ENCYCLICAL LETTER
ECCLESIA DE EUCHARISTIA
OF HIS HOLINESS
POPE JOHN PAUL II
TO THE BISHOPS
PRIESTS AND DEACONS
MEN AND WOMEN
IN THE CONSECRATED LIFE
AND ALL THE LAY FAITHFUL
ON THE EUCHARIST
IN ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THE CHURCH
INTRODUCTION
1. The Church draws her life from the Eucharist.
This truth does not simply express a daily experience of faith, but
recapitulates the heart of the mystery of the Church. In a
variety of ways she joyfully experiences the constant fulfilment of
the promise: “Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age”
(Mt 28:20), but in the Holy Eucharist, through the changing
of bread and wine into the body and blood of the Lord, she rejoices
in this presence with unique intensity. Ever since Pentecost, when
the Church, the People of the New Covenant, began her pilgrim
journey towards her heavenly homeland, the Divine Sacrament has
continued to mark the passing of her days, filling them with
confident hope.
The Second Vatican Council rightly proclaimed that
the Eucharistic sacrifice is “the source and summit of the
Christian life”.1 “For the most holy Eucharist
contains the Church's entire spiritual wealth: Christ himself, our
passover and living bread. Through his own flesh, now made living
and life-giving by the Holy Spirit, he offers life to men”.2 Consequently
the gaze of the Church is constantly turned to her Lord, present in
the Sacrament of the Altar, in which she discovers the full
manifestation of his boundless love.
2. During the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 I had
an opportunity to celebrate the Eucharist in the Cenacle of
Jerusalem where, according to tradition, it was first celebrated by
Jesus himself. The Upper Room was where this most holy Sacrament
was instituted. It is there that Christ took bread, broke it and
gave it to his disciples, saying: “Take this, all of you, and eat
it: this is my body which will be given up for you” (cf. Mk
26:26; Lk 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24). Then he took the cup of
wine and said to them: “Take this, all of you and drink from it:
this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting
covenant. It will be shed for you and for all, so that sins may be
forgiven” (cf. Mt 14:24; Lk 22:20; 1 Cor
11:25). I am grateful to the Lord Jesus for allowing me to repeat in
that same place, in obedience to his command: “Do this in memory
of me” (Lk 22:19), the words which he spoke two thousand
years ago.
Did the Apostles who took part in the Last Supper
understand the meaning of the words spoken by Christ? Perhaps not.
Those words would only be fully clear at the end of the Triduum
sacrum, the time from Thursday evening to Sunday morning. Those
days embrace the myste- rium paschale; they also embrace the
mysterium eucharisticum.
3. The Church was born of the paschal mystery. For
this very reason the Eucharist, which is in an outstanding way the
sacrament of the paschal mystery, stands at the centre of the
Church's life. This is already clear from the earliest images of
the Church found in the Acts of the Apostles: “They devoted
themselves to the Apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking
of bread and the prayers” (2:42). The “breaking of the bread”
refers to the Eucharist. Two thousand years later, we continue to
relive that primordial image of the Church. At every celebration of
the Eucharist, we are spiritually brought back to the paschal
Triduum: to the events of the evening of Holy Thursday, to the Last
Supper and to what followed it. The institution of the Eucharist
sacramentally anticipated the events which were about to take place,
beginning with the agony in Gethsemane. Once again we see Jesus as
he leaves the Upper Room, descends with his disciples to the Kidron
valley and goes to the Garden of Olives. Even today that Garden
shelters some very ancient olive trees. Perhaps they witnessed what
happened beneath their shade that evening, when Christ in prayer was
filled with anguish “and his sweat became like drops of blood
falling down upon the ground” (cf. Lk 22:44). The blood
which shortly before he had given to the Church as the drink of
salvation in the sacrament of the Eucharist, began to be shed;
its outpouring would then be completed on Golgotha to become the
means of our redemption: “Christ... as high priest of the good
things to come..., entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking
not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood, thus securing
an eternal redemption” (Heb 9:11- 12).
4. The hour of our redemption. Although
deeply troubled, Jesus does not flee before his “hour”. “And
what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour?' No, for this
purpose I have come to this hour” (Jn 12:27). He wanted his
disciples to keep him company, yet he had to experience loneliness
and abandonment: “So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch
and pray that you may not enter into temptation” (Mt 26:40-
41). Only John would remain at the foot of the Cross, at the side of
Mary and the faithful women. The agony in Gethsemane was the
introduction to the agony of the Cross on Good Friday. The holy
hour, the hour of the redemption of the world. Whenever the
Eucharist is celebrated at the tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem, there is
an almost tangible return to his “hour”, the hour of his Cross
and glorification. Every priest who celebrates Holy Mass, together
with the Christian community which takes part in it, is led back in
spirit to that place and that hour.
“He was crucified, he suffered death and was
buried; he descended to the dead; on the third day he rose again”.
The words of the profession of faith are echoed by the words of
contemplation and proclamation: “This is the wood of the Cross,
on which hung the Saviour of the world. Come, let us worship”.
This is the invitation which the Church extends to all in the
afternoon hours of Good Friday. She then takes up her song during
the Easter season in order to proclaim: “The Lord is risen from
the tomb; for our sake he hung on the Cross, Alleluia”.
5. “Mysterium fidei! - The Mystery of
Faith!”. When the priest recites or chants these words, all
present acclaim: “We announce your death, O Lord, and we proclaim
your resurrection, until you come in glory”.
In these or similar words the Church, while pointing
to Christ in the mystery of his passion, also reveals her own
mystery: Ecclesia de Eucharistia. By the gift of the Holy
Spirit at Pentecost the Church was born and set out upon the
pathways of the world, yet 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 Triduum paschale, 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 by all those who in the Church ministerially
share in his priesthood.
6. I would like to rekindle this Eucharistic
“amazement” by the present Encyclical Letter, in continuity with
the Jubilee heritage which I have left to the Church in the
Apostolic Letter Novo
Millennio Ineunte and its Marian crowning, Rosarium
Virginis Mariae. To contemplate the face of Christ, and to
contemplate it with Mary, is the “programme” which I have set
before the Church at the dawn of the third millennium, summoning her
to put out into the deep on the sea of history with the enthusiasm
of the new evangelization. To contemplate Christ involves being able
to recognize him wherever he manifests himself, in his many forms of
presence, but above all in the living sacrament of his body and his
blood. The Church draws her life from Christ in the Eucharist;
by him she is fed and by him she is enlightened. The Eucharist is
both a mystery of faith and a “mystery of light”.3 Whenever
the Church celebrates the Eucharist, the faithful can in some way
relive the experience of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus:
“their eyes were opened and they recognized him” (Lk
24:31).
7. From the time I began my ministry as the
Successor of Peter, I have always marked Holy Thursday, the day of
the Eucharist and of the priesthood, by sending a letter to all the
priests of the world. This year, the twenty-fifth of my Pontificate,
I wish to involve the whole Church more fully in this Eucharistic
reflection, also as a way of thanking the Lord for the gift of the
Eucharist and the priesthood: “Gift and Mystery”.4 By
proclaiming the Year of the Rosary, I wish to put this, my
twenty-fifth anniversary, under the aegis of the contemplation of
Christ at the school of Mary. Consequently, I cannot let this
Holy Thursday 2003 pass without halting before the “Eucharistic
face” of Christ and pointing out with new force to the Church the
centrality of the Eucharist.
From it the Church draws her life. From this
“living bread” she draws her nourishment. How could I not feel
the need to urge everyone to experience it ever anew?
8. 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 Niegowić, where I
had my first pastoral assignment, the collegiate church of Saint
Florian in Krakow, Wawel Cathedral, Saint 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 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.
9. The Eucharist, as Christ's saving presence in the
community of the faithful and its spiritual food, is the most
precious possession which the Church can have in her journey through
history. This explains the lively concern which she has
always shown for the Eucharistic mystery, a concern which finds
authoritative expression in the work of the Councils and the Popes.
How can we not admire the doctrinal expositions of the Decrees on
the Most Holy Eucharist and on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
promulgated by the Council of Trent? For centuries those Decrees
guided theology and catechesis, and they are still a dogmatic
reference-point for the continual renewal and growth of God's People
in faith and in love for the Eucharist. In times closer to our own,
three Encyclical Letters should be mentioned: the Encyclical Mirae
Caritatis of Leo XIII (28 May 1902),5 the
Encyclical Mediator
Dei of Pius XII (20 November 1947)6 and the
Encyclical Mysterium
Fidei of Paul VI (3 September 1965).7
The Second Vatican Council, while not issuing a
specific document on the Eucharistic mystery, considered its various
aspects throughout its documents, especially the Dogmatic
Constitution on the Church Lumen
Gentium and the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum
Concilium.
I myself, in the first years of my apostolic
ministry in the Chair of Peter, wrote the Apostolic Letter Dominicae
Cenae (24 February 1980),8 in which I discussed
some aspects of the Eucharistic mystery and its importance for the
life of those who are its ministers. Today I take up anew the thread
of that argument, with even greater emotion and gratitude in my
heart, echoing as it were the word of the Psalmist: “What shall I
render to the Lord for all his bounty to me? I will lift up the cup
of salvation and call on the name of the Lord” (Ps
116:12-13).
