Our Common Center

Augustine of Hippo (d. 430 AD) was a great Bishop who lived in a time of tremendous upheaval and turmoil. As a youth, he had been a rather wild pagan, doing as he pleased and seeking only what he thought pleasurable. But he found this did not satisfy and years later, writing in his "Confessions," he said, “In distraction I fell to pieces.” As a pagan, in the pursuit of hedonistic pleasures, there was no center around which the many sides of Augustine could unite; he lived for self alone. So, his life was unsatisfactory and meaningless, with no great purpose, no goal for his existence.

At that time, the Roman Empire, in distraction, was also falling to pieces. Rome’s greatness had arisen out of its sense of mission. Every citizen had felt that the city had a great job to do: to govern wisely and well the territory under its control; and to preserve the Pax Romana (the Roman Peace) throughout its domain. It was the driving force in the great government. When that sense of mission began to wane through self-interest, the Empire began to disintegrate. The citizens no longer had a sense of fellowship in, or loyalty to, a great undertaking.

In St. Augustine and his world, we see examples of a principle that runs all through life — the need for a center of unity beyond our lives as individuals, something that binds our lives together and gives us a common purpose. Our Lord understood these needs for a center and a purpose as His followers faced the hard work ahead.

So, what did He do? He took one loaf of bread and broke it, signifying to them their unity with Himself in their partaking of the bread and also their union with each other in Him. So, to receive Holy Communion as a child of God means that we are all one with Him and one with each other in His spirit of service.

And it means that we have a common center of unity for our group life — Christ Jesus — outside ourselves that can give our lives real purpose and meaning, for as St. Paul says, “He (Christ) is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:17)