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Father Ron Rolheiser is pictured at the Presentation Sisters’ convent in San Francisco during a talk he gave Aug. 12 on “Religious Life Today.” More than 100 women and men religious attended. Father Rolheiser gave talks Aug. 11 at St. Agnes and St. Pius churches. (Photo courtesy Sister Virginia King, PBVM)
August 23, 2018
Christina Gray
Catholic San Francisco
Writer and speaker Father Ron Rolheiser told a group of about 150 people at St. Agnes Parish Aug. 11 that the Eucharist is Catholicism’s “one great act of fidelity” to Jesus.
“In the 2,000 years since Christ left, we haven’t ever really been faithful to him,” said Father Rolheiser, a member of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. He paraphrased the words of the British theologian Father Ronald Knox (1888-1957) in introducing the day’s two-part talk sponsored by the Archdiocese of San Francisco’s Office of Consecrated Life.
“Truth be told, we don’t turn the other cheek; truth be told, we don’t love our enemies; truth be told, we don’t live out the Sermon on the Mount,” Father Rolheiser said. “But truth be told, we have been faithful in one great way: Jesus gave us the Eucharist and said do this until I come back and for 2,000 years we’ve kept it going.”
Father Rolheiser, whose weekly column is carried in more than 50 newspapers including Catholic San Francisco, is president of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas.
His morning talk at St. Agnes and afternoon session at St. Pius Church in Redwood City were free and open to the public.
He spoke to the St. Agnes audience about what he called, “the multidimensional reality” of the Eucharist. He described the Eucharist as “God’s physical embrace,” as an intensification of our unity within the body of Christ, as a sacrament of reconciliation, as a sustaining ritual for health, as a communal ritual of expectation and more.
Jesus taught us a lot of things but left us only one ritual, he said. “He didn’t give us the church for the purpose of the Eucharist. Jesus gave us the Eucharist for the purpose of the church.”
Catholics believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist but can have a hard time comprehending that Jesus is also present inside the body of believers sharing the eucharistic meal, Father Rolheiser said.
“This is really important,” he said. “We don’t represent the body of Christ, we don’t replace the body of Christ. We are in fact the mystical body of Christ.”
A community, like the elements of bread and wine, is transubstantiated through the Eucharist, becoming the actual body and blood of Christ, Father Rolheiser said. “When we come to the Eucharist we open ourselves up to transformation,” he said.
Father Rolheiser underscored the “shocking, raw, physical character” of the Eucharist.
“All sacraments, and the Eucharist is the primary sacrament, give concrete flesh to God,” he said. “The Eucharist is God’s physical kiss.”
Unlike angels, which are pure spirit, human persons are made of flesh, Father Rolheiser said.
“Flesh needs more than spirit, flesh needs touch,” he said, noting that all the sacraments but especially the Eucharist connect us to God through the physical realm – water, bread, wine, oil.
He told a humorous story about the Ursuline Sisters who taught his catechism classes growing up in Saskatchewan, Canada. The sisters said to him that if there were ever a day he could not go to Mass, he could make a “spiritual communion.”
“It’s a beautiful, pious thought,” he said, noting first his gratitude to the teaching order, “but that’s like imagining being kissed. It’s not much.”
During a brief question-and-answer period, an audience member asked the impact of revelations of clergy sexual abuse on the church and the sacramental life of Catholics.
Father Rolheiser said the scandals have “rocked the faith of an awful lot of people” but added that he believes the biggest source of hurt is a personal experience with the “harshness” and “judgment” of the church.
Father Rolheiser noted a recent Pew poll of university students whose overwhelming first choice of words to describe “church” were negative ones. He said he looks with hope toward the pastoral leadership of Pope Francis with his message of mercy and reconciliation.
He also encouraged his audience and their families to stay faithful to the Eucharist.
“In the end, the Eucharist will save us,” he said.