Eucharist is a community sacrament

Over the centuries, the emphasis within the Christian life - and, within this, on the Eucharist - has shifted between communal and individual dimensions. From the fragmentary evidence available regarding liturgical practice in the early Irish or Celtic Church, it is reasonable to infer that the Eucharist was a central act of the community. This was certainly the case in monastic settings such as the island of Iona, where Saint Columba (Colmcille) lived after his departure from Ireland.

Today, 9 June, Christians in Ireland commemorate St Colmcille, one of the three patron saints of Ireland, alongside Saints Patrick and Brigid. Many places bear his name, including Doire Cholmcille (Derry) and Sord Cholmcille (Swords), just north of Dublin.

Colmcille lived in the sixth century, at a time when liturgical traditions in much of Europe had reached a significant stage of development and diversity, even if not yet full uniformity.

The scholar Fergus Ryan, in his article, ‘Eucharistic Concelebration & Adomnán’s Life of Saint Columba’, published in Ex Fonte – Journal of Ecumenical Studies in Liturgy (2023), concludes that:

there is every reason to consider the incident described by Adomnán as a witness to concelebration both by presbyters among themselves and with a presiding bishop.

This is an important insight in relation to something often taken for granted today: the concelebration of the Mass by priests, with or without a bishop, is not simply a post–Vatican II development in the Roman Catholic Church, but has roots in much earlier liturgical practice.