THIS BLESSED AND JOYOUS CUP

During my boyhood I remember being impressed by Passionist missionary preachers. They would always appeal to the cross as the supreme sign of God's love for me. They did not give me a hell fire, blood and guts, guilt laden message. I never felt like I crucified Jesus. But, I did feel that, no matter the political intrigues causing Jesus' death, the death was part of God's scheme for my redemption. The events of the Passion spelled out the extent of God's love for me. The blood of the cross supremely manifested God's love.

When I entered the Passionist community, I began to learn of the spiritual vision of Saint Paul of the Cross. Paul Daneo was born in 1694 in Italy. During a retreat in the sacristy of his parish church in 1720 he felt moved by God to gather companions to keep the Passion of Jesus alive in the heartfelt devotion of clergy and laity. For the rest of his life he engaged in preaching, in spiritual guidance, and in the affectivity of popular religion. Until his death in 1775 he proclaimed the marvelous love of God visible in the Passion of Jesus. No hell fire and damnation! Paul's spirituality was passionate and affective. Every Christian, experiencing conversion and deepening faith, is invited to enter into the side of Christ. There one dwells in the wounds of Jesus, in contemplative and heartfelt gaze, so that the person could experience a second nativity, a new birth in the birthing elements of water and blood. Thus the side of Christ became the womb of God, the place of new spiritual insight, feeling, and union with God.

My academic side is always balanced by a desire to help people develop a loving appreciation of Jesus crucified and risen. I want popular piety to flourish and to connect with an ongoing liturgical renewal. I know of no better way to do this than by encouraging you to receive the communion cup. That is why I want people to do as Jesus said. Take this, all of you, and drink from it. This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me.

Laity received from the cup for the first thousand years of Christian life. It finally got pulled out of lay hands around 1200 CE. I wonder if laity ever feel angry that history wrenched this birthright from your hands! Since the late 1960s it has been put back into your hands. I know that some are uneasy and uncomfortable with receiving from the cup. I even see some beeline around cup ministers. I also know some communicants cannot take flour and cannot tolerate wheat products. They cannot receive the bread due to serious allergic reaction. These folks have no choice. Their communion is limited to the cup. Denying them the cup means depriving them from communion. But all others, young and old, have a baptismal right and responsibility to receive communion in its full symbolic expression. To take and eat, take and drink can enable you to cultivate deeper feeling ties with the Passion of Christ crucified. The cup invited you to spiritual rebirth, enthusiasm, delight, and heartfelt joy. Why settle for less than the largesse of the Lord held out to you in the cup and in the new joy open to those who dwell in the side of the Crucified One!