10. The Magisterium's commitment to proclaiming the
Eucharistic mystery has been matched by interior growth within the
Christian community. Certainly the liturgical reform inaugurated
by the Council has greatly contributed to a more conscious,
active and fruitful participation in the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar
on the part of the faithful. In many places, adoration of the
Blessed Sacrament is also an important daily practice and
becomes an inexhaustible source of holiness. The devout
participation of the faithful in the Eucharistic procession on the
Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ is a grace from the Lord
which yearly brings joy to those who take part in it.
Other positive signs of Eucharistic faith and love
might also be mentioned.
Unfortunately, alongside these lights, there are
also shadows. In some places the practice of Eucharistic
adoration has been almost completely abandoned. In various parts of
the Church abuses have occurred, leading to confusion with regard to
sound faith and Catholic doctrine concerning this wonderful
sacrament. At times one encounters an extremely reductive
understanding of the Eucharistic mystery. Stripped of its
sacrificial meaning, it is celebrated as if it were simply a
fraternal banquet. Furthermore, the necessity of the ministerial
priesthood, grounded in apostolic succession, is at times obscured
and the sacramental nature of the Eucharist is reduced to its mere
effectiveness as a form of proclamation. This has led here and there
to ecumenical initiatives which, albeit well-intentioned, indulge in
Eucharistic practices contrary to the discipline by which the Church
expresses her faith. How can we not express profound grief at all
this? The Eucharist is too great a gift to tolerate ambiguity and
depreciation.
It is my hope that the present Encyclical Letter
will effectively help to banish the dark clouds of unacceptable
doctrine and practice, so that the Eucharist will continue to shine
forth in all its radiant mystery.
CHAPTER ONE
THE MYSTERY OF FAITH
11. “The Lord Jesus on the night he was
betrayed” (1 Cor 11:23) instituted the Eucharistic
Sacrifice of his body and his blood. The words of the Apostle Paul
bring us back to the dramatic setting in which the Eucharist was
born. The Eucharist is indelibly marked by the event of the Lord's
passion and death, of which it is not only a reminder but the
sacramental re-presentation. It is the sacrifice of the Cross
perpetuated down the ages.9 This truth is well expressed
by the words with which the assembly in the Latin rite responds to
the priest's proclamation of the “Mystery of Faith”: “We
announce your death, O Lord”.
The Church has received the Eucharist from Christ
her Lord not as one gift – however precious – among so many
others, but as the gift par excellence, for it is the gift of
himself, of his person in his sacred humanity, as well as the gift
of his saving work. Nor does it remain confined to the past, since
“all that Christ is – all that he did and suffered for all men
– participates in the divine eternity, and so transcends all
times”.10
When the Church celebrates the Eucharist, the
memorial of her Lord's death and resurrection, this central event of
salvation becomes really present and “the work of our redemption
is carried out”.11 This sacrifice is so decisive for
the salvation of the human race that Jesus Christ offered it and
returned to the Father only after he had left us a means of
sharing in it as if we had been present there. Each member of
the faithful can thus take part in it and inexhaustibly gain its
fruits. This is the faith from which generations of Christians down
the ages have lived. The Church's Magisterium has constantly
reaffirmed this faith with joyful gratitude for its inestimable
gift.12 I wish once more to recall this truth and to join
you, my dear brothers and sisters, in adoration before this mystery:
a great mystery, a mystery of mercy. What more could Jesus have done
for us? Truly, in the Eucharist, he shows us a love which goes “to
the end” (cf. Jn 13:1), a love which knows no measure.
12. This aspect of the universal charity of the
Eucharistic Sacrifice is based on the words of the Saviour himself.
In instituting it, he did not merely say: “This is my body”,
“this is my blood”, but went on to add: “which is given for
you”, “which is poured out for you” (Lk 22:19-20).
Jesus did not simply state that what he was giving them to eat and
drink was his body and his blood; he also expressed its
sacrificial meaning and made sacramentally present his sacrifice
which would soon be offered on the Cross for the salvation of all.
“The Mass is at the same time, and inseparably, the sacrificial
memorial in which the sacrifice of the Cross is perpetuated and the
sacred banquet of communion with the Lord's body and blood”.13
The Church constantly draws her life from the
redeeming sacrifice; she approaches it not only through faith-filled
remembrance, but also through a real contact, since this
sacrifice is made present ever anew, sacramentally perpetuated,
in every community which offers it at the hands of the consecrated
minister. The Eucharist thus applies to men and women today the
reconciliation won once for all by Christ for mankind in every age.
“The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are
one single sacrifice”.14 Saint John Chrysostom put
it well: “We always offer the same Lamb, not one today and another
tomorrow, but always the same one. For this reason the sacrifice is
always only one... Even now we offer that victim who was once
offered and who will never be consumed”.15
The Mass makes present the sacrifice of the Cross;
it does not add to that sacrifice nor does it multiply it.16 What
is repeated is its memorial celebration, its “commemorative
representation” (memorialis demonstratio),17 which
makes Christ's one, definitive redemptive sacrifice always present
in time. The sacrificial nature of the Eucharistic mystery cannot
therefore be understood as something separate, independent of the
Cross or only indirectly referring to the sacrifice of Calvary.
13. By virtue of its close relationship to the
sacrifice of Golgotha, the Eucharist is a sacrifice in the strict
sense, and not only in a general way, as if it were simply a
matter of Christ's offering himself to the faithful as their
spiritual food. The gift of his love and obedience to the point of
giving his life (cf. Jn 10:17-18) is in the first place a
gift to his Father. Certainly it is a gift given for our sake, and
indeed that of all humanity (cf. Mt 26:28; Mk 14:24; Lk
22:20; Jn 10:15), yet it is first and foremost a gift to
the Father: “asacrifice that the Father accepted, giving, in
return for this total self-giving by his Son, who 'became obedient
unto death' (Phil 2:8), his own paternal gift, that is to say
the grant of new immortal life in the resurrection”.18
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”.19
14. 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 Saviour'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). Saint 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”.20
Saint 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”.21
15. 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”.22 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 bead into the substance of the body of Christ our
Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of
his blood. And the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly
called this change transubstantiation”.23 Truly the
Eucharist is a mysterium fidei, a mystery which surpasses our
understanding and can only be received in faith, as is often brought
out in the catechesis of the Church Fathers regarding this divine
sacrament: “Do not see – Saint 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”.24
Adoro te devote, latens Deitas, we shall
continue to sing with the Angelic Doctor. Before this mystery of
love, human reason fully experiences its limitations. One
understands how, down the centuries, this truth has stimulated
theology to strive to understand it ever more deeply.
These are praiseworthy efforts, which are all the
more helpful and insightful to the extent that they are able to join
critical thinking to the “living faith” of the Church, as
grasped especially by the Magisterium's “sure charism of truth”
and the “intimate sense of spiritual realities”25 which
is attained above all by the saints. There remains the boundary
indicated by Paul VI: “Every theological explanation which seeks
some understanding of this mystery, in order to be in accord with
Catholic faith, must firmly maintain that in objective reality,
independently of our mind, the bread and wine have ceased to exist
after the consecration, so that the adorable body and blood of the
Lord Jesus from that moment on are really before us under the
sacramental species of bread and wine”.26
16. The saving efficacy of the sacrifice is fully
realized when the Lord's body and blood are received in communion.
The Eucharistic Sacrifice is intrinsically directed to the inward
union of the faithful with Christ through communion; we receive the
very One who offered himself for us, we receive his body which he
gave up for us on the Cross and his blood which he “poured out for
many for the forgiveness of sins” (Mt 26:28). We are
reminded of his words: “As the living Father sent me, and I live
because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me”
(Jn 6:57). Jesus himself reassures us that this union, which
he compares to that of the life of the Trinity, is truly realized. The
Eucharist is a true banquet, in which Christ offers himself as
our nourishment. When for the first time Jesus spoke of this food,
his listeners were astonished and bewildered, which forced the
Master to emphasize the objective truth of his words: “Truly,
truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and
drink his blood, you have no life within you” (Jn 6:53).
This is no metaphorical food: “My flesh is food indeed, and my
blood is drink indeed” (Jn 6:55).
17. Through our communion in his body and blood,
Christ also grants us his Spirit. Saint Ephrem writes: “He called
the bread his living body and he filled it with himself and his
Spirit...
He who eats it with faith, eats Fire and Spirit...
Take and eat this, all of you, and eat with it the Holy Spirit. For
it is truly my body and whoever eats it will have eternal life”.27
The Church implores this divine Gift, the source of every
other gift, in the Eucharistic epiclesis. In the Divine Liturgy of
Saint John Chrysostom, for example, we find the prayer: “We
beseech, implore and beg you: send your Holy Spirit upon us all and
upon these gifts... that those who partake of them may be purified
in soul, receive the forgiveness of their sins, and share in the
Holy Spirit”.28 And in the Roman Missal the
celebrant prays: “grant that we who are nourished by his body and
blood may be filled with his Holy Spirit, and become one body, one
spirit in Christ”.29 Thus by the gift of his body and
blood Christ increases within us the gift of his Spirit, already
poured out in Baptism and bestowed as a “seal” in the sacrament
of Confirmation.
