The Unifying Qualities of the Eucharist

It seems so often nowadays that we as Catholics not only take the Eucharist for granted, but also music and how it unifies us. For us, it’s just something that we do during Mass. We sing hymns and responsorials nonchalantly and as for the Eucharist it’s pretty much a call-and-response: the priest says something about the Eucharist and how Jesus gave his body and blood to us and how great the Eucharist is, and we usually just respond with “Amen” or something else and then we go up and eat some wafers and drink some red wine. We sing and pray like a bunch of robots if you ask me. To be frank, I don’t think we really know or even care about what music and Eucharist do for us and how it unites us. The Eucharist is the most important part of the Catholic Mass and the whole point of the Mass in the first place. When we proclaim Jesus’ death and resurrection in the Eucharist, we are all proclaiming the notion that Jesus is giving us His new life to us in the Body and Blood; we are all becoming united in the fact that we are his Body and Blood regardless of our differences and backgrounds. Now how does music come into play, you might ask. Well, when we say the Eucharistic Prayer we are all speaking in different tones. In a sense, we are all speaking differently in that while we might think we’re united but we aren’t. But when people sing the Eucharistic Prayer, then we are all singing in one tone and thus we are really united as one through music and through the Eucharist. Music makes the Sacrament of the Eucharist, as it presents the liturgy not only in a more noble way but it also brings the congregation from multiple voices to one, united voice.

What is the Eucharist and how does it unite us?

So some of you may be wondering how exactly the Eucharist itself unite us and some of you might even be saying what the Eucharist even is? Well to begin with, the Mass is the most important service in the Catholic Church, and the Eucharist is at the helm of it. The Eucharist is the symbolic reenactment of the Last Supper in which the priest consecrates bread and wine as the Body and Blood of Jesus and offers it to worshipers in communion. Essentially, the Eucharist IS the Mass and there wouldn’t be a Mass without a Eucharist. The Eucharist is also meant to be a public thing and never private affair. We all don’t choose to meet one another but rather we come to find ourselves with one another and brought by faith to share the Body and Blood of Christ. Why celebrate the Eucharist all by yourself? We all come together to celebrate the Eucharist because we are called to receive, share, and be the Body and Blood of Christ. So sharing the Eucharist by yourself goes against the Catholic foundation of community but it also kills the reason for communion: sharing the bread and wine

Much like how the Christian tradition came from Jewish tradition such as chanting Scripture and singing psalms , the Eucharist came from an ancient Israelite tradition called todah. Todah simply means to give thanks and it was a major sacrificial festival in biblical times; this eventually led to the Passover which was a deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt. When Jesus did the Last Supper, he was performing both todah and the Passover. He is looking forward to his death and resurrection and the new life that comes with the resurrection. This thanksgiving and the giving of his body and blood for eternal life has become what we now call the Eucharist It also happens to be the most important sacrament as well. There are the seven sacraments like Matrimony and Holy Orders, but above all of them is the Eucharist. It is the summit of all Christian life and while the other six sacraments are important, they are all bound up to the Eucharist and gravitate towards it. Many Christian scholars have written about the Eucharist and its importance to the Christian liturgy and the life of a Christian.

Now you’re thinking to yourself, “How does the Eucharist itself unite us? Where’s that?” Well as I said before, many Christian scholars have written about the Eucharist and its importance to Christianity, but they also wrote about how the Eucharist unites Christians. The two important people that wrote about the Eucharist uniting were Saints Ignatius and Augustine, two influential Christian scholars. In Ignatius’ case, he wished for Christians to observe a single Eucharist where there is “one flesh…and one cup of blood that makes us one, and one altar, just as there is one bishop”. In Augustine’s case, he explains that there is a connection and says that we are the body and blood of Christ and says that “bread is not made from one grain…be what you see, and receive what you are…many grapes hang on the cluster but the juice of the grapes is gathered together in unity.” What Ignatius is saying that there are not multiple breads and wines but one bread and one wine as if one presider is giving the one bread and wine from one altar to unite us all. What Augustine is saying that despite our differences and where we come from, we all become united in the Eucharist; we are the multiple grapes that hang on the vine and the multiple grains in the field but when the juices are squeezed out to make wine and the grains are broken down to make bread, we all become one. This is historically important since the early Christians were persecuted by the Roman emperors until 313 AD. When hiding out in fear of persecution and forcing to have Mass underground, the early Christians had no choice but to stay together, regardless of their differences.

