About what seems like hundreds of years ago, Hilary Clinton made a statement that it takes a village to raise a child. Bob Dole then said that not a village, but that it takes parents to raise a child. I think both were right. I apply both statements to the idea of a Eucharistic Village, the Church.
None of us gets to choose the parents and family we are born into whether that family be wonderful or dysfunctional. Sometimes, we are born into a church where we don’t really get a choice until we are older. That is the way it should be. Society recognizes that children are not capable of making their own decisions as children. They just do not have the intelligence to do so and are easily swayed and used. Children are not tried as adults in court, not do they choose the school they go to, they don’t have to work, special leniency is given to them, we expect them to make mistakes, they are naïve. Parents are held responsible for the conduct of their children. As it should be.
Keeping that in mind, why do so many parents practice the notion that their children should not have the sacraments and religious education? How often do we hear that we’ll let them grow up and let them choose later? As parents we have the responsibility to raise our children, at least to know and practice the fundamentals of faith and spirituality. But not entirely on our own. We trust teachers to educate our children in academics, ought we not trust the Church to educate our children in matters of faith?
In our age of skepticism, it may be hard to find a church that we can trust. As parents the religious education of our children belongs to us. The Church helps us in that endeavor. One of the reasons I like the Eucharist is that, when I receive the Body of Christ, I am reminded that the Body of Christ is the whole body which includes the people, the Church. I receive Jesus, but I also believe that I am affirming and receiving and expressing the notion that I give of myself and receive the members of the Church. In this sense, I am a member of the Eucharistic Village, the Church.
In the Mass, it is the whole church, the Bride, in union with Jesus Christ as its Bridegroom, that are present in the consecrated bread and wine. Through the Eucharist, the “source and summit” of our faith, we are formed into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ. Through the Eucharist we become a village, whose members are Jesus as the head and the people his bride. We become family, all brothers and sisters in the Lord. We become a Eucharistic Village. It takes a Eucharistic Village, and parents to raise children of faith.
“May the Lord bless and keep you. May he let his face shine upon you, be gracious to you and give you his peace.”