The Eucharist: The Life of the Church
By
Bishop Edward K. Braxton
Every year on Holy Thursday Pope John Paul II has written a special letter to the bishops and priests of the Catholic Church all over the world. This year, the 25th of his pontificate, the Holy Father has written a longer and more formal letter and addressed it to the entire Catholic world. It is on the subject of the Holy Eucharist, which was instituted by Christ on Holy Thursday at the Last Supper. The encyclical letter, "Ecclesia De Eucharistia', ("On the Eucharist and its relationship to the Church") is an important summary of Catholic beliefs about the living gift of divine love. The entire document is summed up in its opening sentence. "The church draws her life from the Eucharist."
I urge all priests, deacons, religious education coordinators and catechists to study this document carefully and to share its rich insights with the people they serve. The Holy Father’s letter can be obtained from our diocesan web site - www.lcdiocese.org. In this column I wish to share with you some of the letter’s key passages.
The Pope begins by stressing the need for us all to rekindle our sense of profound amazement over the great gift of the Eucharist.
"By the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost the church was born. A decisive moment in her taking shape was certainly the institution of the Eucharist in the Upper Room. Her foundation and wellspring is the whole "Easter triduum," but this is as it were gathered up, foreshadowed and "concentrated" for ever in the gift of the Eucharist. In this gift Jesus Christ entrusted to his church the perennial making present of the paschal mystery. With it He brought about a mysterious "oneness in time' between that triduum and the passage of the centuries.
"The thought of this leads us to profound amazement and gratitude. In the paschal event and the Eucharist which makes it present throughout the centuries, there is a truly enormous "capacity" which embraces all of history as the recipient of the grace of the redemption. This amazement should always fill the church assembled for the celebration of the Eucharist. But in a special way it should fill the minister of the Eucharist. For it is he who, by the authority given him in the sacrament of priestly ordination, effects the consecration. It is he who says with the power coming to him from Christ in the Upper Room: "This is my body which will be given up for you. This is the cup of my blood, poured out for you...". The priest says these words, or rather he puts his voice at the disposal of the one who spoke these words in the Upper Room and who desires that they should be repeated in every generation." (#5)
The Pontiff stresses that the Church draws her life from the "living bread" of the Eucharist and shares his personal amazement at celebrating Mass all over the world.
"When I think of the Eucharist and look at my life as a priest, as a bishop and as the Successor of Peter, I naturally recall the many times and places in which I was able to celebrate it. I remember the parish church of Niegowic, where I had my first pastoral assignment, the collegiate church of St. Florian in Krakow, Wawel Cathedral, St. Peter's Basilica and so many basilicas and churches in Rome and throughout the world. I have been able to celebrate holy Mass in chapels built along mountain paths, on lakeshores and seacoasts; I have celebrated it on altars built in stadiums and in city squares.
"This varied scenario of celebrations of the Eucharist has given me a powerful experience of its universal and, so to speak, cosmic character. Yes, cosmic! Because even when it is celebrated on the humble altar of a country church, the Eucharist is always in some way celebrated on the altar of the world. It unites heaven and earth. It embraces and permeates all creation. The Son of God became man in order to restore all creation, in one supreme act of praise, to the one who made it from nothing. He, the eternal high priest who by the blood of his cross entered the eternal sanctuary, thus gives back to the Creator and Father all creation redeemed. He does so through the priestly ministry of the Church, to the glory of the most Holy Trinity. Truly this is the "mysterium fidei" (mystery of faith) which is accomplished in the Eucharist: The world which came forth from the hands of God the Creator now returns to Him redeemed by Christ." (#8)
John Paul reminds us that it is the risen Christ who is present in the Eucharist and that this presence is an awesome mystery.
