Old Catholics in Rhode Island Proclaim Eucharistic Belief on Unity

(Providence) Old Catholic theology joins those who see the Eucharist as the core of being a Church. From that point the church is a communion of believers. All are in communion with one another around the surrender of Jesus Christ, as the highest expression of the love of God.

Through communion, discrepancies between people are reconciled, what was scattered brought together. As communion belongs to the core of human life, so we can see in the relation of Jesus with all men and women the restoration of human community. Therefore the Eucharist can be seen as a symbol which prefigures the total restoration of all creation in a new covenant with God. It prefigures the reconciliation of all that and who have been broken in one or another way.

In the Old Catholic theology, “Church” means reconciliation. “Church” means the restoration of broken relations between God and men and men with each other. It is the leading to a new communion in which the old differences and discriminations between people are removed. Distinctions in position and places are there to manifest the unity in differences and reflect in that way the being of the triune God.

The Old Catholic Church does not consider communion as uniformity, but unity in diversity. Communion aims at personal human well being, so that reciprocally individual persons enrich the community at large. And what is said of believers is true for churches as well. Individual churches are too restrained to reflect the richness of God’s love; therefore it is necessary that they are also in communion with one another. It is the communion of churches that can reflect – unified as they are in diversity – the creativity of the Lord’s care about humanity.