18. The acclamation of the assembly following the
consecration appropriately ends by expressing the eschatological
thrust which marks the celebration of the Eucharist (cf. 1 Cor
11:26): “until you come in glory”. 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”.30 In
the Eucharist, everything speaks of confident waiting “in joyful
hope for the coming of our Saviour, Jesus Christ”.31 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. With the Eucharist we digest, as it were, the
“secret” of the resurrection. For this reason Saint Ignatius of
Antioch rightly defined the Eucharistic Bread as “a medicine of
immortality, an antidote to death”.32
19. The eschatological tension kindled by 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 honour 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.
20. A significant consequence of the eschatological
tension inherent in the Eucharist is also the fact that it spurs us
on our journey through history and plants a seed of living hope in
our daily commitment to the work before us. Certainly the Christian
vision leads to the expectation of “new heavens” and “a new
earth” (Rev 21:1), but this increases, rather than lessens,
our sense of responsibility for the world today.33 I
wish to reaffirm this forcefully at the beginning of the new
millennium, so that Christians will feel more obliged than ever not
to neglect their duties as citizens in this world. Theirs is the
task of contributing with the light of the Gospel to the building of
a more human world, a world fully in harmony with God's plan.
Many problems darken the horizon of our time. We
need but think of the urgent need to work for peace, to base
relationships between peoples on solid premises of justice and
solidarity, and to defend human life from conception to its natural
end. And what should we say of the thousand inconsistencies of a
“globalized” world where the weakest, the most powerless and the
poorest appear to have so little hope! It is in this world that
Christian hope must shine forth! For this reason too, the Lord
wished to remain with us in the Eucharist, making his presence in
meal and sacrifice the promise of a humanity renewed by his love.
Significantly, in their account of the Last Supper, the Synoptics
recount the institution of the Eucharist, while the Gospel of John
relates, as a way of bringing out its profound meaning, the account
of the “washing of the feet”, in which Jesus appears as the
teacher of communion and of service (cf. Jn 13:1-20). The
Apostle Paul, for his part, says that it is “unworthy” of a
Christian community to partake of the Lord's Supper amid division
and indifference towards the poor (cf. 1 Cor 11:17-22,
27-34).34
Proclaiming the death of the Lord “until he
comes” (1 Cor 11:26) entails that all who take part in the
Eucharist be committed to changing their lives and making them in a
certain way completely “Eucharistic”. It is this fruit of a
transfigured existence and a commitment to transforming the world in
accordance with the Gospel which splendidly illustrates the
eschatological tension inherent in the celebration of the Eucharist
and in the Christian life as a whole: “Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev
22:20).
CHAPTER TWO
THE EUCHARIST
BUILDS THE CHURCH
21. The Second Vatican Council teaches that the
celebration of the Eucharist is at the centre of the process of the
Church's growth. After stating that “the Church, as the Kingdom of
Christ already present in mystery, grows visibly in the world
through the power of God”,35 then, as if in answer to
the question: “How does the Church grow?”, the Council adds:
“as often as the sacrifice of the Cross by which 'Christ our pasch
is sacrificed' (1 Cor 5:7) is celebrated on the altar, the
work of our redemption is carried out. At the same time in the
sacrament of the Eucharistic bread, the unity of the faithful, who
form one body in Christ (cf. 1 Cor 10:17), is both expressed
and brought about”.36
A causal influence of the Eucharist is
present at the Church's very origins. The Evangelists specify that
it was the Twelve, the Apostles, who gathered with Jesus at the Last
Supper (cf. Mt 26:20; Mk 14:17; Lk 22:14). This
is a detail of notable importance, for the Apostles “were both the
seeds of the new Israel and the beginning of the sacred
hierarchy”.37 By offering them his body and his blood
as food, Christ mysteriously involved them in the sacrifice which
would be completed later on Calvary. By analogy with the Covenant of
Mount Sinai, sealed by sacrifice and the sprinkling of blood,38
the actions and words of Jesus at the Last Supper laid the
foundations of the new messianic community, the People of the New
Covenant.
The Apostles, by accepting in the Upper Room Jesus'
invitation: “Take, eat”, “Drink of it, all of you” (Mt
26:26-27), entered for the first time into sacramental communion
with him. From that time forward, until the end of the age, the
Church is built up through sacramental communion with the Son of God
who was sacrificed for our sake: “Do this is remembrance of me...
Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me” (1 Cor
11:24-25; cf. Lk 22:19).
22. Incorporation into Christ, which is brought
about by Baptism, is constantly renewed and consolidated by sharing
in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, especially by that full sharing which
takes place in sacramental communion. We can say not only that
each of us receives Christ, but also that Christ receives
each of us. He enters into friendship with us: “You are my
friends” (Jn 15:14). Indeed, it is because of him that we
have life: “He who eats me will live because of me” (Jn
6:57). Eucharistic communion brings about in a sublime way the
mutual “abiding” of Christ and each of his followers: “Abide
in me, and I in you” (Jn 15:4).
By its union with Christ, the People of the New
Covenant, far from closing in upon itself, becomes a “sacrament”
for humanity,39 a sign and instrument of the salvation
achieved by Christ, the light of the world and the salt of the earth
(cf. Mt 5:13-16), for the redemption of all.40 The
Church's mission stands in continuity with the mission of Christ:
“As the Father has sent me, even so I send you” (Jn
20:21). From the perpetuation of the sacrifice of the Cross and her
communion with the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, the
Church draws the spiritual power needed to carry out her mission.
The Eucharist thus appears as both the source and the
summit of all evangelization, since its goal is the communion of
mankind with Christ and in him with the Father and the Holy Spirit.41
23. Eucharistic communion also confirms the Church
in her unity as the body of Christ. Saint Paul refers to this
unifying power of participation in the banquet of the Eucharist
when he writes to the Corinthians: “The bread which we break, is
it not a communion in the body of Christ? Because there is one
bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one
bread” (1 Cor 10:16-17). Saint John Chrysostom's commentary
on these words is profound and perceptive: “For what is the bread?
It is the body of Christ. And what do those who receive it become?
The Body of Christ – not many bodies but one body. For as bread is
completely one, though made of up many grains of wheat, and these,
albeit unseen, remain nonetheless present, in such a way that their
difference is not apparent since they have been made a perfect
whole, so too are we mutually joined to one another and together
united with Christ”.42 The argument is compelling: our
union with Christ, which is a gift and grace for each of us, makes
it possible for us, in him, to share in the unity of his body which
is the Church. The Eucharist reinforces the incorporation into
Christ which took place in Baptism though the gift of the Spirit
(cf. 1 Cor 12:13, 27).
The joint and inseparable activity of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit, which is at the origin of the Church, of her
consolidation and her continued life, is at work in the Eucharist.
This was clearly evident to the author of the Liturgy of Saint
James: in the epiclesis of the Anaphora, God the Father is asked
to send the Holy Spirit upon the faithful and upon the offerings, so
that the body and blood of Christ “may be a help to all those who
partake of it ... for the sanctification of their souls and
bodies”.43 The Church is fortified by the divine
Paraclete through the sanctification of the faithful in the
Eucharist.
24. The gift of Christ and his Spirit which we
receive in Eucharistic communion superabundantly fulfils the
yearning for fraternal unity deeply rooted in the human heart; at
the same time it elevates the experience of fraternity already
present in our common sharing at the same Eucharistic table to a
degree which far surpasses that of the simple human experience of
sharing a meal. Through her communion with the body of Christ the
Church comes to be ever more profoundly “in Christ in the nature
of a sacrament, that is, a sign and instrument of intimate unity
with God and of the unity of the whole human race”.44
The seeds of disunity, which daily experience shows
to be so deeply rooted in humanity as a result of sin, are countered
by the unifying power of the body of Christ. The Eucharist,
precisely by building up the Church, creates human community.
25. The worship of the Eucharist outside of the
Mass is of inestimable value for the life of the Church. This
worship is strictly linked to the celebration of the Eucharistic
Sacrifice. The presence of Christ under the sacred species reserved
after Mass – a presence which lasts as long as the species of
bread and of wine remain 45 – derives from the
celebration of the sacrifice and is directed towards communion, both
sacramental and spiritual.46 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 present
under the Eucharistic species.47
It is pleasant to spend time with him, to lie close
to his breast like the Beloved Disciple (cf. Jn 13:25) 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”,48 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
brother and sisters, have I experienced this, and drawn from it
strength, consolation and support!
