Intercommunion Some Personal Reflections and Testimonies

Pierre Beffa

As we enter the year 1992, it may be helpful for us to realize that a great many Christians, often living in very different personal circumstances, practise intercom- munion, in the sense that they - regularly or occasionally - take communion in a church of which they are not a member, knowing that they do not always have the approval of their church. They do it nevertheless, without fuss and taking great care not to give offence to anyone. As it happens, I know many such people, most of them because they live in my region, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, which has a confessional mix of Catholics and Protestants, but some also in France, Germany and other countries. In what follows I take the liberty of describing some of the spiritual high points in the experience of Christians I have known and adding a little of my personal testimony.

Intercommunion - the first time The story I am going to tell could be told by a hundred and fifty other people as

well. It is a joyful memory which we hold in our hearts and which no one can take away from us. It was in 1965, at the end of the Second Vatican Council. We were a group of young Catholics and Protestants, just starting out on our adult lives, and we had been on a pilgrimage in the Holy Land for three weeks. Our journey together involved prayer, Bible reading and a community life which grew steadily deeper as the days went by. One morning, at Mount Nebo, we had gathered for mass with the pastor reading the lessons and, like Moses, we looked down on the promised land! Two days later, we were in Damascus, attending the liturgy in the Catholic church of the Eastern rite. Just before the communion, the Protestant pastor went forward, entered the iconostasis and asked the priest who was celebrating the liturgy if he would receive the Protestants for communion. The priest agreed and the whole group of us who formed such a wonderful community were able to receive communion together. For many of us it was an experience of intense spiritual joy which has remained unforgettable. That was in July 1965. Anyone who remembers the distance separating the churches at that time will realize that we participated in something of a miracle. Of course, the miracle was not unique. Even before that time, other people belonging to different confes-

0 The author is director of the library of the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva. This paper has been translated from the French by the WCC Language Service.

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sions, who felt called to work for the unity of the church, had experienced similar moments. I remember in particular the testimony of a Swedish Lutheran who had been able to take communion together with his wife for the first time. But, as everyone will agree, such occasions were rare.

Several years on At the end of the sixties, the question of intercommunion was being raised with

increasing urgency. Ecumenical theologians had been working on it since the end of the war. The subject had been dealt with in a preparatory volume for the Faith and Order conference in Lund in 1952,’ at which a statement had been adopted. That statment was in turn expanded in Montreal in 1963.? All around the world the churches were drawing closer together; ecumenical groups were springing up in the parishes. We were getting to know one another better. The people of God were taking a lively interest in ecumenism and the theologians were doing their best to answer the urgent questions being raised on all sides, including the question of intercommunion. The findings of numerous studies were published in the form of books and articles in specialized journals. In 1971, the Ecumenical Institute of the University of Fribourg, headed by Prof. Stirnimann, published a bibliography listing 1102 titles. In my view it would have been wise at that time to have accepted that the theological work had been done, and very well done at that. Thereafter, equal energy should have been channelled into exploring the practical consequences of that work for the actual life of the churches. Already in 1969, a book had appeared with the title Intercommunion written by Boris Bobrinskoy, Jean-Jacques Heitz and Paul Lebeau with a preface by Father Lefebvre, of the Benedictine order, which stated in conclusion: “The eucharist, which sets the seal on the full accomplishment of our unity, will also be the means of achieving it - that means to which, as Cardinal Bea has reminded us, we may resort with ~onfidence.”~ This was in fact the spiritual intuition of many Christians during those years. They felt we should forge ahead, yet in the majority of cases it was absolutely impossible.

In 197 1, I heard this story: a family attended mass regularly every Sunday - the father, the mother and the children. The family was well-known in the parish, the mother was Protestant and for her and the priest it was clear that she could not come forward to receive communion, despite her wish to do so. But each time her little girl went to take communion, she received the host in her hand and kept it there, then went back to her seat and shared it with her mother. This child’s testimony must be heeded in all its poignancy. This little girl is saying to us: I am shocked that anyone should shut my mummy out from the meeting with the Lord Jesus Christ, it makes me cry; I’ll have to find an answer; otherwise I can’t believe any of the things they tell me to believe.

I wanted to let this child’s voice be heard first, to let her express her suffering and describe what she was forced to do. But, of course, the same urgent inner need is felt by adults, too. One evening, in a village, a priest was celebrating the mass on the Thursday of Holy Week, which marks the institution of the eucharist. At the back of the church there were people who were not Roman Catholics. When the moment came, all the worshippers went forward to receive communion, except these people. Then, in front of the whole congregation, the priest left the altar and walked down the church to offer communion to these brothers and sisters of a different confession. For

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the priest it had not been possible truthfully to celebrate the institution of the sacrament and exclude anyone from the table.

