For many Catholics, one of the most recognizable liturgical orations is the Collect for Corpus Christi, also used at the conclusion of Benediction:

_{O God, who in this wonderful Sacrament
have left us a memorial of your Passion,
grant us, we pray,
so to revere the sacred mysteries of your Body and Blood
that we may always experience in ourselves
the fruits of your redemption.
Who live and reign…}¹

This prayer asks the Lord Jesus to allow us, members of the Church, to revere the Eucharist so that we may “always experience in ourselves the fruits of [his] redemption.” The Catholic faith is experiential and sacramental. Indeed, the Church uses material objects (such as bread, wine, and water) to point to and make present God’s unimaginable power and grace. This oration requests a direct experience of the fruits of Christ’s redemption.

As Sacrosanctum Concilium (SC) states, “In the liturgy, the sanctification of man is signified by signs perceptible to the senses…” (7). While worship is aimed toward the glorification of God and our sanctification, our liturgical actions, especially the sacraments, can have fruits or effects that we can experience even in this world. These effects are intimately connected to our redemption, since both our salvation and the efficacy of the Church’s liturgies flow from the Paschal Mystery of Christ. These experiences, then, are an important part of the way God divinizes us through our participation in the liturgy—as “perceptible signs” of theosis.

In Scholastic sacramental theology, each sacrament has three aspects: the sacramentum tantum (the sacramental signs), the res et sacramentum (what the sacrament immediately signifies and effects), and the res tantum (the ultimate reality or grace that the sacrament points to). In the case of the Eucharist, St. Thomas Aquinas explains that the sacramentum tantum is the bread and the wine, the res et sacramentum is the true Body of Christ, and the res tantum is the unity of the Mystical Body.² St. Thomas elaborates further on the “effects” of the Eucharist, such as attainment of glory, forgiveness of venial sins, and the preservation from future sins.³

Closer to our time, the Catechism of the Catholic Church discusses the “fruits of Holy Communion” (1391-1401). These fruits include an increase of union with Christ, separation from sin, wiping away of venial sins, preservation from future mortal sins, unity of the Mystical Body, commitment to the poor, and the unity of Christians.

While these teachings are certainly true and valid, they are by no means exhaustive. Another important—and often neglected—source of theology regarding the “fruits” of the Eucharist is the liturgy itself. As a discipline, liturgical theology takes the liturgical celebration as its starting point, considering aspects that are both written (e.g., prayers, rubrics, readings, calendars, musical notations) and unwritten (e.g., art, architecture, symbols, time) as sources and objects of theological inquiry. One of the most direct expressions of the fruits of the Eucharist in the liturgy comes from the Prayers after Communion.

The Prayer after Communion

Compared to Eastern liturgical rites, the Roman Rite has a distinct feature of having a variable Post-Communion Prayer recited or chanted before the final blessing and dismissal. Indeed, the Missal provides a different prayer every week or even every day, depending on the liturgical season or particular celebration. The amended third typical edition of the Missale Romanum, published in 2008, is the latest edition of the post-Vatican II Missal. It contains 491 Prayers after Communion spread among various sections, including the Proper of Time, Proper of Saints, Commons, Ritual Masses, Masses for Various Needs, Votive Masses, and Masses for the Dead.

According to the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, the Post-Communion Prayer is one of the three “orations” that the presiding priest offers to God in the name of the entire assembly (30). These orations include the Collect (which serves as the opening prayer), the Prayer over the Offerings (which connects the Preparation of the Gifts to the Eucharistic Prayer), and the Prayer after Communion (which serves as the bridge between the reception of Holy Communion and the Concluding Rites).

Among these orations, the Prayer after Communion is generally very succinct. It is easy to miss the message of these prayers, especially in parish settings, as they are usually followed (or preceded) by long announcements. It is also unfortunate that some of the faithful immediately leave after receiving Communion, which prevents them from hearing this prayer.

While liturgical prayers are primarily directed and addressed to God, liturgical theology seeks to unpack the theological richness of the content of these prayers, which can serve as catechetical tools. Orations have much to tell us about who God is, what he has done (and continues to do), who we are as a Church, what we need, and the graces that we ultimately hope for. In particular, the Post-Communion Prayer acknowledges the sacred action that we have just completed in the liturgy (offering and receiving the Body and Blood of Christ) and in light of this, the prayer offers a petition that looks forward to the eschatological fulfillment of Christ’s promises. The Post-Communion Prayers, then, can be a good “source” to help us better appreciate the Church’s understanding of the fruits of the Eucharist in her worship.