This practice, repeatedly praised and recommended by
the Magisterium,49 is supported by the example of many
saints. Particularly outstanding in this regard was Saint Alphonsus
Liguori, who wrote: “Of all devotions, that of adoring Jesus in
the Blessed Sacrament is the greatest after the sacraments, the one
dearest to God and the one most helpful to us”.50 The
Eucharist is a priceless treasure: by not only celebrating it but
also by praying before it outside of Mass we are enabled to make
contact with the very wellspring of grace. A Christian community
desirous of contemplating the face of Christ in the spirit which I
proposed in the Apostolic Letters Novo
Millennio Ineunte and Rosarium
Virginis Mariae cannot fail also to develop this aspect of
Eucharistic worship, which prolongs and increases the fruits of our
communion in the body and blood of the Lord.
1“In the course of the day the faithful
should not omit visiting the Blessed Sacrament, which in accordance
with liturgical law must be reserved in churches with great
reverence in a prominent place. Such visits are a sign of gratitude,
an expression of love and an acknowledgment of the Lord's
presence”: Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Mysterium
Fidei (3 September 1965): AAS 57 (1965), 771.
CHAPTER THREE
THE APOSTOLICITY OF THE EUCHARIST
AND OF THE CHURCH
26. If, as I have said, the Eucharist builds the
Church and the Church makes the Eucharist, it follows that there is
a profound relationship between the two, so much so that we can
apply to the Eucharistic mystery the very words with which, in the
Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, we profess the Church to be “one,
holy, catholic and apostolic”. The Eucharist too is one and
catholic. It is also holy, indeed, the Most Holy Sacrament. But it
is above all its apostolicity that we must now consider.
27. The Catechism
of the Catholic Church, in explaining how the Church is
apostolic – founded on the Apostles – sees three meanings
in this expression. First, “she was and remains built on 'the
foundation of the Apostles' (Eph 2:20), the witnesses chosen
and sent on mission by Christ himself”.51 The Eucharist
too has its foundation in the Apostles, not in the sense that it did
not originate in Christ himself, but because it was entrusted by
Jesus to the Apostles and has been handed down to us by them and by
their successors. It is in continuity with the practice of the
Apostles, in obedience to the Lord's command, that the Church has
celebrated the Eucharist down the centuries.
The second sense in which the Church is apostolic,
as the Catechism points out, is that “with the help of the
Spirit dwelling in her, the Church keeps and hands on the teaching,
the 'good deposit', the salutary words she has heard from the
Apostles”.52 Here too the Eucharist is apostolic, for
it is celebrated in conformity with the faith of the Apostles. At
various times in the two-thousand-year history of the People of the
New Covenant, the Church's Magisterium has more precisely defined
her teaching on the Eucharist, including its proper terminology,
precisely in order to safeguard the apostolic faith with regard to
this sublime mystery. This faith remains unchanged and it is
essential for the Church that it remain unchanged.
28. Lastly, the Church is apostolic in the sense
that she “continues to be taught, sanctified and guided by the
Apostles until Christ's return, through their successors in pastoral
office: the college of Bishops assisted by priests, in union with
the Successor of Peter, the Church's supreme pastor”.53 Succession
to the Apostles in the pastoral mission necessarily entails the
sacrament of Holy Orders, that is, the uninterrupted sequence, from
the very beginning, of valid episcopal ordinations.54 This
succession is essential for the Church to exist in a proper and full
sense.
The Eucharist also expresses this sense of
apostolicity. As the Second Vatican Council teaches, “the faithful
join in the offering of the Eucharist by virtue of their royal
priesthood”,55 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”.56
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.57
29. 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”,58 was already firmly rooted in papal
teaching.59 As I have pointed out on other occasions, 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, nobody can take his place”.60 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 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, as the Fourth Lateran
Council expressly taught”.61
30. 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 sixteenth 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”.62
The Catholic faithful, therefore, while respecting
the religious convictions of these separated brethren, must refrain
from receiving the communion distributed in their celebrations, so
as not to condone an ambiguity about the nature of the Eucharist
and, consequently, to fail in their duty to bear clear witness to
the truth. 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.
31. If the Eucharist is the centre and summit of the
Church's life, it is likewise the centre and summit of priestly
ministry. For this reason, with a heart filled with gratitude to our
Lord Jesus Christ, I repeat that the Eucharist “is the principal
and central raison d'être of the sacrament of priesthood,
which effectively came into being at the moment of the institution
of the Eucharist”.63
Priests are engaged in a wide variety of pastoral
activities. If we also consider the social and cultural conditions
of the modern world it is easy to understand how priests face the
very real risk of losing their focus amid such a great number
of different tasks. The Second Vatican Council saw in pastoral
charity the bond which gives unity to the priest's life and work.
This, the Council adds, “flows mainly from the Eucharistic
Sacrifice, which is therefore the centre and root of the whole
priestly life”.64 We can understand, then, how
important it is for the spiritual life of the priest, as well as for
the good of the Church and the world, that priests follow the
Council's recommendation to celebrate the Eucharist daily: “for
even if the faithful are unable to be present, it is an act of
Christ and the Church”.65 In this way priests will be
able to counteract the daily tensions which lead to a lack of focus
and they will find in the Eucharistic Sacrifice – the true centre
of their lives and ministry – the spiritual strength needed to
deal with their different pastoral responsibilities. Their daily
activity will thus become truly Eucharistic.
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.
32. 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
fervour that the Lord will send labourers 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.
33. When, due to the scarcity of priests,
non-ordained 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 centre in the celebration of
the most Holy Eucharist”.66 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, also taking advantage of the occasional
presence of a priest who is not impeded by Church law from
celebrating Mass.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE EUCHARIST
AND ECCLESIAL COMMUNION
34. The Extraordinary Assembly of the Synod of
Bishops in 1985 saw in the concept of an “ecclesiology of
communion” the central and fundamental idea of the documents of
the Second Vatican Council.67 The Church is called during
her earthly pilgrimage to maintain and promote communion with the
Triune God and communion among the faithful. For this purpose she
possesses the word and the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist,
by which she “constantly lives and grows”68 and in
which she expresses her very nature. It is not by chance that the
term communion has become one of the names given to this
sublime sacrament.
The Eucharist thus appears as the culmination of all
the sacraments in perfecting our communion with God the Father by
identification with his only-begotten Son through the working of the
Holy Spirit. With discerning faith a distinguished writer of the
Byzantine tradition voiced this truth: in the Eucharist “unlike
any other sacrament, the mystery [of communion] is so perfect that
it brings us to the heights of every good thing: here is the
ultimate goal of every human desire, because here we attain God and
God joins himself to us in the most perfect union”.69 Precisely
for this reason it is good to cultivate in our hearts a constant
desire for the sacrament of the Eucharist. This was the origin
of the practice of “spiritual communion”, which has happily been
established in the Church for centuries and recommended by saints
who were masters of the spiritual life. Saint Teresa of Jesus wrote:
“When you do not receive communion and you do not attend Mass, you
can make a spiritual communion, which is a most beneficial practice;
by it the love of God will be greatly impressed on you”.70
35. 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.71 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.
36. Invisible communion, though by its nature always
growing, presupposes the life of grace, by which we become
“partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet 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”; 72 what is required, in the words of Saint
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). Saint John Chrysostom, with his stirring eloquence,
exhorted the faithful: “I too raise my voice, I beseech, beg and
implore that no one draw near to this sacred table with a sullied
and corrupt conscience. Such an act, in fact, can never be called
'communion', not even were we to touch the Lord's body a thousand
times over, but 'condemnation', 'torment' and 'increase of
punishment'”.73
Along these same lines, 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”.74 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”.75
37. 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 Saint 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.76
38. Ecclesial communion, as I have said, is likewise
visible, and finds expression in the series of “bonds”
listed by the Council when it teaches: “They are fully
incorporated into the society of the Church who, possessing the
Spirit of Christ, accept her whole structure and all the means of
salvation established within her, and within her visible framework
are united to Christ, who governs her through the Supreme Pontiff
and the Bishops, by the bonds of profession of faith, the
sacraments, ecclesiastical government and communion”.77
The Eucharist, as the supreme sacramental
manifestation of communion in the Church, demands to be celebrated
in a context where the outward bonds of communion are also intact.
In a special way, since the Eucharist is “as it were the summit of
the spiritual life and the goal of all the sacraments”,78
it requires that the bonds of communion in the sacraments,
particularly in Baptism and in priestly Orders, be real. It is not
possible to give communion to a person who is not baptized or to one
who rejects the full truth of the faith regarding the Eucharistic
mystery. Christ is the truth and he bears witness to the truth (cf. Jn
14:6; 18:37); the sacrament of his body and blood does not permit
duplicity.
39. Furthermore, given the very nature of ecclesial
communion and its relation to the sacrament of the Eucharist, it
must be recalled that “the Eucharistic Sacrifice, while always
offered in a particular community, is never a celebration of that
community alone. In fact, the community, in receiving the
Eucharistic presence of the Lord, receives the entire gift of
salvation and shows, even in its lasting visible particular form,
that it is the image and true presence of the one, holy, catholic
and apostolic Church”.79 From this it follows that a
truly Eucharistic community cannot be closed in upon itself, as
though it were somehow self-sufficient; rather it must persevere in
harmony with every other Catholic community.