Without adding any more testimonies of this kind, I should like to draw the provisional conclusion that the demands of Christian people to be able to receive communion together will not disappear. Their basis is spiritual, because they originate in the very great suffering caused by our dividedness and they spring from the demand for consistency in the common faith. These demands express an important element of human personality, namely, sensitivity, emotions, feelings. Certain theologians, bishops and church leaders immediately seize on this as a pretext for dismissing them out of hand, either because they do not themselves experience such strong feelings or because they in any case distrust emotion and want to rely only on clearly reasoned arguments. But, let me repeat again, these feelings are strong and cannot be dismissed. We have to accept them, and understand them and see whether common reflection on the things of the faith may not be able to alter the given facts of the problem.

Several years of work in groups of confessionally mixed households The demand to be able to receive communion together comes most often and most

insistently from confessionally mixed couples. Already while they were going out together these couples will have asked themselves serious questions about their faith, they will have examined whether they had enough in common in the faith to form a firm foundation for their plans, they will have tried their best to understand the meaning of the words belonging to each of their traditions. From 1970 on, in many countries, but especially in Europe, groups of confessionally-mixed households were formed. Among their other activities, these groups reflected at length and in depth on the mystery of the eucharist. Some of them turned first to the work of Max Thurian5 and Louis Bouyer,6 before going on to study the text of the Dombes Group “Towards One Eucharistic Faith? Agreement between Catholic and Protestant”. Once they reached a certain stage in their reflection, they were able to say truthfully: “At this stage in our research we give thanks to God that the fundamental difficulties concerning the eucharistic faith have been removed.”’ Max Thurian expressed the same idea in the introduction to the book quoted above:

The degree of agreement in the faith, and in particular the eucharistic faith, is higher than it has ever been and to many seems sufficient for a common eucharist; the idea of the eucharist as the dynamic force of growing unity has gained in importance, thus balancing the idea of the eucharist as the sign of unity attained.

Thanks to some new and tentative experiments, we were now to be able to experience in practice what we had already understood intellectually. Having dis- covered our common faith we had to set visible signs. There was the idea of parallel celebrations of the eucharist, at first on different tables then on the same table. In Geneva, these monthly celebrations of the eucharist were attended by about a hundred mixed couples, some of whom, especially the older ones, had suffered so much rejection and humiliation that, on being able to receive communion side by side for the first time after so many years, they felt this grace as the anticipation of the unending joy to come. It also seemed essential to affirm that the acts we performed were taking place inside and not outside the church. In France, Germany and Switzerland a painstaking, difficult and demanding dialogue was started with the church authorities,

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synods, bishops of the local churches. As a result, a number of important documents were produced. They were and still are helpful. I shall quote as a reminder in particular the “Directives on Eucharistic Hospitality for Mixed Households in the Diocese of Strasbourg”. In a commentary on the text, Monsignor Elchinger, who is fully aware of the difficulties under canon law, has the following to say: “It is all very well to discuss these things round an office desk, but we have to see the deep reality of the faith of the people.”8 Other documents of the same sort can readily be found in no. 71 of the review Foyers mixtes (Mixed households), entitled “Documents des Eglises” (Church documents). In Switzerland, mixed households cooperated closely in the preparation of the document of the different church assemblies called Synods 72, entitled “Vers 1’unitC de la communion eucharistique” (Towards unity in the eucharistic fellowship). No other document in the world has gone so far as this one, and it is worth quoting the essential paragraphs:

Consequences for the reception of non-Catholic Christians.. . such Christians should be admitted to the celebration of the eucharist if their request corresponds to a real spiritual need ... Consequences for Roman Catholics ... if, in an exceptional situation and having examined all his motives, a Roman Catholic reaches the conviction that his conscience authorizes him to receive the Lord’s supper, this action should not be interpreted as necessarily implying a break with his own church.. . 10

As everyone will readily agree, this text is full of “ifs” and “buts”, yet many Christians have drawn comfort from it when it came to deciding in the light of their conscience. From 1975 onwards, mixed couples agreed to receive communion in both their communities, publicly but without ostentation or fuss. To be wholly truthful, it should be mentioned that a Swiss text published recently has somewhat restricted the text quoted above. Restrictive texts of this sort may always be published, but this does nothing to alter the problem. Mixed households have realized that if they were to be able to realize their deep desire to communicate together, they had to express their faith together and together claim their membership of their churches, which is very important indeed to them.

