When asked if I could bring together the Week of Christian Unity and the Laudato Si Week which are concomitantly happening in the South African Church this year. I was wondering how I could put these two weeks together. As a priest working at the Department of Ecumenism, Interreligious Dialogue, and Dialogue with the Secular World, I thought that the Eucharist would be the key element.

1.   Eucharist as Communion

At the beginning of the presentation of the gifts during mass, the priest says this about the bread and wine:

“Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the bread we offer you: the fruit of the earth and work of human hands, it will become the Bread of Life for us.

“Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the wine we offer you: fruit of the vine and work of human hands, it will become our spiritual drink.”

I find this prayer very beautiful and inclusive. I will reflect on these words: Bread and Wine as the fruit of the earth and work of human hands that will become Christ. The Eucharist is a full collaboration and communion between non-human creatures, the humans who present these fruits, and God who gave them and who will again transform them into the Eucharist. Everyone takes his part.

With the apostle Paul, we see the Eucharist as a communion of the Body and Blood of Christ. He says this: “The cup of blessings which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ”? 1Cor 10:16.

What are the bread and Wine?

For us to get the bread and wine, the entire universe and God must collaborate. The Eucharist is the communion of all creation with God. When I say creation, I don’t see only humans, I see also animals, air, heat, soil, wind, bacteria, drivers, and doctors… In the Eucharist, the living and the dead, the poor and the rich, the good and the less good, Christians, believers of other religions, and non-believers are in communion because all partake in the making of the Body and Blood of Christ…

Pierre Rhabi shows how nature cooperates in the Eucharist: “The agroecology represents one of the best-lived testimonies that I can give on the potentialities of human, non-human and God cooperation and communion. In this practice, even the tiniest bacteria, as well as insects, earthworms, etc., are included in the process where the various factors that contributed to the advent of life are again brought together to cooperate. In this cooperation are also present heat and solar radiation, water, air, cosmic and terrestrial energies. It is thanks to this cosmic collaboration that the Eucharist is the fruit of the earth and the work of humans who, thanks to the action of God, become Christ.

Michel Maxime EGGER concurs with Pierre Rhabi and reflects on the gifts we offer during the Eucharistic Celebration in this way: “What constitutes the value of an offering is not its object as such, but all that we give through it: ourselves, our work, our loved ones, enemies, those who participated in its making, the material provided by nature and all that God has given us in creation. We, therefore, offer the visible object (bread and wine) and invisible relations (all relations, the living and the dead, Christians, non-believers and non-Christians, humans and non-humans) which participated in order that the bread and wine become the Eucharist. In fact, in the Eucharist, all of creation is offered to become Christ. Any Eucharistic celebration aims at putting us in communion with Christ so that our communion is effective and efficient.

Thus, in the Eucharist everything is interconnected. The separation that we think exists is just an illusion on our intellect. This communion is not conditioned by our intellectual knowledge of it rather, it is a relational communion. Relational knowledge is greater than intellectual knowledge. We are because the others are! It reflects the Ubuntu concept that is dear to the South African Communities. The Eucharist interconnects all that exists (non-human creatures, humans and God). The Eucharist becomes a prelude of what we will be in heaven, in perfect unity (1 Cor 15.28, Rev 21:1-4). It is the eternal Sabbath. This leads us to the contemplation of the Eucharist.

2.   The Eucharist is to be Contemplated

In the Eucharist, we recognize that each creature is important in the realization of God’s plan. Contemplation, according to Richard Rohr, is learning to recognize the links with what “is there”, not only with one’s consciousness, and one’s intelligence, it is rather to open up through experience and fully to this participation of all what is (God-humans and non-human creatures). He explains it in these terms: “We must learn to see what is there. “Contemplation is a non-dualistic way of seeing the present moment.” A contemplative missionary must collaborate with all that is there, open to mystery. In Eucharistic contemplation, we see all that is behind the bread and the wine; all the invisible but very present relationships: the living and the dead, the sinners, and holies, the weak and the strong…

Raimon Panikkar adds: “Contemplation is something definitive, something that is connected to the very purpose of life. It cannot be manipulated to achieve another goal. ” The goal of life is to bring all things back to Christ: “He has made known to us the mystery of his will, the benevolent plan which he has fixed in advance in himself to bring the times to their accomplishment: unite the whole universe under one head, Christ, what is in heaven and what is on earth” (Eph 1, 9-10); “When all things have been subjected to him, then the Son himself will be subject to him who subjected everything to him, so that God may be all in all” (1 Cor 15:28). The contemplative missionary is the one who works in this spirit of unity of all that is today. Thus, the mission will only have meaning in a Greater Ecumenism which is Bigger than the communion among Christians.

We are not cut off, separated from each other in the Eucharist. Raimon Panikkar concludes in these terms: “The more we are the other, the more we are ourselves. And Ubuntu puts it another way: “I am because we are”. Now let’s bring all the two weeks in one through the Eucharist.

3.   Week of Christian Unity and the Laudato Si Week

Looking at the Eucharist, we can simply say that we are lucky that this year we celebrate the Week of Christian Unity and the Laudato Si Week concomitantly. With a contemplative mind, we should say that during this week we hear the call to live interconnected with all that exists. We are called to be united as Christians and at the same time united with all God’s creation. It is in this line that we will hear the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor. Thus, the call to do good and seek justice together. Learning to do good; to seek justice, to rescue the oppressed, to defend the orphan, to plead for the widow is doing our mission in memory of Christ. For us, the poor whose cries must be heard are precisely the humans, the non-human entities who suffer enormously, and also God who continues inviting us to listen to him from the Old Testament until now. (Jer 7, 23-24; Mk 12, 29).

Conclusion

The concomitant celebration of the Week of Christian Unity and the Laudato Si Week in the Southern African Church this year is a sign of communion that we get each day we celebrate the Eucharist. What does the Eucharist represent in the life of the Church? It is the source and the summit of the whole Christian mission. The Eucharist culminates in the sanctifying action of God towards us and the entire creation and the worship we render to him. Our mission of Ecumenism and Interreligious and Secular Dialogue stems from the Eucharist. The communion of divine life and the unity of Christians and the entire creation is expressed and realized in the Eucharist. Through the Eucharistic celebration, we already unite ourselves to the liturgy in Heaven and we anticipate eternal life. Through it we are learning to do good to the earth and to the poor; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow, and at the same time we learn to live in communion with the entire Oikoumenê because the contemplation of the Eucharist invites us to contemplation through we see every reality that contributes to its making. No one earns a place at the Eucharistic Celebration. All are invited. Or better said: Everything is drawn there by the burning desire of Jesus to unite everything in heaven and on earth. In my humble thought, it is in this way that the Eucharist brings together the Concomitant Celebration of the two Weeks: Christian Unity and Laudato Si Week!