The ecclesial communion of the Eucharistic assembly
is a communion with its own Bishop and with the Roman
Pontiff. The Bishop, in effect, is the visible principle
and the foundation of unity within his particular Church.80 It
would therefore be a great contradiction if the sacrament par
excellence of the Church's unity were celebrated without true
communion with the Bishop. As Saint Ignatius of Antioch wrote:
“That Eucharist which is celebrated under the Bishop, or under one
to whom the Bishop has given this charge, may be considered
certain”.81 Likewise, since “the Roman Pontiff, as
the successor of Peter, is the perpetual and visible source and
foundation of the unity of the Bishops and of the multitude of the
faithful”,82 communion with him is intrinsically
required for the celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Hence the
great truth expressed which the Liturgy expresses in a variety of
ways: “Every celebration of the Eucharist is performed in union
not only with the proper Bishop, but also with the Pope, with the
episcopal order, with all the clergy, and with the entire people.
Every valid celebration of the Eucharist expresses this universal
communion with Peter and with the whole Church, or objectively calls
for it, as in the case of the Christian Churches separated from
Rome”.83
40. The Eucharist creates communion and
fosters communion. Saint Paul wrote to the faithful of Corinth
explaining how their divisions, reflected in their Eucharistic
gatherings, contradicted what they were celebrating, the Lord's
Supper. The Apostle then urged them to reflect on the true reality
of the Eucharist in order to return to the spirit of fraternal
communion (cf. 1 Cor 11:17- 34). Saint Augustine effectively
echoed this call when, in recalling the Apostle's words: “You are
the body of Christ and individually members of it” (1 Cor
12: 27), he went on to say: “If you are his body and members of
him, then you will find set on the Lord's table your own mystery.
Yes, you receive your own mystery”.84 And from this
observation he concludes: “Christ the Lord... hallowed at his
table the mystery of our peace and unity. Whoever receives the
mystery of unity without preserving the bonds of peace receives not
a mystery for his benefit but evidence against himself”.85
41. The Eucharist's particular effectiveness in
promoting communion is one of the reasons for the importance of
Sunday Mass. I have already dwelt on this and on the other reasons
which make Sunday Mass fundamental for the life of the Church and of
individual believers in my Apostolic Letter on the sanctification of
Sunday Dies
Domini.86 There I recalled that the faithful have
the obligation to attend Mass, unless they are seriously impeded,
and that Pastors have the corresponding duty to see that it is
practical and possible for all to fulfil this precept.87
More recently, in my Apostolic Letter Novo
Millennio Ineunte, in setting forth the pastoral path which
the Church must take at the beginning of the third millennium, I
drew particular attention to the Sunday Eucharist, emphasizing its
effectiveness for building communion. “It is” – I wrote –
“the privileged place where communion is ceaselessly proclaimed
and nurtured. Precisely through sharing in the Eucharist, the
Lord's Day also becomes the Day of the Church, when she
can effectively exercise her role as the sacrament of unity”.88
42. The safeguarding and promotion of ecclesial
communion is a task of each member of the faithful, who finds in the
Eucharist, as the sacrament of the Church's unity, an area of
special concern. More specifically, this task is the particular
responsibility of the Church's Pastors, each according to his rank
and ecclesiastical office. For this reason the Church has drawn up
norms aimed both at fostering the frequent and fruitful access of
the faithful to the Eucharistic table and at determining the
objective conditions under which communion may not be given. The
care shown in promoting the faithful observance of these norms
becomes a practical means of showing love for the Eucharist and for
the Church.
43. 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.89 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.90 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.
44. 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. In this area, the prohibitions of
Church law leave no room for uncertainty,92 in fidelity
to the moral norm laid down by the Second Vatican Council.93
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'”.94
45. 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.95 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.96
46. 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”.97
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.98
The faithful observance of the body of norms
established in this area 99 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.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE DIGNITY
OF THE EUCHARISTIC CELEBRATION
47. Reading the account of the institution of the
Eucharist in the Synoptic Gospels, we are struck by the simplicity
and the “solemnity” with which Jesus, on the evening of the Last
Supper, instituted this great sacrament. There is an episode which
in some way serves as its prelude: the anointing at Bethany.
A woman, whom John identifies as Mary the sister of Lazarus, pours a
flask of costly ointment over Jesus' head, which provokes
from the disciples – and from Judas in particular (cf. Mt
26:8; Mk 14:4; Jn 12:4) – an indignant response, as
if this act, in light of the needs of the poor, represented an
intolerable “waste”. But Jesus' own reaction is completely
different. While in no way detracting from the duty of charity
towards the needy, for whom the disciples must always show special
care – “the poor you will always have with you” (Mt 26,
11; Mk 14:7; cf. Jn 12:8) – he looks towards his
imminent death and burial, and sees this act of anointing as an
anticipation of the honour which his body will continue to merit
even after his death, indissolubly bound as it is to the mystery of
his person.
The account continues, in the Synoptic Gospels, with
Jesus' charge to the disciples to prepare carefully the “large
upper room” needed for the Passover meal (cf. Mk 14:15;
Lk 22:12) and with the narration of the institution of the
Eucharist. Reflecting at least in part the Jewish rites of
the Passover meal leading up to the singing of the Hallel (cf. Mt
26:30; Mk 14:26), the story presents with sobriety and
solemnity, even in the variants of the different traditions, the
words spoken by Christ over the bread and wine, which he made into
concrete expressions of the handing over of his body and the
shedding of his blood. All these details are recorded by the
Evangelists in the light of a praxis of the “breaking of the
bread” already well-established in the early Church. But certainly
from the time of Jesus on, the event of Holy Thursday has shown
visible traces of a liturgical “sensibility” shaped by Old
Testament tradition and open to being reshaped in Christian
celebrations in a way consonant with the new content of Easter.
48. Like the woman who anointed Jesus in Bethany,
the Church has feared no “extravagance”, devoting the best
of her resources to expressing her wonder and adoration before the
unsurpassable gift of the Eucharist. No less than the first
disciples charged with preparing the “large upper room”, she has
felt the need, down the centuries and in her encounters with
different cultures, to celebrate the Eucharist in a setting worthy
of so great a mystery. In the wake of Jesus' own words and actions,
and building upon the ritual heritage of Judaism, the Christian
liturgy was born. Could there ever be an adequate means of
expressing the acceptance of that self-gift which the divine
Bridegroom continually makes to his Bride, the Church, by bringing
the Sacrifice offered once and for all on the Cross to successive
generations of believers and thus becoming nourishment for all the
faithful? Though the idea of a “banquet” naturally suggests
familiarity, the Church has never yielded to the temptation to
trivialize this “intimacy” with her Spouse by forgetting that he
is also her Lord and that the “banquet” always remains a
sacrificial banquet marked by the blood shed on Golgotha. The
Eucharistic Banquet is truly a “sacred” banquet, in which
the simplicity of the signs conceals the unfathomable holiness of
God: O sacrum convivium, in quo Christus sumitur! The bread
which is broken on our altars, offered to us as wayfarers along the
paths of the world, is panis angelorum, the bread of angels,
which cannot be approached except with the humility of the centurion
in the Gospel: “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my
roof ” (Mt 8:8; Lk 7:6).
49. With this heightened sense of mystery, we
understand how the faith of the Church in the mystery of the
Eucharist has found historical expression not only in the demand for
an interior disposition of devotion, but also in outward forms
meant to evoke and emphasize the grandeur of the event being
celebrated. This led progressively to the development of a
particular form of regulating the Eucharistic liturgy, with due
respect for the various legitimately constituted ecclesial
traditions. On this foundation a rich artistic heritage also
developed. Architecture, sculpture, painting and music, moved by the
Christian mystery, have found in the Eucharist, both directly and
indirectly, a source of great inspiration.
Such was the case, for example, with architecture,
which witnessed the transition, once the historical situation made
it possible, from the first places of Eucharistic celebration in the
domus or “homes” of Christian families to the solemn basilicas
of the early centuries, to the imposing cathedrals of the
Middle Ages, and to the churches, large and small, which
gradually sprang up throughout the lands touched by Christianity.
The designs of altars and tabernacles within Church interiors were
often not simply motivated by artistic inspiration but also by a
clear understanding of the mystery. The same could be said for
sacred music, if we but think of the inspired Gregorian melodies
and the many, often great, composers who sought to do justice to the
liturgical texts of the Mass. Similarly, can we overlook the
enormous quantity of artistic production, ranging from fine
craftsmanship to authentic works of art, in the area of Church
furnishings and vestments used for the celebration of the Eucharist?
It can be said that the Eucharist, while shaping the
Church and her spirituality, has also powerfully affected
“culture”, and the arts in particular.
50. In this effort to adore the mystery grasped in
its ritual and aesthetic dimensions, a certain “competition” has
taken place between Christians of the West and the East. How could
we not give particular thanks to the Lord for the contributions to
Christian art made by the great architectural and artistic works of
the Greco-Byzantine tradition and of the whole geographical area
marked by Slav culture? In the East, sacred art has preserved a
remarkably powerful sense of mystery, which leads artists to see
their efforts at creating beauty not simply as an expression of
their own talents, but also as a genuine service to the faith.