Gaudium and Laetitia

Among the 491 Post-Communion Prayers in the 2008 Missale Romanum, there are 33 with forms of gaudium and 31 with variations of laetitia. The variations on these two words for “joy” come in the form of nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs associated with these terms.

In Latin, the terms gaudium and laetitia have proved important as evidenced by the designations “Gaudete Sunday” for the Third Sunday of Advent and “Laetare Sunday” for the Fourth Sunday of Lent. These labels, based on the incipits of the celebrations’ respective introits, underscore how even in restrained and penitential seasons, the Church cannot suppress the joy of anticipating the most central mysteries of our faith—the Incarnation and the Paschal Mystery. While there are other Latin words for joy and happiness, such as exsultatio, iubilatio, hilaritas, and felicitas, the terms gaudium and laetitia can serve as a good starting point in considering joy as a fruit of the Eucharist.

In her doctoral dissertation, the Latinist Claire-Marie Duval conducted a semantic study of these two terms.⁴ She enumerates at least eight senses of gaudium and at least 14 meanings of laetitia in classical Latin. She explains that the Roman orator Cicero (106-43 BC) imposed a Stoic distinction between these two terms, characterizing gaudium as a rational and virtuous kind of joy, and laetitia as an extravagant and excessive kind of gladness.⁵ While Cicero’s influence can be seen in Latin lexicons that still report an opposition between gaudium and laetitia,⁶ the Roman Rite from the earliest surviving liturgical books has never shied away from using both of these terms in a positive light, especially in the Prayers after Communion.

Oftentimes, orations use these terms interchangeably to express joy (with their use depending on which word or form fits better in the rhythmic cadence of the prayer), though at times they convey specific aspects of joy. On the one hand, gaudium can express the joy of encounter as well as the joy of hearing good news; on the other hand, laetitia can entail a fertile kind of gladness, often used when commemorating the fruitful motherhood of the Virgin Mary or the fertility of martyrdom (as Tertullian famously stated, “The blood of Christians is seed [of the Church]”⁷).

While the presence of these terms in orations is important in itself, their use in Prayers after Communion takes on even greater significance because these formulae articulate more explicitly the way in which joy is connected to the liturgical celebration and the reception of Holy Communion. Below is one example of a Post-Communion that features forms of both gaudium and laetitia, from the Feast of St. Matthew on September 21. It is my literal translation of the Latin text:

_{As sharers of the saving joy (gaudii), O Lord,
with which the glad (laetus) blessed Matthew
welcomed the Savior as a table companion in his home,
grant that we may always be nourished by the food of him
who did not come to call the just but sinners to salvation.
Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.}⁸

In this example, the presence of both “gaudii” (gaudium in the genitive case) and “laetus” (an adjectival form of laetitia) highlights the intense joy related to encountering Jesus and dining with him. The first part of the prayer recalls St. Matthew welcoming the Savior in his home as a guest at his table after Jesus called the tax collector to follow him, a reference to Matthew 9:9-13 and Luke 5:27-32. This visit involved a “great banquet” as described in Luke 5:29—indeed, a very joyful occasion. The prayer equates the “saving joy” experienced by the faithful in the liturgical celebration with St. Matthew’s own gladness at Jesus’ bodily presence in his house. It then points to the Eucharist as being the food of Christ that brings nourishment.

It is very easy to take our celebrations of the Eucharist for granted—to attend Mass and receive Communion in a mechanical or distracted way. Yet the prayer above reminds us that we are participating in nothing less than the divine banquet, a truly joyous event in which Christ is especially present and feeds us with his own Body and Blood. Therefore, Christ is the ultimate host. While the banquet in the Evangelist’s house occurred in time and was likely finished in a few hours, the feast that we look forward to is eternal. The Mass, then, is a foretaste of that eschatological celebration that we long to experience with never-ending gladness—the joy of satiation and fulfillment in the presence of God.

“Overcome with Paschal Joy”

The Church’s celebration of the Eucharist is a bold expression of our faithful union with Christ during this “in-between” period of “there but not yet.” On the one hand, we still wait for the definitive fulfillment of our redemption; on the other hand, our liturgical life already gives us a glimpse of the heavenly realities awaiting us.

