Donna M. Cole

Communion and mystery

God’s church, the holy people called God’s own, may be described in many ways and defined by a few. Throughout this year in ML we have pondered many dimensions of what it means to be church. One of the more challenging models of church is that of “mystical communion.” It incorporates elements of other models, connects faith with mission and touches on vocation. Beyond all of that, it connects all those who are one in Christ throughout time, calling on the sense that faith provides in order to understand that which our ordinary perception fails to discern. It offers an equality disturbing to some but is surely a reflection of what we are all called to be for one another. It demands that we be one. Of all the ways we can think about church, approaching it as “mystical communion” holds deep hope in a time when so much in the world is unsettled. Avery Dulles, SJ, in reflecting on this, notes that “many of the Church Fathers, including Augustine, develop the image of the Body of Christ with particular stress on the mystical and invisible communion that binds together all those who are enlivened by the grace of Christ” (Models of the Church [Doubleday, 1987], 50–51). The understanding of church following the Second Vatican Council relies on this poetic sense of community. “Besides imparting an awareness of a commonly shared Christian dignity, an ecclesial consciousness brings a sense of belonging to the mystery of the Church as Communion. This is a basic and undeniable aspect of the life and mission of the Church. For one and all the earnest prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper, ‘That all may be one’ (Jn 17–21), ought to become daily a required and undeniable programme of life and action” (Pope John Paul II, Christifideles Laici, 64).

Using words to describe mystery is never easy, and translating the theology of mystical communion into everyday ministry takes some heavy lifting. But this is the primary call of those who labor in parishes, the pastoral theologians who take the risk of bringing that communion to life. In this issue, we see some of the ways that communion gives rise to mission. Kathi Scarpace returns to ML with a perspective on immigration reform in the context of an informed Christian conscience. Leisa Anslinger shares a spirituality of communion that explores how our encounter with Christ changes the way we experience others and in turn how they experience us. Jean Marie DuHamel reminds us of the wonder to be found in spiritual friendship, the communion of deep sharing that exists in the journey of discovery in faith. Bill Graham takes us along with him on pilgrimage on El Camino de Santiago de Compostela, The Way of St. James, providing in his unique style seven lessons revealed in the community of travelers.

It is not enough, though, to settle into the comfort of the companionship of the like-minded or the familiar. “Mystical communion” may be a poetic term, but the concept calls us to tangible action.

Communion and mission are profoundly connected with each other, they interpenetrate and mutually imply each other, to the point that communion represents both the source and the fruit of mission: communion gives rise to mission and mission is accomplished in communion. It is always the one and the same Spirit who calls together and unifies the Church and sends her to preach the Gospel “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). On her part, the Church knows that the communion received by her as a gift is destined for all people. Thus the Church feels she owes to each individual and to humanity as a whole the gift received from the Holy Spirit that pours the charity of Jesus Christ into the hearts of believers, as a mystical force for internal cohesion and external growth. (CL 32)

What wonders God might do in and through us if we set aside all that divides us and invite that mystical force to form us again into one people in the Spirit. ML

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