Passing well beyond mere technical skill, they have shown themselves
docile and open to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
The architectural and mosaic splendours of the
Christian East and West are a patrimony belonging to all believers;
they contain a hope, and even a pledge, of the desired fullness of
communion in faith and in celebration. This would presuppose and
demand, as in Rublëv's famous depiction of the Trinity, a
profoundly Eucharistic Church in which the presence of the
mystery of Christ in the broken bread is as it were immersed in the
ineffable unity of the three divine Persons, making of the Church
herself an “icon” of the Trinity.
Within this context of an art aimed at expressing,
in all its elements, the meaning of the Eucharist in accordance with
the Church's teaching, attention needs to be given to the norms
regulating the construction and decor of sacred buildings. As
history shows and as I emphasized in my Letter
to Artists,100 the Church has always left ample
room for the creativity of artists. But sacred art must be
outstanding for its ability to express adequately the mystery
grasped in the fullness of the Church's faith and in accordance with
the pastoral guidelines appropriately laid down by competent
Authority. This holds true both for the figurative arts and for
sacred music.
51. The development of sacred art and liturgical
discipline which took place in lands of ancient Christian heritage
is also taking place on continents where Christianity is younger.
This was precisely the approach supported by the Second Vatican
Council on the need for sound and proper “inculturation”. In my
numerous Pastoral Visits I have seen, throughout the world, the
great vitality which the celebration of the Eucharist can have when
marked by the forms, styles and sensibilities of different cultures.
By adaptation to the changing conditions of time and place, the
Eucharist offers sustenance not only to individuals but to entire
peoples, and it shapes cultures inspired by Christianity.
It is necessary, however, that this important work
of adaptation be carried out with a constant awareness of the
ineffable mystery against which every generation is called to
measure itself. The “treasure” is too important and precious to
risk impoverishment or compromise through forms of experimentation
or practices introduced without a careful review on the part of the
competent ecclesiastical authorities. Furthermore, the centrality of
the Eucharistic mystery demands that any such review must be
undertaken in close association with the Holy See. As I wrote in my
Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia
in Asia, “such cooperation is essential because the Sacred
Liturgy expresses and celebrates the one faith professed by all and,
being the heritage of the whole Church, cannot be determined by
local Churches in isolation from the universal Church”.101
52. All of this makes clear the great responsibility
which belongs to priests in particular for the celebration of the
Eucharist. It is their responsibility to preside at the Eucharist in
persona Christi and to provide a witness to and a service of
communion not only for the community directly taking part in the
celebration, but also for the universal Church, which is a part of
every Eucharist. It must be lamented that, especially in the years
following the post-conciliar liturgical reform, as a result of a
misguided sense of creativity and adaptation there have been a
number of abuses which have been a source of suffering for
many. A certain reaction against “formalism” has led some,
especially in certain regions, to consider the “forms” chosen by
the Church's great liturgical tradition and her Magisterium as
non-binding and to introduce unauthorized innovations which are
often completely inappropriate.
I consider it my duty, therefore to appeal urgently
that the liturgical norms for the celebration of the Eucharist be
observed with great fidelity. These norms are a concrete expression
of the authentically ecclesial nature of the Eucharist; this is
their deepest meaning. Liturgy is never anyone's private property,
be it of the celebrant or of the community in which the mysteries
are celebrated. The Apostle Paul had to address fiery words to the
community of Corinth because of grave shortcomings in their
celebration of the Eucharist resulting in divisions (schismata)
and the emergence of factions (haireseis) (cf. 1 Cor
11:17-34). Our time, too, calls for a renewed awareness and
appreciation of liturgical norms as a reflection of, and a witness
to, the one universal Church made present in every celebration of
the Eucharist. Priests who faithfully celebrate Mass according to
the liturgical norms, and communities which conform to those norms,
quietly but eloquently demonstrate their love for the Church.
Precisely to bring out more clearly this deeper meaning of
liturgical norms, I have asked the competent offices of the Roman
Curia to prepare a more specific document, including prescriptions
of a juridical nature, on this very important subject. No one is
permitted to undervalue the mystery entrusted to our hands: it is
too great for anyone to feel free to treat it lightly and with
disregard for its sacredness and its universality.
CHAPTER SIX
AT THE SCHOOL OF MARY,
“WOMAN OF THE EUCHARIST”
53. If we wish to rediscover in all its richness the
profound relationship between the Church and the Eucharist, we
cannot neglect Mary, Mother and model of the Church. In my Apostolic
Letter Rosarium
Virginis Mariae, I pointed to the Blessed Virgin Mary as our
teacher in contemplating Christ's face, and among the mysteries of
light I included the institution of the Eucharist.102 Mary
can guide us towards this most holy sacrament, because she herself
has a profound relationship with it.
At first glance, the Gospel is silent on this
subject. The account of the institution of the Eucharist on the
night of Holy Thursday makes no mention of Mary. Yet we know that
she was present among the Apostles who prayed “with one accord”
(cf. Acts 1:14) in the first community which gathered
after the Ascension in expectation of Pentecost. Certainly Mary
must have been present at the Eucharistic celebrations of the first
generation of Christians, who were devoted to “the breaking of
bread” (Acts 2:42).
But in addition to her sharing in the Eucharistic
banquet, an indirect picture of Mary's relationship with the
Eucharist can be had, beginning with her interior disposition.
Mary is a “woman of the Eucharist” in her whole life. The
Church, which looks to Mary as a model, is also called to imitate
her in her relationship with this most holy mystery.
54. Mysterium fidei! If the Eucharist is a
mystery of faith which so greatly transcends our understanding as to
call for sheer abandonment to the word of God, then there can be no
one like Mary to act as our support and guide in acquiring this
disposition. In repeating what Christ did at the Last Supper in
obedience to his command: “Do this in memory of me!”, we also
accept Mary's invitation to obey him without hesitation: “Do
whatever he tells you” (Jn 2:5). With the same maternal
concern which she showed at the wedding feast of Cana, Mary seems to
say to us: “Do not waver; trust in the words of my Son. If he was
able to change water into wine, he can also turn bread and wine into
his body and blood, and through this mystery bestow on believers the
living memorial of his passover, thus becoming the 'bread of
life'”.
55. In a certain sense Mary lived her Eucharistic
faith even before the institution of the Eucharist, by the very
fact that she offered her virginal womb for the Incarnation of
God's Word. The Eucharist, while commemorating the passion and
resurrection, is also in continuity with the incarnation. At the
Annunciation Mary conceived the Son of God in the physical reality
of his body and blood, thus anticipating within herself what to some
degree happens sacramentally in every believer who receives, under
the signs of bread and wine, the Lord's body and blood.
As a result, there is a profound analogy between the
Fiat which Mary said in reply to the angel, and the Amen which
every believer says when receiving the body of the Lord. Mary was
asked to believe that the One whom she conceived “through the Holy
Spirit” was “the Son of God” (Lk 1:30-35). In
continuity with the Virgin's faith, in the Eucharistic mystery we
are asked to believe that the same Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son
of Mary, becomes present in his full humanity and divinity under the
signs of bread and wine.
“Blessed is she who believed” (Lk 1:45).
Mary also anticipated, in the mystery of the incarnation, the
Church's Eucharistic faith. When, at the Visitation, she bore in her
womb the Word made flesh, she became in some way a “tabernacle”
– the first “tabernacle” in history – in which the Son of
God, still invisible to our human gaze, allowed himself to be adored
by Elizabeth, radiating his light as it were through the eyes and
the voice of Mary. And is not the enraptured gaze of Mary as she
contemplated the face of the newborn Christ and cradled him in her
arms that unparalleled model of love which should inspire us every
time we receive Eucharistic communion?
56. Mary, throughout her life at Christ's side and
not only on Calvary, made her own the sacrificial dimension of
the Eucharist. When she brought the child Jesus to the Temple in
Jerusalem “to present him to the Lord” (Lk 2:22), she
heard the aged Simeon announce that the child would be a “sign of
contradiction” and that a sword would also pierce her own heart
(cf. Lk 2:34-35). The tragedy of her Son's crucifixion was
thus foretold, and in some sense Mary's Stabat Mater at the
foot of the Cross was foreshadowed. In her daily preparation for
Calvary, Mary experienced a kind of “anticipated Eucharist” –
one might say a “spiritual communion” – of desire and of
oblation, which would culminate in her union with her Son in his
passion, and then find expression after Easter by her partaking in
the Eucharist which the Apostles celebrated as the memorial of that
passion.
What must Mary have felt as she heard from the mouth
of Peter, John, James and the other Apostles the words spoken at the
Last Supper: “This is my body which is given for you” (Lk
22:19)? The body given up for us and made present under sacramental
signs was the same body which she had conceived in her womb! For
Mary, receiving the Eucharist must have somehow meant welcoming once
more into her womb that heart which had beat in unison with hers and
reliving what she had experienced at the foot of the Cross.