"In giving his sacrifice to the Church, Christ has also made his own the spiritual sacrifice of the Church, which is called to offer herself in union with the sacrifice of Christ. This is the teaching of the Second Vatican Council concerning all the faithful: "Taking part in the eucharistic sacrifice, which is the source and summit of the whole Christian life, they offer the divine victim to God, and offer themselves along with it."" (#13)
"Christ's Passover includes not only His passion and death, but also His resurrection. This is recalled by the assembly's acclamation following the consecration: "We proclaim your resurrection." The eucharistic sacrifice makes present not only the mystery of the Savior's passion and death, but also the mystery of the resurrection which crowned his sacrifice. It is as the living and risen one that Christ can become in the Eucharist the "bread of life" (Jn 6:35, 48), the "living bread" (Jn 6:51). St. Ambrose reminded the newly-initiated that the Eucharist applies the event of the resurrection to their lives: "Today Christ is yours, yet each day He rises again for you." St. Cyril of Alexandria also makes clear that sharing in the sacred mysteries "is a true confession and a remembrance that the Lord died and returned to life for us and on our behalf."" (#14)
"The sacramental re-presentation of Christ's sacrifice, crowned by the resurrection, in the Mass involves a most special presence which -- in the words of Paul VI -- "is called 'real' not as a way of excluding all other types of presence as if they were 'not real,' but because it is a presence in the fullest sense: a substantial presence whereby Christ, the God-Man, is wholly and entirely present." This sets forth once more the perennially valid teaching of the Council of Trent: "The consecration of the bread and wine effects the change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood." Truly the Eucharist is a "mysterium fidei," a mystery which surpasses our understanding and can only be received in faith. "Do not see," St. Cyril of Jerusalem exhorts, "in the bread and wine merely natural elements, because the Lord has expressly said that they are His body and His blood: Faith assures you of this, though your senses suggest otherwise."" (#15)
Because of this real presence, the Eucharist is a ‘glimpse of heaven.’
"The Eucharist is a straining towards the goal, a foretaste of the fullness of joy promised by Christ (cf. Jn 15:11); it is in some way the anticipation of heaven, the "pledge of future glory." In the Eucharist, everything speaks of confident waiting "in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ." Those who feed on Christ in the Eucharist need not wait until the hereafter to receive eternal life: They already possess it on earth, as the first fruits of a future fullness which will embrace man in his totality. For in the Eucharist we also receive the pledge of our bodily resurrection at the end of the world: "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day" (Jn 6:54). This pledge of the future resurrection comes from the fact that the flesh of the Son of Man, given as food, is his body in its glorious state after the resurrection. St. Ignatius of Antioch rightly defined the eucharistic bread as "a medicine of immortality, an antidote to death."" (#18)
"The Eucharist expresses and reinforces our communion with the Church in heaven. It is not by chance that the Eastern anaphoras and the Latin eucharistic Prayers honor Mary, the ever-virgin mother of Jesus Christ our Lord and God, the angels, the holy apostles, the glorious martyrs and all the saints. This is an aspect of the Eucharist which merits greater attention: In celebrating the sacrifice of the Lamb, we are united to the heavenly "liturgy" and become part of that great multitude which cries out: "Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!" (Rev 7:10). The Eucharist is truly a glimpse of heaven appearing on earth. It is a glorious ray of the heavenly Jerusalem which pierces the clouds of our history and lights up our journey." (#19)
Noting that he has often drawn strength from his time of prayer in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, the Pope invites us to do the same.
"The worship of the Eucharist outside of the Mass is of inestimable value. This worship is strictly linked to the celebration of the eucharistic sacrifice. The presence of Christ under the sacred species reserved after Mass derives from the celebration of the sacrifice and is directed towards communion, both sacramental and spiritual. It is the responsibility of pastors to encourage, also by their personal witness, the practice of eucharistic adoration, and exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in particular, as well as prayer of adoration before Christ.
"It is pleasant to spend time with him, to lie close to his breast like the Beloved Disciple and to feel the infinite love present in his heart. If in our time Christians must be distinguished above all by the "art of prayer," how can we not feel a renewed need to spend time in spiritual converse, in silent adoration, in heartfelt love before Christ present in the most holy sacrament? How often, dear brothers and sisters, have I experienced this, and drawn from it strength, consolation and support!" (#25)
The Encyclical summarizes the Church’s belief about the unique ministry of priests in the Eucharist and answers some ecumenical questions about Protestants and Catholics sharing the Eucharist.
"The faithful join in the offering of the Eucharist by virtue of their royal priesthood, yet it is the ordained priest who, acting in the person of Christ, brings about the eucharistic sacrifice and offers it to God in the name of all the people. For this reason, the Roman Missal prescribes that only the priest should recite the Eucharistic Prayer, while the people participate in faith and in silence."(#28)
"The expression repeatedly employed by the Second Vatican Council, according to which "the ministerial priest, acting in the person of Christ, brings about the eucharistic sacrifice," was already firmly rooted in papal teaching. The phrase "in persona Christi" "means more than offering 'in the name of' or 'in the place of' Christ. 'In persona' means in specific sacramental identification with the eternal high priest who is the author and principal subject of this sacrifice of His, a sacrifice in which, in truth, no one can take His place." The ministry of priests who have received the sacrament of holy orders, in the economy of salvation chosen by Christ, makes clear that the Eucharist which they celebrate is a gift which radically transcends the power of the assembly and is in any event essential for validly linking the eucharistic consecration to the sacrifice of the cross and to the Last Supper.
