"From the Office of Bishop Raymond J Lahey, Diocese of Antigonish, NS"

The Year of the Eucharist

The Year of the Eucharist Two weeks ago, Pope John Paul II announced that October 2004 to October 2005 would be celebrated as the Year of the Eucharist. This period will open with the International Eucharistic Congress in Mexico, and conclude with a meeting of the Synod of Bishops in Rome on the theme “The Eucharist: source and summit of the life and mission of the Church.”

This phrase evokes the Second Vatican Council, which said that from the liturgy, and in particular from the celebration of the Eucharist, “grace is poured forth upon us as from a fountain, and the sanctification of people in Christ and the glorification of God to which all other activities of the Church are directed as toward their end, are achieved with maximum effectiveness.”

But the Council immediately went on to teach that for the liturgy to have real effect the faithful must truly participate in it. Pastors were warned “that when the liturgy is celebrated, something more is required than the laws governing valid and lawful celebration.” It was necessary for them to ensure that “the faithful take part fully aware of what they are doing, actively engaged in the rite and enriched by it.”

The Council clearly did not intend that “full, conscious, and active participation” in the Eucharist ended at words, music, and action. But these became important as tangible signs of our participation in the paschal sacrifice, or “paschal mystery”, of Christ, in which he suffered, died, rose from the dead and returned to the Father. The Eucharist is not a devotion, but a sacrament, and in any sacrament our participation radically changes us. Here, by the work of the Holy Spirit we become one with Christ, and even now enter with him into the life of God. Only as a risen people can we say to God that we have been found “worthy to stand in your presence and serve you.” On earth, we can make no greater statement, nor have any higher dignity. In that sense, the Eucharist is not just the greatest thing the Church does, the “summit” of its activity, but it is also the “source” that forms the Church. For in the Eucharist alone is our Christian initiation completed, where the many members of Christ are truly made “one body, one spirit.”

The Body and Blood of the Lord that we share are the seal of this grace. As St. Augustine said, in receiving the Body of Christ we become his Body. Christ comes into our life, but even more importantly, we come into his, and to him and to all others who are members of his Body, we are joined inseparably in a bond of charity. By our sharing in the Eucharistic meal he gave us in his memory, we are brought into his Eucharistic sacrifice, the great action in which he gave himself up to death for us that we might enter with him into risen life. Thus the sacrament of the Eucharist is always both “the Passover of the Lord” and our own “passing over” from death to new life.

To maintain this essential connection between the Eucharistic meal and the Eucharistic sacrifice the Church even today insists on seemingly small things, like ritualizing the breaking of the bread, expecting that communion should be given to the faithful from hosts consecrated at that Mass, and asking that at least some of the laity should receive portions of the large host.

Similarly, the Church has always taught that the Eucharistic devotions that are so much part of its life – devotions like adoration and benediction – never stand alone, but are always there to draw us more closely to the sacrifice of the altar. The great document on the Worship of the Eucharist outside Mass puts this forward as its first principle: “The celebration of the Eucharist in the sacrifice of the Mass is truly the origin and purpose of the worship that is shown the Eucharist outside Mass.” Ultimately, this tells us that Christ is really present to us that we might be really present to him by entering with him into his paschal sacrifice. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it, Christ remains “in our midst as the one who loved us and gave himself up for us.”

This truth expresses the heart of the Eucharistic action, and underlines the fact that our participation in it can never be any less than full, conscious and active. Perhaps there lies our challenge in the year ahead.