The people of God thirst for unity No one has ever thought that the desire to anticipate the restoration of church unity

was the prerogative of mixed couples. Quite the contrary. During the seventies a plethora of ecumenical inter-parish groups were formed, working untiringly to bring their communities closer together. Sooner or later the members of these groups, too, felt the urgent need to communicate together. Some groups celebrated the eucharist in their homes, others did so at the end of an ecumenical pilgrimage, whole parishes entered into reciprocal commitments. In Switzerland there are parishes which invite one another several times a year to take part in the Sunday service or the mass and when the moment of communion comes, no one plays policeman! Admittedly, we have to say in all humility that this calls for a degree of maturity on the part of the communities which is both unusual and fragile, and if it is to continue it requires constant spiritual strengthening. If by chance the demand becomes less intense, ecclesiastical caution will dictate a return to more traditional practices. The result will be a great loss - but it will not be seen as such by the authorities who are, on the contrary, more likely to see it as putting the house in order.

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Intercommunion at ecumenical gatherings At ecumenical gatherings, large or small, the participants share the desire to be

faithful to their ecumenical calling. They also have a more or less lengthy experience of interconfessional dialogue and the competence conferred by their education and training. Throughout the ecumenical meeting the rhythm of the working day will be set by common prayer, and the celebration of the eucharist will come as the culmination and ratification of the work done. Usually this does not pose any serious problems.

Recently, however, new problems have arisen, not least at the Canberra assembly, where as usual two celebrations of the eucharist had been organized, one “open” according to the Lima liturgy and the second celebrated by Father Tsetsis of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. Many delegates were offended to see that the Orthodox did not partake of communion during the Lima liturgy and that they themselves were excluded from communion during the Orthodox liturgy. The Orthodox shared their pain. But intercommunion, or at least eucharistic hospitality, was impossible at Canberra despite the pain caused. Spiritual distress alone does not justify forcing the issue; that is not the way to start the struggle that has to be waged. The possibility of a common eucharist can only be realized in the sharing of a common faith. And that was very far from being the case at Canberra. Some of the Orthodox delegates had no more than a vague notion of the content of the faith of certain Protestant churches, and many of the Protestants knew nothing about Orthodoxy - not even that the Orthodox refuse categorically to use the eucharist as a path leading to unity. For the Orthodox it is incomprehensible that Christians belonging to separate churches can easily take communion together without this leading to immediate and practical steps to put an end to the schism. It should be recalled that forty years ago the same was true for Protestant Christians!

Have we perhaps moved too quickly? The position of the Orthodox churches has the merit of being clear and firmly founded on tradition. But this position is unfortunately no more tenable than those of the other Christian churches. The bishops and metropolitans may deny it, but Orthodox Christians, certainly those living in the West and in contact with Protestants and Catholics, are asking the same questions as their brothers and sisters of the other confessions. They feel the same suffering and work with the same single-mindedness to find solutions. Some will say this is not true, that it does not exist, but I can testify to having seen Orthodox Christians who were fully informed of their faith and aware of the significance of their acts, sharing in the Protestant Lord’s supper and the Roman Catholic mass! For all of us, Orthodox, Protestants and Catholics alike, the time has surely come to take up the rich harvest of the theological work of the seventies, and to find a practice acceptable for today.

Possible dangers to the current practice of eucharistic hospitality The full force of the demand for eucharistic hospitality has never been understood

by the church authorities, yesterday or today. Yet the churches are sick, torn apart by their divisions, while, here and there, efforts are being made to repair the tissue and care for the body. With the years situations change and new challenges emerge as in England, for example, with the ordination of women to the priesthood in the Anglican church. Some have said this would make an agreement on the eucharist with the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox more unlikely. That may be, but yet other difficulties are bound to arise, perhaps concerning sexist language, especially in

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relation to the names of the three persons of the Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We shall have to make sure we hold fast to the common faith, or new divisions will arise. Let us be watchful and do what we can to respond to what God calls us to do: live in dependence on God’s grace and in communion.

NOTES

’ Intercommunion: The Report of the Theological Commission, ed. Donald Baillie, London, SCM Press, 1952.

* The Fourth World Conference on Faith and Order, Montreal 1963, eds P.C. Roger & L. Vischer, New York, Association Press, 1964. Interkommunion - Hofiungen zu bedenken, Hrsg. von H. Stirnimann, Freiburg, Schweiz, Universitats- verlag, 1971. P. Lebeau, B. Bobrinskoy & J.J. Heitz, Intercommunion, des chrktiens s’interrogent, Tours, Mame, 1969. Max Thurian, Une seule eucharistie, le pain unique, TaizC, Les Presses de TaizC, 1973. Louis Bouyer, Eucharistie, Tournai, DesclCe, 1966. Groupe des Dombes: Vers une mtme foi eucharistique?, TaizC, Les Presses de TaizC, 1971, para. 36.

‘ U o n Arthur Elchinger, La liberr6 d‘un 6vtque. Aver MichPle Uonard, Paris, Centurion, 1976, p. 193. Foyers mixtes, Bulletin trimestriel, 2 place Gailleton, Lyon, France.

lo Foyers mixtes, no. 71, pp.89-90.

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