Thursday of the
Fifth Week of Easter
(Acts 15:7-21; John 15: 9-11)
What if the Catholic Church, in order to foster unity
with Protestant communities of faith, relaxed the requirement of attending
Sunday Eucharist? Surely many would
oppose the change as an aberration to a Catholic custom that has been practiced
almost since the beginning. Others would
say that there is no Scriptural mandate to assist in the Sunday Eucharist and
therefore the Church precept is alterable. This question is similar to what the
primitive Church confronts in today’s first reading from the Book of Acts.
It is hard to understate the importance of this meeting
of the primitive Church. The leaders are
to decide the direction of the Church in the future. Will it continue to be primarily a movement
within Judaism, or will it allow Gentiles to be Gentiles while finding their
salvation in the Lord Jesus? The
decision seems to boil down to what James will say. Peter has already been convinced of the need
to let Gentiles eat pork. Paul and
Barnabas, of course, have no objections to the idea. Opposed to the change are the so-called “Judaizers”
who see Christianity as a renewal of Israel with its necessity of keeping the
Law. James’ speaking in favor of the
change with only a few restrictions clinches the argument.
It probably is not a good idea to abandon the Sunday
Eucharist obligation. But Catholics
should be open to similar non-essential changes in order to accommodate
Christian unity. We should not emphasize
our differences from others. Rather we
should seek commonalities so that Christ may be one without diluting all that he
is and all that he tells us.