How Liturgical Music Unites Us in Worship

Now let’s talk about music. While I’ve always had a love for music for as long as I can remember, I only started taking liturgical music seriously when I became involved in campus ministry at the start of college. And from that I began to realize how big of an impact music has on Mass. Many people have written on how important music is to the Church, and some have written entire books regarding the history of liturgical music. But it seems to make sense, though. Music in liturgy is made to express faith, help lead the faithful to holiness, and help form and reform the image of God. Prayer is meant to expressive and formative, but so is music. Just think of all the multiple hymns and responsorials we sing every time in Mass. They’re not just something you sing out of a little book, but rather songs expressing various facets of Christianity from Christmas to trust and much more.

So how does music exactly unite us in worship? Music unites us in the fact that, like what St. Augustine said about us being grapes and grain into one wine and bread, it makes us one. When people sing in religious rites, it breaks down barriers that separate us like race, age, culture, etc. Now the person itself is not abandoned but rather enlarged as focus on self is replaced by awareness on self as communal. Music reveals the togetherness in the being of things: self and object stand together, self and other face the same direction. The Vatican also had a lot to say about sacred music in their document Musicam Sacram, with a lot of it talking about the use of music in the liturgy and most importantly about the unity of music in the liturgy. When voices are in unison, the hearts are united and the minds are raised to heaven with the whole celebration prefigured by a heavenly liturgy; there is nothing more religious in a sacred celebration than everyone joining in song. What Musicam Sacram said about unity, if you get people in a Mass to just talk during the service, then you hear multiple tones from the various people talking. We may be united then in the prayers or responsorial that we’re saying, but we’re not exactly united as one because we’re all saying that prayer differently. But when you get the congregation to sing, then there’s one, unified tone; now we are truly united as a congregation thanks to the power of liturgical music.

How the Eucharistic Prayer and Music Unites Us

Now we talk about how the Eucharist and music unite us in worship, specifically the Eucharistic Prayer. Most of what I talked about the Eucharist and music itself all come together here, but just with a few more things about the Eucharist and music together. To begin with, the Eucharistic Prayer itself is the heart of the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Here, the priest with the bread and wine gathers the substances of all our lives and joins them to Christ’s sacrifice and offers it all up to God . Father Thomas Richstatter of American Catholic has called it the “greatest and best prayer” for a number of reason. First off, it is our prayer and the prayer of the entire assembly. The prayer itself uses first-person plural which are words like “we” and “our”. The prayer may be said by the priest but he offers it up in our own name, the congregation. The prayer becomes our own. Second, we just proclaim how great and awesome God is. We praise him for his deeds and his saving works. It is also in here that we ask God to send down the Holy Spirit onto the bread and wine presented and become the Body and Blood. But we don’t ask Holy Spirit to change the bread and wine, we ask it to change the entire congregation . It is also the center and summit of the entire Mass celebration. Joining with the congregation the priest will say the prayer for the entire assembly to God through Jesus in the Holy Spirit. The rest of the congregation will join in and proclaim Jesus’ deeds as well as listening in silence to give their voice in interior participation . Through this prayer, we all join to together in Christ’s Body and Blood and join in His sacrifice for others. So since the Eucharistic Prayer is meant to join everybody with Jesus, it makes sense to have music in there. Music is pivotal when it comes to the Eucharist. During Communion, music is meant to be integral to the action rather than just some sort of accompaniment; the congregation is meant to sing along while praying and receiving the Eucharist .

When it finally comes to the Eucharistic Prayer, it’s then that music and the Eucharist finally come together. I said before that when we say a prayer or hymn we all say it in multiple tones so in the sense we aren’t united because we’re all saying that prayer or hymn differently. But when we sing that said prayer or hymn, we really become united because we’re all singing one tone and thus the whole congregation is united. For the most part, we all sing the Eucharistic Prayer at Mass from the “Holy, Holy” to the Great Amen. Since the Eucharist is meant to unite us with Christ’s Body and Blood, it makes sense to have music in there because music unites the congregation; I’ve been in Mass where people have said the Eucharistic Prayer but it just doesn’t work since we’re all saying the Eucharistic Prayer differently and thus not really united.

Music makes the sacrament of the Eucharist since it makes the Eucharist look more noble and attractive and with music involved in prayer, there is one united voice rather than just multiple voices. I hope soon that people will take these two much more seriously. It seems nowadays people just do it without thinking about it; they just seem to do it like a bunch of robots. But if you take a step back and think about why music and the Eucharistic Prayer is so important, than people in the congregation might have a better experience in worship because they’ll know that music makes us united, the Eucharist means that Jesus is giving us his Body and Blood in sacrifice, and that music in the Eucharistic Prayer makes the prayer not only look and sound better but also it unites us in God’s sending of the Holy Spirit and proclaiming how great God is! When that time comes, I think the Mass will be much more involved than it ever has before.