"The assembly gathered together for the celebration of the Eucharist, if it is to be a truly eucharistic assembly, absolutely requires the presence of an ordained priest as its president. On the other hand, the community is by itself incapable of providing an ordained minister. This minister is a gift which the assembly receives through episcopal succession going back to the apostles. It is the bishop who, through the sacrament of holy orders, makes a new presbyter (priest) by conferring upon him the power to consecrate the Eucharist. Consequently, "the eucharistic mystery cannot be celebrated in any community except by an ordained priest. (#29)
"The Catholic Church's teaching on the relationship between priestly ministry and the Eucharist and her teaching on the eucharistic sacrifice have both been the subject in recent decades of a fruitful dialogue in the area of ecumenism. We must give thanks to the Blessed Trinity for the significant progress and convergence achieved in this regard, which lead us to hope one day for a full sharing of faith. Nonetheless, the observations of the council concerning the ecclesial communities which arose in the West from the 16th century onwards and are separated from the Catholic Church remain fully pertinent: "The ecclesial communities separated from us lack that fullness of unity with us which should flow from baptism, and we believe that especially, because of the lack of the sacrament of orders they have not preserved the genuine and total reality of the eucharistic mystery. Nevertheless, when they commemorate the Lord's death and resurrection in the holy supper, they profess that it signifies life in communion with Christ and they await his coming in glory."
"The Catholic faithful, therefore, while respecting the religious convictions of Christians of other traditions, must refrain from receiving the communion distributed in their celebrations, so as not to condone an ambiguity about the nature of the Eucharist. This would result in slowing the progress being made towards full visible unity. Similarly, it is unthinkable to substitute for Sunday Mass ecumenical celebrations of the word or services of common prayer with Christians from the aforementioned ecclesial communities, or even participation in their own liturgical services. Such celebrations and services, however praiseworthy in certain situations, prepare for the goal of full communion, including eucharistic communion, but they cannot replace it.
"The fact that the power of consecrating the Eucharist has been entrusted only to bishops and priests does not represent any kind of belittlement of the rest of the people of God, for in the communion of the one body of Christ which is the church this gift redounds to the benefit of all. (#30)
His Holiness expresses a great concern for those communities, like our own in the Diocese of Lake Charles, that do not have a sufficient number of priests. He recognizes that a growing number of parishes are not able to experience the celebration of mass every Sunday. This should cause us to strengthen our efforts to nurture vocations to the priesthood.
"The centrality of the Eucharist in the life and ministry of priests is the basis of its centrality in the pastoral promotion of priestly vocations. It is in the Eucharist that prayer for vocations is most closely united to the prayer of Christ the eternal high priest. At the same time the diligence of priests in carrying out their eucharistic ministry, together with the conscious, active and fruitful participation of the faithful in the Eucharist, provides young men with a powerful example and incentive for responding generously to God's call. Often it is the example of a priest's fervent pastoral charity which the Lord uses to sow and to bring to fruition in a young man's heart the seed of a priestly calling." (#31)
"All of this shows how distressing and irregular is the situation of a Christian community which, despite having sufficient numbers and variety of faithful to form a parish, does not have a priest to lead it. Parishes are communities of the baptized who express and affirm their identity above all through the celebration of the eucharistic sacrifice. But this requires the presence of a presbyter, who alone is qualified to offer the Eucharist "in persona Christi." When a community lacks a priest, attempts are rightly made somehow to remedy the situation so that it can continue its Sunday celebrations, and those religious and laity who lead their brothers and sisters in prayer exercise in a praiseworthy way the common priesthood of all the faithful based on the grace of baptism. But such solutions must be considered merely temporary, while the community awaits a priest.
