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The founding and inspirational charter of the canons regular is found in the description of the primitive Church that is given to us by Saint Luke: “Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul” (Ac.4,32). No matter if such a state was or was not concretely and perfectly obtained in the original Church: its interest for the canonical community is to furnish a dynamic model, a goal to be reached. It is thus that Augustine understood it, at the beginning of his Rule.
Throughout history, the canonical houses have understood, in this call to communion, the ultimate meaning of their vocation: be one body and one soul. The Second Council of the Vatican defined the Catholic church as a communion of churches, realised by the Eucharist: one loaf is one body; the Church makes the Eucharist and the Eucharist makes the Church in the apostolic link ensured by the communion of Bishops. What unites the churches is that which is common to them, what is essentially shared: the body of Christ. He makes it impossible for any Christian community whatsoever to live in autarchy. Moreover, the presence of laymen around the altar or in the choir with the canons means that the priests are not dispensers of communion but its ministers; priests do not produce the Eucharist, they serve the sacramental realisation of it. In a canonical community, both the Liturgy of the Hours as the Eucharist must be celebrated in such a way as to make the faithful feel at home. The people of God must be able, at any moment, to join the canonical liturgy in exercising its ministry by praising and celebrating God.
The body of the Church is nothing other than the Eucharistic body, realised daily, not only during the Mass, but all day long, in the brotherly sacrament. The brother is a sanctuary and this experienced dimension orients the complete life of the canonical community toward the unavoidable requirement of the truth. Daily communal life becomes an echo of the sacrament of the altar. The grains of wheat, ground to make the Eucharistic bread, provide a meaningful image of the fraternal life that the canons regular must lead together.
This oblation manifests itself fully during the canonical profession which is enacted at the Church altar where the brother dedicates himself: profession is a Eucharistic sacrifice, a baptismal plunge in the death and the resurrection of Christ. “This sacred bread reminds you how much you must love the unity. Was the bread made from a single grain? Is it not composed of a great number of grains of wheat? But before entering into the composition of this bread, they were separate. It is the water that united them after they had been ground”.
The daily Eucharist is thus the source and the high point of the day and the Liturgical Hours became an extension of this return to the centre. In canonical communities, communal life and the placing in common of property, like the coming together around the Eucharistic table. intend to bear tangible witness, in the eyes of the world, to the possibility of attaining the body of Christ.
[updated on the 03.11.05]
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Canonical life
Those who embark on the canonical life must give up personal possessions and seek the brotherly life, but, unlike monks, they do not withdraw from the world. (read more)
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