DO WE NEED THE EUCHARIST OR THE CHURCH? [page 2 of 3]
We were wrong For years we spoke of the primacy of the spiritual to our volunteers.
They did not seem to understand, although they said they agreed with
the idea of spirituality. They didn't respond in a way that would bring
us to the spirituality of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement. We were on the wrong track. For us the primacy of the spiritual--the words of Dorothy Day--meant something altogether different from what they understood as "spiritual." What did spiritual mean to Dorothy Day? First of all, Dorothy Day and the Workers were inebriated with All members of the church are part of the church, or rather parts of
the church, like parts of a body all united and functioning together, all
having the same blood coursing through their veins. In the Body of Christ,
the Church, the blood running through each member is the life of Christ
(I Corinthians 12:12-26). And the leg cannot say, I am not part of the body, I have no responsibility.
The leg, if separated, is dead, dead, dead. All that remains is a decent
burial. Members and organs of the body (of Christ) have life as long as
they are good functioning parts of the body and remain united in the body. Very often people think of the Church as the hierarchy only. This is
a gross mistake, if not heresy, because the Church being the Body of Christ
includes all members and believers. We do need bishops and priests as successors
of the apostles, if we are going to be rooted in the early Church. But all members of the Church have responsibility for the Church, not
just the Bishops. When we criticize the Church for not doing something, we are criticizing
ourselves, because we are the Church-- just do it yourself! The great and first claim of a bishop or even a pope is not that he is
a bishop, but that he or she is a member of the Body of Christ. Stanley Vishnewski, one of the early Catholic Workers in New York, writes
in Wings of the Dawn (published by the New York Catholic Worker) about visits
from Fr. Benedict Bradley and Fr. Virgel Michel in the early 1930's in which
they made the community aware of the living doctrine of the Mystical Body
of Christ. We will let Stanley speak for himself as he shares about the
priests' visit: "The Church," Fr. Bradley told us, "is not simply a society,
and organization; she is an organism, a living and life giving organism,
with head and members. The dogmatic concept of the Church is the Mystical
Body of Christ. This is the cardinal truth revealed to the world by Christ.
It was preached to the man on the street by St. Paul. The early Christians
all understood it. St. Augustine urged it insistently and St. Thomas Aquinas
taught it. The Mystical Body of Christ is the title which the Fathers of
the First Vatical Council declared to be the most excellent expression of
the nature of the Church. It was explained by Leo XIII and urged upon a
weary world by Pius X in the splendid phrase, Restaurare omnia in Christo--to
bring all things under the headship of Christ." I (Stanley Vishnewski) was sitting in the front row as I listened spellbound
to Father Bradley. The crowd of people that had gathered was unusually quiet.
I experienced a sense of religious awe. I felt a sense of unity and oneness
with Dorothy, Peter, Mary, Margaret, Big Dan, Little Dan. I closed my eyes
and realized a strong sense of Communion with the Black Americans, the Chinese,
the Russians. All were my brothers and sisters. We were all one in Christ. "The Liturgy," (Mass and Sacraments) Father Bradley concluded
his talk, "was once the supreme expression of Christian life and the
instrument of the world's conversion. And only through it--the celebration
and application to men and women of the Redemption--can Christianity be
revived." Father Bradley's talk was like a Pentecost to all of us at the Catholic
Worker. For the first time we became aware of the living reality that was
our Faith. It was an awe-inspiring doctrine and we were so enthused--so
drunk with new wine--that we wanted to go out on the streets and shout to
all who would listen about the unity of the members of the Mystical Body
of Christ. I wanted to shout to the people on the streets that you are my
brothers and sisters in Christ and that together we belong to the royal
family of God. What was consoling, to me, was the awareness that we were not alone in
our apostolate. It was no longer a question of the individual soul and God.
It was a question of the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, praying to
God the Father. The doctrine that we were one family in the Mystical Body of Christ transformed
out lives and opened up to us new horizons of the Faith that stretched as
it were into infinity. The old conception of the Faith, that I had known,
was now transformed into a dynamic one. The Faith that I had known had been
more of a personal and a rather narrow, negative one. It was only God and
I that existed. It had been a bargain type of religion. Do this for me dear
Lord and I will say these prayers for you. If you avert this tragedy I will
make a pilgrimage. Dear Saint, I am going to light this candle in your honor
but do come along and grant my request. The doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ made our Faith a living reality.
The Church was not just a brick building that stood on the corner. The Church
was not Father Paulauskas or Sister Perpetua. It was we who were the Church!