As we advance on this earthly pilgrimage, God continues to feed and accompany us through the liturgy and the sacraments. This journey is a “paschal” one, as the Lord guides his people to “pass over” from death to life, from sin to forgiveness, from darkness to light. Jesus’ own Paschal Mystery involved his Passion, Death, and Resurrection, leading to his glorious Ascension (SC, 5).

While believers know about the importance of Christ’s Ascension, this mystery is often eclipsed by other saving events, such as the Resurrection and the descent of the Holy Spirit during Pentecost. The liturgical theologian Joris Geldhof highlights the significance of the Church’s commemoration of the Ascension, describing it as “the feast of divinization or theosis” because this mystery celebrates the passage “from humanity… into the divine, or from temporality into eternity, per visibilia ad invisibilia [from the visible to the invisible].”⁹

He points to joy as a central theme in Pope St. Leo the Great’s Ascension sermons, characterizing it as a “major effect” of sharing in the mystery of salvation. Geldhof explains, “Phenomenologically speaking, joy is very appropriate to conceptualize the effect of sacramental-liturgical-mysterial celebrations, for it avoids both the concrete material level and the physical level of mere emotion. The liturgy is not something which makes one feel happy but is rather a fitting and privileged, and maybe in one way or another, the one and only, source of continued paschal joy.”¹⁰

Joy, indeed, has a strong paschal connection. One proof of this can be found in the Prefaces of Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost in the Missal, all of which conclude with the statement “Therefore, overcome with paschal joy…” (“Quapropter, profusis paschalibus gaudiis…”).¹¹ God, therefore, gladdens us as he feeds us with the Paschal Lamb and thus enables us to “pass over” from the sufferings of this world toward the glory of his Son’s Resurrection. This foretaste of heavenly joy does not come from the world but is a fruit of our actual participation in the liturgy, worthy reception of Communion, and mindful observance of our Eucharistic mission, by which God makes us divine.

1. The Roman Missal, third typical edition (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2011), 499.
2. For a treatment of this in the Summa Theologiae, see III, q. 73, a. 3 and III, q. 73, a. 6.
3. See Summa Theologiae III, q. 79.
4. Claire-Marie Duval, “Gaudium et laetitia: Etude semantique” (PhD diss, Universite Francois Rabelais-Tours, 2002).
5. Duval, “Gaudium et laetitia,” 237-294. See also Marcus Tullius Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, 4.6, trans. John Edward King, Loeb Classical Library 141 (1927, repr., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013), 340-341.
6. For instance, see Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary Founded on Andrews’ Edition of Freund’s Latin Dictionary Revised, Enlarged, and in Great Part Rewritten (1879; Chapel-en-le-Frith: Nigel Gourlay, 2020), s.v. “gaudium”; Egidio Forcellini, Giuseppe Furlanetto, Francesco Corradini and Joseph Perin, eds., Lexicon totius latinitatis (Padua: Typis seminarii, 1940), s.v. “gaudium”; Thesaurus linguae latinae (Leipzig: B.G. Teubneri, 1900-), s.v. “gaudium.”
7. Tertullian, Apology, 50.13, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3, eds. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, trans. S. Thelwall (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885), rev. and ed. by Kevin Knight for New Advent, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0301.htm.
8. Emphases mine. The original Latin text states: “Salutaris gaudii participes, Domine, quo laetus Salvatorem in domo sua convivam beatus Matthaeus excepit, da, ut cibo semper reficiamur illius, qui non iustos sed peccatores vocare venit ad salutem. Qui vivit et regnat in saecula saeculorum.” Missale Romanum, editio typica tertia reimpressio emendata (Vatican City: Typis Vaticanis, 2008), 834. For the official English translation, see The Roman Missal, 953.
9. Joris Geldhof, “Paschal Joy Continued: Exploring Leo the Great’s Theology of Christ’s Ascension into Heaven,” in Preaching after Easter: Mid-Pentecost, Ascension, and Pentecost in Late Antiquity, eds. Richard W. Bishop, Johan Leemans, and Hajnalka Tamas (Boston: Brill, 2016), 398.
10. Geldhof, “Paschal Joy Continued,” 403.
11. The Roman Missal, 454-456 and 558-571; for the Latin original, see Missale Romanum, 445-447 and 530-536.