"The sacramental incompleteness of these celebrations should above all inspire the whole community to pray with greater fervor that the Lord will send laborers into his harvest (cf. Mt 9:38). It should also be an incentive to mobilize all the resources needed for an adequate pastoral promotion of vocations, without yielding to the temptation to seek solutions which lower the moral and formative standards demanded of candidates for the priesthood." (#32)
"When, due to the scarcity of priests, nonordained members of the faithful are entrusted with a share in the pastoral care of a parish, they should bear in mind that -- as the Second Vatican Council teaches -- "no Christian community can be built up unless it has its basis and center in the celebration of the most holy Eucharist." They have a responsibility, therefore, to keep alive in the community a genuine "hunger" for the Eucharist, so that no opportunity for the celebration of Mass will ever be missed." (#33)
The Papal Letter gives serious consideration to the question of ‘visible’ and ‘invisible’ unity in the communion of the Church. And in this context the letter recalls the Catholic teaching that those who know that they are in the state of grave sin should not receive the Eucharist without first participating in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
"The celebration of the Eucharist, however, cannot be the starting-point for communion; it presupposes that communion already exists, a communion which it seeks to consolidate and bring to perfection. The sacrament is an expression of this bond of communion both in its invisible dimension, which, in Christ and through the working of the Holy Spirit, unites us to the Father and among ourselves, and in its visible dimension, which entails communion in the teaching of the apostles, in the sacraments and in the church's hierarchical order. The profound relationship between the invisible and the visible elements of ecclesial communion is constitutive of the church as the sacrament of salvation. Only in this context can there be a legitimate celebration of the Eucharist and true participation in it. Consequently it is an intrinsic requirement of the Eucharist that it should be celebrated in communion, and specifically maintaining the various bonds of that communion intact." (#35)
"Invisible communion, though by its nature always growing, presupposes the life of grace, by which we become "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pt 1:4), and the practice of the virtues of faith, hope and love. Only in this way do we have true communion with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Nor is faith sufficient; we must persevere in sanctifying grace and love, remaining within the church "bodily" as well as "in our heart"; what is required, in the words of St. Paul, is "faith working through love"" (Gal 5:6).
"Keeping these invisible bonds intact is a specific moral duty incumbent upon Christians who wish to participate fully in the Eucharist by receiving the body and blood of Christ. The apostle Paul appeals to this duty when he warns: "Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup" (1 Cor 11:28). The Catechism of the Catholic Church rightly stipulates that "anyone conscious of a grave sin must receive the sacrament of reconciliation before coming to communion." I therefore desire to reaffirm that in the church there remains in force, now and in the future, the rule by which the Council of Trent gave concrete expression to the apostle Paul's stern warning when it affirmed that, in order to receive the Eucharist in a worthy manner, "one must first confess one's sins, when one is aware of mortal sin." (#36)
"The two sacraments of the Eucharist and penance are very closely connected. Because the Eucharist makes present the redeeming sacrifice of the cross, perpetuating it sacramentally, it naturally gives rise to a continuous need for conversion, for a personal response to the appeal made by St. Paul to the Christians of Corinth: "We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God" (2 Cor 5:20). If a Christian's conscience is burdened by serious sin, then the path of penance through the sacrament of reconciliation becomes necessary for full participation in the eucharistic sacrifice.
"The judgment of one's state of grace obviously belongs only to the person involved, since it is a question of examining one's conscience. However, in cases of outward conduct which is seriously, clearly and steadfastly contrary to the moral norm, the church, in her pastoral concern for the good order of the community and out of respect for the sacrament, cannot fail to feel directly involved. The Code of Canon Law refers to this situation of a manifest lack of proper moral disposition when it states that those who "obstinately persist in manifest grave sin" are not to be admitted to eucharistic communion." (#37)
Towards the end of the Encyclical Pope John Paul II examines the difficult ecumenical question of intercommunion. Some Protestant Christian communities invite all in their congregations to partake of their communion services without regard to their church affiliation or beliefs about the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. This ‘open’ communion is seen as a sign of the unity we hope to attain.
For Catholics shares Eucharist is a sign of the unity that actually exists.
"In considering the Eucharist as the sacrament of ecclesial communion, there is one subject which, due to its importance, must not be overlooked: I am referring to the relationship of the Eucharist to ecumenical activity. We should all give thanks to the Blessed Trinity for the many members of the faithful throughout the world who in recent decades have felt an ardent desire for unity among all Christians. The Second Vatican Council, at the beginning of its Decree on Ecumenism, sees this as a special gift of God. It was an efficacious grace which inspired us, the sons and daughters of the Catholic Church and our brothers and sisters from other churches and ecclesial communities, to set forth on the path of ecumenism.