57. “Do this in remembrance of me” (Lk
22:19). In the “memorial” of Calvary all that Christ
accomplished by his passion and his death is present. Consequently all
that Christ did with regard to his Mother for our sake is also
present. To her he gave the beloved disciple and, in him, each of
us: “Behold, your Son!”. To each of us he also says: “Behold
your mother!” (cf. Jn 19: 26-27).
Experiencing the memorial of Christ's death in the
Eucharist also means continually receiving this gift. It means
accepting – like John – the one who is given to us anew as our
Mother. It also means taking on a commitment to be conformed to
Christ, putting ourselves at the school of his Mother and allowing
her to accompany us. Mary is present, with the Church and as the
Mother of the Church, at each of our celebrations of the Eucharist.
If the Church and the Eucharist are inseparably united, the same
ought to be said of Mary and the Eucharist. This is one reason why,
since ancient times, the commemoration of Mary has always been part
of the Eucharistic celebrations of the Churches of East and West.
58. In the Eucharist the Church is completely united
to Christ and his sacrifice, and makes her own the spirit of Mary.
This truth can be understood more deeply by re-reading the
Magnificat in a Eucharistic key. The Eucharist, like the
Canticle of Mary, is first and foremost praise and thanksgiving.
When Mary exclaims: “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit
rejoices in God my Saviour”, she already bears Jesus in her womb.
She praises God “through” Jesus, but she also praises him
“in” Jesus and “with” Jesus. This is itself the true
“Eucharistic attitude”.
At the same time Mary recalls the wonders worked by
God in salvation history in fulfilment of the promise once made to
the fathers (cf. Lk 1:55), and proclaims the wonder that
surpasses them all, the redemptive incarnation. Lastly, the
Magnificat reflects the eschatological tension of the Eucharist.
Every time the Son of God comes again to us in the “poverty” of
the sacramental signs of bread and wine, the seeds of that new
history wherein the mighty are “put down from their thrones” and
“those of low degree are exalted” (cf. Lk 1:52), take
root in the world. Mary sings of the “new heavens” and the
“new earth” which find in the Eucharist their anticipation and
in some sense their programme and plan. The Magnificat
expresses Mary's spirituality, and there is nothing greater than
this spirituality for helping us to experience the mystery of the
Eucharist. The Eucharist has been given to us so that our life, like
that of Mary, may become completely a Magnificat!
CONCLUSION
59. Ave, verum corpus natum de Maria Virgine!
Several years ago I celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of my
priesthood. Today I have the grace of offering the Church this
Encyclical on the Eucharist on the Holy Thursday which falls during
the twenty-fifth year of my Petrine ministry. As I do so, my
heart is filled with gratitude. For over a half century, every day,
beginning on 2 November 1946, when I celebrated my first Mass in the
Crypt of Saint Leonard in Wawel Cathedral in Krakow, my eyes have
gazed in recollection upon the host and the chalice, where time and
space in some way “merge” and the drama of Golgotha is
re-presented in a living way, thus revealing its mysterious “contemporaneity”.
Each day my faith has been able to recognize in the consecrated
bread and wine the divine Wayfarer who joined the two disciples on
the road to Emmaus and opened their eyes to the light and their
hearts to new hope (cf. Lk 24:13-35).
Allow me, dear brothers and sisters, to share with
deep emotion, as a means of accompanying and strengthening your
faith, my own testimony of faith in the Most Holy Eucharist. Ave
verum corpus natum de Maria Virgine, vere passum, immolatum, in
cruce pro homine! Here is the Church's treasure, the heart of
the world, the pledge of the fulfilment for which each man and
woman, even unconsciously, yearns. A great and transcendent mystery,
indeed, and one that taxes our mind's ability to pass beyond
appearances. Here our senses fail us: visus, tactus, gustus in te
fallitur, in the words of the hymn Adoro Te Devote; yet
faith alone, rooted in the word of Christ handed down to us by the
Apostles, is sufficient for us. Allow me, like Peter at the end of
the Eucharistic discourse in John's Gospel, to say once more to
Christ, in the name of the whole Church and in the name of each of
you: “Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal
life” (Jn 6:68).
60. At the dawn of this third millennium, we, the
children of the Church, are called to undertake with renewed
enthusiasm the journey of Christian living. As I wrote in my
Apostolic Letter Novo
Millennio Ineunte, “it is not a matter of inventing a 'new
programme'. The programme already exists: it is the plan found in
the Gospel and in the living Tradition; it is the same as ever.
Ultimately, it has its centre in Christ himself, who is to be known,
loved and imitated, so that in him we may live the life of the
Trinity, and with him transform history until its fulfilment in the
heavenly Jerusalem”.103 The implementation of this
programme of a renewed impetus in Christian living passes through
the Eucharist.
Every commitment to holiness, every activity aimed
at carrying out the Church's mission, every work of pastoral
planning, must draw the strength it needs from the Eucharistic
mystery and in turn be directed to that mystery as its culmination.
In the Eucharist we have Jesus, we have his redemptive sacrifice, we
have his resurrection, we have the gift of the Holy Spirit, we have
adoration, obedience and love of the Father. Were we to disregard
the Eucharist, how could we overcome our own deficiency?
61. The mystery of the Eucharist – sacrifice,
presence, banquet – does not allow for reduction or
exploitation; it must be experienced and lived in its integrity,
both in its celebration and in the intimate converse with Jesus
which takes place after receiving communion or in a prayerful moment
of Eucharistic adoration apart from Mass. These are times when the
Church is firmly built up and it becomes clear what she truly is:
one, holy, catholic and apostolic; the people, temple and family of
God; the body and bride of Christ, enlivened by the Holy Spirit; the
universal sacrament of salvation and a hierarchically structured
communion.
The path taken by the Church in these first years of
the third millennium is also a path of renewed ecumenical
commitment. The final decades of the second millennium,
culminating in the Great Jubilee, have spurred us along this path
and called for all the baptized to respond to the prayer of Jesus
“ut unum sint ” (Jn 17:11). The path itself is
long and strewn with obstacles greater than our human resources
alone can overcome, yet we have the Eucharist, and in its presence
we can hear in the depths of our hearts, as if they were addressed
to us, the same words heard by the Prophet Elijah: “Arise and eat,
else the journey will be too great for you” (1 Kg 19:7).
The treasure of the Eucharist, which the Lord places before us,
impels us towards the goal of full sharing with all our brothers and
sisters to whom we are joined by our common Baptism. But if this
treasure is not to be squandered, we need to respect the demands
which derive from its being the sacrament of communion in faith and
in apostolic succession.
By giving the Eucharist the prominence it deserves,
and by being careful not to diminish any of its dimensions or
demands, we show that we are truly conscious of the greatness of
this gift. We are urged to do so by an uninterrupted tradition,
which from the first centuries on has found the Christian community
ever vigilant in guarding this “treasure”. Inspired by love, the
Church is anxious to hand on to future generations of Christians,
without loss, her faith and teaching with regard to the mystery of
the Eucharist. There can be no danger of excess in our care for this
mystery, for “in this sacrament is recapitulated the whole mystery
of our salvation”.104
62. 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 splendour 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. Contemplating her, assumed body and soul
into heaven, we see opening up before us those “new heavens” and
that “new earth” which will appear at the second coming of
Christ. Here below, the Eucharist represents their pledge, and in a
certain way, their anticipation: “Veni, Domine Iesu!” (Rev
22:20).
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.
Let us make our own the words of Saint Thomas
Aquinas, an eminent theologian and an impassioned poet of Christ in
the Eucharist, and turn in hope to the contemplation of that goal to
which our hearts aspire in their thirst for joy and peace:
Bone pastor, panis vere,
Iesu, nostri miserere...
Come then, good Shepherd, bread divine,
Still show to us thy mercy sign;
Oh, feed us, still keep us thine;
So we may see thy glories shine
in fields of immortality.
O thou, the wisest, mightiest, best,
Our present food, our future rest,
Come, make us each thy chosen guest,
Co-heirs of thine, and comrades blest
With saints whose dwelling is with thee.
Given in Rome, at Saint Peter's, on 17 April,
Holy Thursday, in the year 2003, the Twenty- fifth of my
Pontificate, the Year of the Rosary.
IOANNES PAULUS II
NOTES
1Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,
Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 11.
2Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,
Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests Presbyterorum Ordinis,
5.
3Cf. John Paul II, Apostolic Letter
Rosarium Virginis Mariae (16 October 2002), 21: AAS 95 (2003),
19.
4This is the title which I gave to an
autobiographical testimony issued for my fiftieth anniversary of
priestly ordination.
5Leonis XIII P.M. Acta, XXII
(1903), 115-136.
6AAS 39 (1947), 521-595.
7AAS 57 (1965), 753-774.
8AAS 72 (1980), 113-148.
9Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,
Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium, 47: “... our Saviour
instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice of his body and blood, in order
to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross throughout time, until he
should return”.
10Catechism of the Catholic Church,
1085.
11Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,
Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 3.
12Cf. Paul VI, Solemn Profession of
Faith, 30 June 1968, 24: AAS 60 (1968), 442; John Paul II,
Apostolic Letter Dominicae Cenae (24 February 1980), 12: AAS
72 (1980), 142.