The Church was all of us united under the Kingship of Christ. It was Christ
who was our King. It was Christ, our Brother, who acted as our Mediator
with God the Father. If one of us suffered, then everyone suffered. If one of us was happy
and rejoiced, then everyone was happy and shared, in a mystical manner,
in the rejoicing. I would wake up in the middle of the night and joyfully
reflect that at that particular moment I was sharing in the fruits of the
Mass that was being offered up throughout the world. What a consolation
it was to know that as I slept choirs of contemplative nuns and monks were
chanting the Diving Office and that I as a member of the Mystical Body was
sharing in their prayers. I began to realize how important my actions and prayers were to the health
and the well being of the Church. For the first time I understood what Dorothy
had meant, that cold morning, when she told me that by missing Mass I was
hurting the work. I became aware that my prayers, my sacrifices, would and could contribute
the necessary graces to keep alive the Faith of some poor prisoner locked
away in a Communist or Fascist concentration camp. My prayers and good works
also had the power to convert his captors. It was then that I understood
the enormity of my sinful actions. My failure to cooperate with Grace not
only hurt me, but at the same time withheld from some poor mortal the necessary
Grace and strength to persevere. "We were our Brother's keepers!"
At the same time I was humbled by the thought that I in turn was being supported
and strengthened by the prayers and sacrifices of my fellow member in Christ. The thought that one carried Christ and that one was a "temple of
the Holy Spirit" was a sobering one and helped keep one away from dangerous
occasions of sin. I then understood that it was Christ who had called me
to engage in the Lay Apostolate and the Catholic Worker, for when I thought
of leaving (and the occasions were many), I could think of no place I wanted
to go. I realized that I had more need of Christ and to do His Work than
He had of me. I understood then that He had chosen me and that it was not
I who had chosen to follow Him. This was an inspiring thought, but how unworthy
it made me feel. The prayer came unbidden from my heart: "O Lord make
me worthy of the trust that Thou hast placed in me." It was Father Virgel Michel, then Dean of St. John's University in Collegeville,
Minnesota, who came to us one afternoon and told us about the relationship
of the Mystical Body of Christ to society. Fr. Virgil told us that once
people became aware of the spiritual life and their relationship to God
that the problems of economics, of race would be solved. He emphasized strongly
the need for liturgical prayers--the recitation of the Divine Office by
laymen so as to bring their minds and thoughts into harmony with the Church. As a result of Father Virgil's visit the custom of reciting Compline
was instituted in the Catholic Worker. The Catholic Worker was like a cell of the Mystical Body of Christ. It
was a "League of Nations" as well as an ecumenical movement. There
were always people of different nationalities and various religious faiths,
as well as atheists and agnostics staying with us. One did not have to be
on the editorial staff. Dorothy always loved to count the various nationalities that were represented
at the Catholic Worker. "Here we are," Dorothy said, "people
of different nationalities whose countries are supposed to be enemies, but
because we are all Catholic we are able to meet and be friends." Not always, I thought. There was plenty of fighting and bickering going
on in the Catholic Worker. But people did seem to be friendlier in the Movement.
I asked Dorothy about this. "It is because of this dogma of the Mystical of Christ," Dorothy
replied. "Catholics may not allow their souls to be clouded with greed,
selfishness and hate. They may not hate Black people, Jews, Communists.
When they are guilty of prejudice, they are injuring the Mystical Body of
Christ. It is as though they wielded the scourges in the hands of the soldiers
who attacked our Lord. If a man hates his neighbor, he is hating Christ." What an account of the excitement and joy of the early days of the Catholic
Worker (sixty years ago) and these great men of the liturgical movement
(the Benedictine priests mentioned above) as they came together to a profound
understanding of the Body of Christ and what that meant for their lives! Dorothy Day often said through later years that the truth of the Mystical
Body of Christ was the foundation that undergirded the entire Worker movement.
She repeatedly stressed the implications of St. Thomas Aquinas' view that
all are members or potential members of the Body of Christ--and that devotion
to Christ demands service to those in whom He dwells. Dorothy often quoted Clement of Alexandria on the Body of Christ: Why do the members of Christ tear one another? Why do we rise up against
our own Body? At Casa Juan Diego we are a living example of the Body of Christ at work. Members of the Body of Christ (whether as individuals or parishes) pray for our efforts and support our humble efforts, all of which we celebrate, at Mass, several times a week at Casa Juan Diego. Celebrating the liturgy, we are conscious of our bonds with all of those (many we have never met) who are united with us and our humble endeavors through prayer and sacrifice. And we are united with the poor and suffering members of the Body of Christ as they come to us as refugees and immigrants from a painful and devastating journey, as battered women with many bruises or from hospitals with broken bones.
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