desire to be joined to God, there is something missing. Matter. The “stuff” of communion. As C.S. Lewis said, “(God) likes matter. He invented it.” 

As I meditate on moments of embodied worship that I currently am missing, I think one of the most profound things that I miss is the brief span of time before we receive Communion. It is the time that begins with the congregation saying together The Lord’s Prayer. At my home parish, we join hands as we say it. Another bit of “matter” that illustrates a divine truth: we are linked together physically as Christ’s body in this moment, even as we yearn to receive Him in “our daily bread”. Holding hands as we say the prayer Jesus taught us can be seen as a kind of sacrament.  

“For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.” 

Gentle squeeze as we unclasp our hands. 

The priest holds up the host and chalice.  

She says, “The gifts of God for the people of God. Holy gifts, for a holy people.”  

We are named as holy before God, assured of our forgiveness and of God’s desire to meet with us so very soon. 

“I earnestly desire to receive you into my soul.” 

When I say this part of the prayer for spiritual communion, I try with all my heart to put myself into this moment of embodied worship. It is not just about wanting Jesus to enter into my own soul, however. The more I think about these moments leading up to reception of Holy Communion, the more I think of Paul’s description of all believers as members of one Body. “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:12, NRSV). Or, to recall the quote I mentioned earlier, the description of the Christ-life within us that C.S. Lewis writes about: 

And let me make it quite clear that when Christians say the Christ-life is in them, they do not mean simply something mental or moral. When they speak of being ‘in Christ’ or of Christ being ‘in them’, this is not simply a way of saying that they are thinking about Christ or copying Him. They mean that Christ is actually operating through them; that the whole mass of Christians are the physical organism through which Christ acts — that we are His fingers and muscles, the cells of His body. And perhaps that explains one or two things. It explains why this new life is spread not only by purely mental acts like belief, but by bodily acts like baptism and Holy Communion. It is not merely the spreading of an idea; it is more like evolution — a biological or superbiological fact. There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God. God never meant man to be a purely’ spiritual creature. That is why He uses material things like bread and wine to put the new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it. 

– C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity 

Just as important as the physical, individual reception of the Eucharist is our collective realization that we are linked as one Body in Christ. For me, the holding of hands during the Lord’s Prayer is a powerful reminder, although it is not a practice that everyone likes or partakes in. Let me be clear: I am not typically your hugging, hand-holding type. I’m an introvert who, more often than not, likes her bubble of space around her. Maybe it’s because that bubble makes me feel safe most of the time. Allowing another person to hold my hand, to give it a gentle squeeze during a moment of collective prayer, is a vulnerable thing to do. I am letting someone puncture that bubble. I think that makes it a little easier for God to get in. 

Five years ago, I joined the Episcopal church, and I have only just begun to realize the incredible power of allowing the Christ-life to truly move me as a member of Christ’s body. I find myself taken out of myself time and time again, out of the zones of comfort I have constructed for myself and the limitations I have accepted as part of my life. The Christ-life is one of infinite possibility. And one small representation of that is when I let my guard down and allow the person nearest in proximity to me to hold my hand, to squeeze it with gentle assurance that even if I barely know the one I’m linked to, in that moment I am beloved. There is no room for impostor syndrome. The room is crowded with angels and saints. And we are reminded that we are holy people, about to receive holy gifts. All I can feel in that moment is longing to receive that gift, to be close to the source of all life. 

In the middle of a pandemic when abstaining from physical contact is a loving discipline, this moment of longing seems to stretch out eternally. The closest I can get to that feeling during COVID-19 is when we begin to say the prayer for spiritual communion, which starts out with “O Lamb of God, in union with the faithful at every altar of your church…” I begin to imagine reaching out and holding the hand of the person next to me. I may not physically be next to anyone, but I can imagine the parishioners I am connected to through the invisible filaments of data streaming through the air. I can picture the communion of saints for the past millennia who join with us every time we celebrate The Lord’s Supper together. I realize that in the absence of physical touch to break open the shell I have constructed around myself, I must allow it to happen spiritually. It must be through the touch of an angel, a saint, or Godself. “I love you above all things, and I earnestly desire to receive you into my soul.”  

Christianity is a faith that is full of paradoxes. Only through the cross can we come to eternal life. Only be allowing ourselves to be broken can we be made whole. Only by connection with others can we fully experience the joy of being beloved by God as an individual soul. I found that out as I allowed the Christ-life to enter into me and change me into a new organism. I don’t think following Christ can ever be solely about “my personal relationship with Jesus”, but the amazing thing is that the more I have connected with others, allowed myself to be broken open, and been vulnerable, the more I have experienced a deepening of the relationship my own soul has with its redeemer.