There are many passages in Scripture that give us pause. Sometimes this happens because we don’t initially understand what is being said. Other times it happens because we misunderstand what is being said. In yet other cases, this happens because we do in fact understand what is being said.

One of the most arresting passages in the letters of Saint Paul pertains to the Eucharist. I think it gives us pause whether we don’t understand it all, whether we misunderstand it, or indeed whether we understand it in its context:

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body eat and drink judgment against themselves. (1 Cor 11:27–30 NRSV)

If you’re anything like me, coming to Catholicism from outside and having had enough apologetics material either come across one’s path or be thrown into it, you may jump first to the idea that this means we have to acknowledge transubstantiation, the real presence of Jesus in the consecrated bread and wine. If we don’t, yet partake, that’s sinful.

There is a grain of truth to that interpretation, because it would not be especially great for a Catholic to turn away from lights that are provided by the handing on of experience in the Church. The Eucharist is indeed Jesus, and we are grateful for it.

But that isn’t what Saint Paul is saying.

The apostle bookends this discussion of the Eucharist with other concerns (1 Cor 11:17–22, 33–34). Those concerns are very clear, and they’re not about speculative theology or the acceptance of the words of institution at the Last Supper. Indigenous Protestant scholar Randy Woodley explains:

That’s what 1 Corinthians 11 is about. The background is that the wealthy people are getting there early and eating all the food while the poor people and slaves have to work and are coming in later, so they don’t have any food, and they are the ones who really need it. When the apostle Paul says, “Examine yourselves” (1 Cor. 11:28 NRSV), we take that to mean examine the whole body, examine yourselves. Are you treating people around you unequally? But we’ve taken that to mean, Do I have any sins in my life that are unconfessed? This is just a smidgeon of what that passage is actually about. Are we missing the profound significance of sharing the bread and sharing the cup together and the unity this brings? This passage is about the called-out ones celebrating a meal together in equity and equality. This is in the context of Jesus’s teachings on shalom.[1]

But Catholics rightly share the same concern, for it is Pope Francis’ in the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia. Here is a section of that text called “Discerning the Body”:

Along these same lines, we do well to take seriously a biblical text usually interpreted outside of its context or in a generic sense, with the risk of overlooking its immediate and direct meaning, which is markedly social. I am speaking of 1 Cor 11:17-34, where Saint Paul faces a shameful situation in the community. The wealthier members tended to discriminate against the poorer ones, and this carried over even to the agape meal that accompanied the celebration of the Eucharist. While the rich enjoyed their food, the poor looked on and went hungry: “One is hungry and another is drunk. Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the Church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?” (vv. 21-22).

The Eucharist demands that we be members of the one body of the Church. Those who approach the Body and Blood of Christ may not wound that same Body by creating scandalous distinctions and divisions among its members. This is what it means to “discern” the body of the Lord, to acknowledge it with faith and charity both in the sacramental signs and in the community; those who fail to do so eat and drink judgement against themselves (cf. v. 29). The celebration of the Eucharist thus becomes a constant summons for everyone “to examine himself or herself ” (v. 28), to open the doors of the [local community] to greater fellowship with the underprivileged, and in this way to receive the sacrament of that eucharistic love which makes us one body. We must not forget that “the ‘mysticism’ of the sacrament has a social character” [quoting Benedict XVI, Deus Caritus Est 14]. When those who receive it turn a blind eye to the poor and suffering, or consent to various forms of division, contempt and inequality, the Eucharist is received unworthily. On the other hand, [those] who are properly disposed and receive the Eucharist regularly, reinforce their desire for fraternity, their social consciousness and their commitment to those in need. (AL 185–186)

This is something that I realized for myself without any further reading. When I lived in another country, the Bishops’ Conference mandated the hymnal. In this song book, about 10% of the songs contained discriminatory lyrics that specified the nationality or ethnicity of the person saying “we.”

As is only natural, this generated an atmosphere of acceptability. The people who went to daily Mass were, if I dare speak regarding surface appearances, made worse by this. They didn’t become better. What kind of division and accusation passed from their mouths and into their gestures just escalated. One priest even used a shouty homily to identify foreigners using an impolite mode of address, rail against them, and blanketly accuse them of thought crimes (the transgression of lèse majesté in that country’s criminal code). When the Pope came to visit, there was an official policy, which made the national news, of foreigners being forbidden to obtain tickets through and travel with their parishes to go to any of the events of the Holy Father, i.e., segregation.

It was bad. Attempts to intervene and discuss were met with outright rejection and horrific things said, even in “dialogue” involving the organs of the Bishops’ Conference.

As I prayed my way through this, I begged for an intervention. Some years later, after all this, the apostolic letter on liturgical formation came out. It contains this gem: “The liturgy does not say ‘I’ but ‘we,’ and any limitation on the breadth of this ‘we’ is always demonic” (Desiderio Desideravi 19). Note the double emphasis: any limitation, always demonic. The “demonic” is probably meant in the sense of “diabolical,” divisive, tearing apart, caused by the one who accuses and divides us. This sentence asserts exactly what I had fought for—down to the letter.

So, of course, what Amoris Laetitia and Saint Paul say has been dear to me. But I’d say to anyone regarding cases where the division is not so flagrant but just as real, we have to listen. We have to examine ourselves. This includes considering our sins and our acceptance of the institution of the Eucharist. But above all, it means looking at the social character of what we are doing. When the Sign of Peace comes, are we eager to reconcile, to smile, to look people in the eye, to reach out to someone who is different from us and especially those whom we could exclude because we have more social standing than them? When we pray the Lamb of God, is it as a wolf or as a lamb? When we receive Communion, is it for the sake of the Body?

Not everyone has to organize programs to handle these matters. But everyone needs to understand that the “we” of the Mass is sacred, and we instantiate it in the joy of the Gospel at every Mass, with the full intention to direct our spiritual energy, whether active or contemplative, to the members of Jesus’ Body.

[1] Randy S. Woodley, Indigenous Theology and the Western Worldview: A Decolonized Approach to Christian Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2022), 134.