13Catechism of the Catholic Church,
1382.
14Catechism of the Catholic Church,
1367.
15In Epistolam ad Hebraeos Homiliae,
Hom. 17,3: PG 63, 131.
16Cf. Ecumenical Council of Trent,
Session XXII, Doctrina de ss. Missae Sacrificio, Chapter 2:
DS 1743: “It is one and the same victim here offering himself by
the ministry of his priests, who then offered himself on the Cross;
it is only the manner of offering that is different”.
17Pius XII, Encyclical Letter Mediator
Dei (20 November 1947): AAS 39 (1947), 548.
18John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Redemptor
Hominis (15 March 1979), 20: AAS 71 (1979), 310.
19Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen
Gentium, 11.
20De Sacramentis, V, 4, 26: CSEL
73, 70.
21In Ioannis Evangelium, XII, 20:
PG 74, 726.
22Encyclical Letter Mysterium Fidei
(3 September 1965): AAS 57 (1965), 764.
23Session XIII, Decretum de ss.
Eucharistia, Chapter 4: DS 1642.
24Mystagogical Catecheses, IV, 6:
SCh 126, 138.
25Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,
Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum, 8.
26Solemn Profession of Faith, 30
June 1968, 25: AAS 60 (1968), 442-443.
27Sermo IV in Hebdomadam Sanctam:
CSCO 413/Syr. 182, 55.
28Anaphora.
29Eucharistic Prayer III.
30Solemnity of the Body and Blood of
Christ, Second Vespers, Antiphon to the Magnificat.
31Missale Romanum, Embolism
following the Lord's Prayer.
32Ad Ephesios, 20: PG 5, 661.
33Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,
Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium
et Spes, 39.
34“Do you wish to honour the body of
Christ? Do not ignore him when he is naked. Do not pay him homage in
the temple clad in silk, only then to neglect him outside where he
is cold and ill-clad. He who said: 'This is my body' is the same who
said: 'You saw me hungry and you gave me no food', and 'Whatever you
did to the least of my brothers you did also to me' ... What good is
it if the Eucharistic table is overloaded with golden chalices when
your brother is dying of hunger. Start by satisfying his hunger and
then with what is left you may adorn the altar as well”: Saint
John Chrysostom, In Evangelium S. Matthaei, hom. 50:3-4: PG
58, 508-509; cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo Rei
Socialis (30 December 1987), 31: AAS 80 (1988), 553-556.
35Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium,
3.
36Ibid.
37Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,
Decree on the Missionary Activity of the Church Ad Gentes, 5.
38“Moses took the blood and threw it
upon the people, and said: 'Behold the blood of the Covenant which
the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words'” (Ex
24:8).
39Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,
Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 1.
40Cf. ibid., 9.
41Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,
Decree on the Life and Ministry of Priests Presbyterorum Ordinis,
5. The same Decree, in No. 6, says: “No Christian community can be
built up which does not grow from and hinge on the celebration of
the most holy Eucharist”.
42In Epistolam I ad Corinthios
Homiliae, 24, 2: PG 61, 200; Cf. Didache, IX, 4: F.X.
Funk, I, 22; Saint Cyprian, Ep. LXIII, 13: PL 4, 384.
43PO 26, 206.
44Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,
Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 1.
45Cf. Ecumenical Council of Trent,
Session XIII, Decretum de ss. Eucharistia, Canon 4: DS 1654.
46Cf. Rituale Romanum: De sacra
communione et de cultu mysterii eucharistici extra Missam, 36
(No. 80).
47Cf. ibid., 38-39 (Nos. 86-90).
48John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Novo
Millennio Ineunte (6 January 2001), 32: AAS 93 (2001), 288.
49“In the course of the day the
faithful should not omit visiting the Blessed Sacrament, which in
accordance with liturgical law must be reserved in churches with
great reverence in a prominent place. Such visits are a sign of
gratitude, an expression of love and an acknowledgment of the Lord's
presence”: Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Mysterium Fidei (3
September 1965): AAS 57 (1965), 771.
50Visite al SS. Sacramento e a Maria
Santissima, Introduction: Opere Ascetiche, Avellino,
2000, 295.
51No. 857.
52Ibid.
53Ibid.
54Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith, Letter Sacerdotium Ministeriale (6 August 1983),
III.2: AAS 75 (1983), 1005.
55Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,
Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 10.
56Ibid.
57Cf. Institutio Generalis: Editio
typica tertia, No. 147.
58Cf. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church
Lumen Gentium, 10 and 28; Decree on the Ministry and Life of
Priests Presbyterorum Ordinis, 2.
59“The minister of the altar acts in
the person of Christ inasmuch as he is head, making an offering in
the name of all the members”: Pius XII, Encyclical Letter
Mediator Dei (20 November 1947): AAS 39 (1947), 556; cf. Pius X,
Apostolic Exhortation Haerent Animo (4 August 1908): Acta
Pii X, IV, 16; Pius XI, Encyclical Letter Ad Catholici
Sacerdotii (20 December 1935): AAS 28 (1936), 20.
60Apostolic Letter Dominicae Cenae
(24 February 1980), 8: AAS 72 (1980), 128-129.
61Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith, Letter Sacerdotium Ministeriale (6 August 1983),
III.4: AAS 75 (1983), 1006; cf. Fourth Lateran Ecumenical Council,
Chapter 1, Constitution on the Catholic Faith Firmiter Credimus:
DS 802.
62Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,
Decree on Ecumenism Unitatis Redintegratio, 22.
63Apostolic Letter Dominicae Cenae (24
February 1980), 2: AAS 72 (1980), 115.
64Decree on the Life and Ministry of
Priests Presbyterorum Ordinis, 14.
65Ibid., 13; cf. Code of Canon
Law, Canon 904; Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches,
Canon 378.
66Decree on the Ministry and Life of
Priests Presbytero- rum Ordinis, 6.
67Cf. Final Report, II.C.1:
L'Osservatore Romano, 10 December 1985, 7.
68Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,
Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 26.
69Nicolas Cabasilas, Life in Christ,
IV, 10: SCh 355, 270.
70Camino de Perfección, Chapter
35.
71Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith, Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Some
Aspects of the Church Understood as Communion Communionis Notio (28
May 1992), 4: AAS 85 (1993), 839-840.
72Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,
Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 14.
73Homiliae in Isaiam,6, 3: PG 56,
139.
74No. 1385; cf. Code of Canon Law,
Canon 916; Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, Canon 711.
75Address to the Members of the Sacred
Apostolic Penitentiary and the Penitentiaries of the Patriarchal
Basilicas of Rome (30 January 1981): AAS 73 (1981), 203. Cf.
Ecumenical Council of Trent, Sess. XIII, Decretum de ss.
Eucharistia, Chapter 7 and Canon 11: DS 1647, 1661.
76Canon 915; Code of Canons of the
Eastern Churches, Canon 712.
77Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen
Gentium, 14.
78Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa
Theologiae, III, q. 73, a. 3c.
79Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith, Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Some Aspects
of the Church Understood as Communion Communionis Notio (28
May 1992), 11: AAS 85 (1993), 844.
80Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,
Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 23.
81Ad Smyrnaeos, 8: PG 5, 713.
82Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,
Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 23.
83Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith, Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Some Aspects
of the Church Understood as Communion Communionis Notio (28
May 1992), 14: AAS 85 (1993), 847.
84Sermo272: PL 38, 1247.
85Ibid., 1248.
86Cf. Nos. 31-51: AAS 90 (1998),
731-746.
87Cf. ibid., Nos. 48-49: AAS 90
(1998), 744.
88No. 36: AAS 93 (2001), 291-292.
89Cf. Decree on Ecumenism Unitatis
Redintegratio, 1.
90Cf. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church
Lumen Gentium, 11.
91“Join all of us, who share the one
bread and the one cup, to one another in the communion of the one
Holy Spirit”: Anaphora of the Liturgy of Saint Basil.
92Cf. Code of Canon Law, Canon
908; Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, Canon 702;
Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity,
Ecumenical Directory, 25 March 1993, 122-125, 129-131: AAS 85
(1993), 1086-1089; Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,
Letter Ad Exsequendam, 18 May 2001: AAS 93 (2001), 786.
93“Divine law forbids any common
worship which would damage the unity of the Church, or involve
formal acceptance of falsehood or the danger of deviation in the
faith, of scandal, or of indifferentism”: Decree on the Eastern
Catholic Churches Orientalium Ecclesiarum, 26.
94No. 45: AAS 87 (1995), 948.
95Decree on the Eastern Catholic Churches
Orientalium Ecclesiarum, 27.
96Cf. Code of Canon Law, Canon 844
§§ 3-4; Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, Canon 671
§§ 3-4.
97No. 46: AAS 87 (1995), 948.
98Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,
Decree on Ecumenism Unitatis Redintegratio, 22.
99Code of Canon Law, Canon 844;
Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, Canon 671.
100Cf. AAS 91 (1999), 1155-1172.
101No. 22: AAS 92 (2000), 485.
102Cf. No. 21: AAS 95 (2003), 20.
103No. 29: AAS 93 (2001), 285.
104Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa
Theologiae, III, q. 83, a. 4c.
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