"Our longing for the goal of unity prompts us to turn to the Eucharist, which is the supreme sacrament of the unity of the people of God, in as much as it is the apt expression and the unsurpassable source of that unity. In the celebration of the eucharistic sacrifice the church prays that God, the father of mercies, will grant his children the fullness of the Holy Spirit so that they may become one body and one spirit in Christ. (91) In raising this prayer to the Father of Lights, from whom comes every good endowment and every perfect gift (cf. Jas 1:17), the church believes that she will be heard, for she prays in union with Christ her head and spouse, who takes up this plea of his bride and joins it to that of his own redemptive sacrifice." (#43)
"Precisely because the church's unity, which the Eucharist brings about through the Lord's sacrifice and by communion in his body and blood, absolutely requires full communion in the bonds of the profession of faith, the sacraments and ecclesiastical governance, it is not possible to celebrate together the same eucharistic liturgy until those bonds are fully re-established. Any such concelebration would not be a valid means, and might well prove instead to be an obstacle, to the attainment of full communion, by weakening the sense of how far we remain from this goal and by introducing or exacerbating ambiguities with regard to one or another truth of the faith. The path towards full unity can only be undertaken in truth.
"I would like nonetheless to reaffirm what I said in my encyclical letter "Ut Unum Sint" after having acknowledged the impossibility of eucharistic sharing: "And yet we do have a burning desire to join in celebrating the one Eucharist of the Lord, and this desire itself is already a common prayer of praise, a single supplication. Together we speak to the Father and increasingly we do so 'with one heart.'" (#44)
"While it is never legitimate to concelebrate in the absence of full communion, the same is not true with respect to the administration of the Eucharist under special circumstances, to individual persons belonging to churches or ecclesial communities not in full communion with the Catholic Church. In this case, in fact, the intention is to meet a grave spiritual need for the eternal salvation of an individual believer, not to bring about an intercommunion which remains impossible until the visible bonds of ecclesial communion are fully re-established."
"This was the approach taken by the Second Vatican Council when it gave guidelines for responding to Eastern Christians separated in good faith from the Catholic Church, who spontaneously ask to receive the Eucharist from a Catholic minister and are properly disposed. This approach was then ratified by both codes, which also consider -- with necessary modifications -- the case of other non-Eastern Christians who are not in full communion with the Catholic Church. (#45)
"In my encyclical "Ut Unum Sint" I expressed my own appreciation of these norms, which make it possible to provide for the salvation of souls with proper discernment: "It is a source of joy to note that Catholic ministers are able, in certain particular cases, to administer the sacraments of the Eucharist, penance and anointing of the sick to Christians who are not in full communion with the Catholic Church but who greatly desire to receive these sacraments, freely request them and manifest the faith which the Catholic Church professes with regard to these sacraments. Conversely, in specific cases and in particular circumstances, Catholics too can request these same sacraments from ministers of churches in which these sacraments are valid."
"These conditions, from which no dispensation can be given, must be carefully respected, even though they deal with specific individual cases, because the denial of one or more truths of the faith regarding these sacraments and, among these, the truth regarding the need of the ministerial priesthood for their validity, renders the person asking improperly disposed to legitimately receiving them. And the opposite is also true: Catholics may not receive Communion in those communities which lack a valid sacrament of orders.
"The faithful observance of the body of norms established in this area is a manifestation and, at the same time, a guarantee of our love for Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, for our brothers and sisters of different Christian confessions -- who have a right to our witness to the truth -- and for the cause itself of the promotion of unity." (#46)
The Encyclical, the 14th in the Holy Father’s 25 years as Bishop of Rome, ends with these beautiful words.
"Let us take our place, dear brothers and sisters, at the school of the saints, who are the great interpreters of true eucharistic piety. In them the theology of the Eucharist takes on all the splendor of a lived reality; it becomes "contagious" and, in a manner of speaking, it "warms our hearts." Above all, let us listen to Mary most holy, in whom the mystery of the Eucharist appears, more than in anyone else, as a mystery of light. Gazing upon Mary, we come to know the transforming power present in the Eucharist. In her we see the world renewed in love.
"In the humble signs of bread and wine, changed into his body and blood, Christ walks beside us as our strength and our food for the journey, and he enables us to become, for everyone, witnesses of hope. If, in the presence of this mystery, reason experiences its limits, the heart, enlightened by the grace of the Holy Spirit, clearly sees the response that is demanded and bows low in adoration and unbounded love." (#62)