Ecclesia de Eucharistia: Introduction

You may or may not have heard that our Holy Father has designated this a Eucharistic year and that he is opening it with a Eucharistic Congress. We, Catholics loyal to the core, wishing to be of one mind and heart with the Pope, are doing our own little part in presenting a year of preaching on the Holy Eucharist. Our first effort in this direction will be to review the essential teaching contained in the encyclical letter, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, issued by the Pope on Holy Thursday of 2003. It is subtitled “On the Eucharist and its Relationship to the Church.” As we delve into this instruction, we will begin to discover the Holy Father’s reasons for writing it. I hope you will find it both informative and inspiring.

The Catholic Church’s greatest treasure is the Holy Eucharist. It seems that today this has also become a secret–although that was never the mind of Christ or the intention of the Church. If one were to ask, ‘where does the Catholic Church get her vitality and her strength? Why does the Catholic Church, despite all her human blemishes, continue on, through persecutions, internal dissension, and so many plots and stratagems to undo her? One can’t credit her survival and her moments of astonishing growth and activity to human ambition and invention. She would never have survived the powerful vicissitudes of history if that were the case. The answer to the question lies in the promise made by our Lord: “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of time.” The reason for the Church’s obstinate survival owes to that Someone, that living and divine Person who never departs from the Church. We Catholics enjoy immense spiritual wealth because we ‘own’ our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. When we gaze on Christ in the Eucharist we discover that God is there in the full measure of infinite love. There’s no treasure to compare with that and it is not to be found anywhere else but in His Church.

The central and identifying ‘Catholic’ act, the key thing that we have been doing from the beginning and continue yet to do most often, is to celebrate holy Mass. This action forms the link between this new day and hour in history with the events of the Last Supper and of Calvary. We who participate in the Latin Mass ought to have an edge in appreciating this over others who have been made to endure for so many years a much compromised translation of the Mass. For, after the consecration, we sing an acclamation of faith that acknowledges this connection of what we do at Mass with the passion and death of our Savior on Good Friday: Mortem tuam annuntiamus, Domine...‘We proclaim your death, Lord, and we profess your resurrection, until you come.” The truth expressed here is that what happened from the first Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday happens again during Mass. Exactly how this Mass links up with those solemn days of our Lord’s life is indeed complex and even beyond our full understanding. In any case, we should not think that being at Mass is like a trip back into time (that would be more in the order of science fiction than theological truth). Rather, we should see that the essential acts of those ancient days are made present at this place and time. Calvary and Holy Thursday happen here. In this connection the Holy Father says that the priest at Mass willingly puts his own human voice at the disposal of Christ, so that it is He the Lord who is saying, “This is my body; this is my blood.” The Pope want us to marvel about that!

Considering the ‘amazement’ over what happens at Mass, it is also ‘amazing’ that too many Catholics are not amazed. To have Christ in our company and not to know it, not to believe in it, not to savor it is shocking. It would be to miss the very core of what being a Catholic means for one not acknowledge and recognize Christ in the Holy Sacrament. This would be the spiritual equivalent to being blind–where one could not see anything–or perhaps to degenerative eyesight, for Catholics who have lost the clarity of their once secure faith.

The Holy Father himself, even after so many years, does not seem to have lost his own sense of astonishment over the Holy Eucharist, this mystery of mysteries. He is mindful that every time he celebrates holy Mass all of God’s creation is involved. Heaven is united to earth and all that God created in the beginning, the whole universe, is given a renewal, a refreshment by our Lord’s passion and resurrection. And since the Mass is the re-presentation of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection, then the whole world is happily affected by every celebration of Mass, in this sense: Christ is handing back to His Heavenly Father all His creation in a purified and renewed state through the shedding of His blood. When we think about how often, every day, sins are being generated by mankind, we see the necessity of Mass being offered every day and in all places as a purifying and expiatory act: Christ being ever-present to repair the damage our sins have done.

The Introduction to this encyclical, concludes with what the Pope calls lights and shadows: what we would popularly call good news and bad regarding the state of the Church in reference to the Holy Eucharist today. First of all, he is gladdened that people now participate more consciously and actively in the Mass due to the liturgical reforms that followed Vatican II. He is also encouraged over the various movements and societies to restore Eucharistic adoration. At the same time, the Pope notes some negatives. In some places, there is no longer any Eucharistic adoration. There have been multifarious liturgical abuses that have confused people, annoyed and offended them and weakened their faith. Often times too, the fuller meaning of the Eucharist has been trimmed down so as to exclude its sacrificial meaning, as if having Mass were merely a social pleasantry, a “fraternal banquet,” as he calls it. And finally, there has been a denigration of the priesthood where the role of the priest and the people has been obscured: the priest being regarded as a mere overseer of the action of the Mass with the people assuming a ministerial authority that they simply do not have.

The Holy Father explains his purpose. He wants the radiance of the Holy Eucharist to shine upon the Church. This can’t happen–at least not fully–where these ‘shadows’ perdure. His intention in the remainder of his letter is (I quote him) “to banish the dark clouds of unacceptable doctrine and practice, so that the Eucharist will continue to shine forth in all its radiant mystery.”

This is my wish too! (How wonderful it would be to have a restoration of Catholic belief, Eucharistic piety and decorum, and be rid of liturgical gobbledegook.) And so, we are devoting ourselves this year to making a giant leap forward in our appreciation and love of the most precious Jewel of the Catholic Church: the ever-faithful Lord Christ and Savior, present under the forms of the Holy Eucharist.