The Eucharist and the Church

In my continuing efforts to keep up (which I am failing dismally) in sharing our bulletin inserts about Sacramentum Caritatis, here is #12.

The Eucharist, causal principle (A) of the Church

14. Through the sacrament of the Eucharist Jesus draws the faithful into his “hour;” (B) he shows us the bond that he willed to establish between himself and us, between his own person and the Church. Indeed, in the sacrifice of the Cross, Christ gave birth to the Church as his Bride and his body. The Fathers of the Church often meditated on the relationship between Eve’s coming forth from the side of Adam as he slept (cf. Gen 2:21-23) and the coming forth of the new Eve, the Church, from the open side of Christ sleeping in death (C): from Christ’s pierced side, John recounts, there came forth blood and water (cf. Jn 19:34), the symbol of the sacraments (30). A contemplative gaze “upon him whom they have pierced” (Jn 19:37) leads us to reflect on the causal connection between Christ’s sacrifice, the Eucharist and the Church. The Church “draws her life from the Eucharist” (31). Since the Eucharist makes present Christ’s redeeming sacrifice, we must start by acknowledging that “there is a causal influence of the Eucharist at the Church’s very origins” (32). The Eucharist is Christ who gives himself to us and continually builds us up as his body. Hence, in the striking interplay between the Eucharist which builds up the Church, and the Church herself which “makes” the Eucharist (33), the primary causality (D) is expressed in the first formula: the Church is able to celebrate and adore the mystery of Christ present in the Eucharist precisely because Christ first gave himself to her in the sacrifice of the Cross. The Church’s ability to “make” the Eucharist is completely rooted in Christ’s self-gift to her. Here we can see more clearly the meaning of Saint John’s words: “he first loved us” (1 Jn 4:19). We too, at every celebration of the Eucharist, confess the primacy of Christ’s gift. The causal influence of the Eucharist at the Church’s origins definitively discloses both the chronological and ontologicalE priority of the fact that it was Christ who loved us “first.” For all eternity he remains the one who loves us first.

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The concept that Christ gave birth to the Church in his sacrifice on the Cross is one that the Church Fathers knew well but it is not contemplated much these days. Likewise, the idea of the Church as “the new Eve” is one that is not found frequently, if at all. Quite often these are new and surprising to modern Catholics.

Pope Benedict expands upon these ideas to consider the centrality of the Eucharist in the Church’s existence, especially as rooted in Christ’s self-giving sacrifice for our sakes. The interplay between the Eucharist, the Church, and Christ can be confusing but actually is simply enough presented here. Read over the paragraph slowly and contemplate the life-giving cycle that was established by Christ, all because he loved us first.

Footnotes

(30) Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 3; for an example, see: Saint John Chrysostom, Catechesis 3, 13-19: SC 50, 174-177.
(31) John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia (17 April 2003), 1: AAS 95 (2003), 433.
(32) Ibid., 21: AAS 95 (2003), 447.
(33) Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Redemptor Hominis (4 March 1979), 20: AAS 71 (1979), 309-316; Apostolic Letter Dominicae Cenae (24 February 1980), 4: AAS 72 (1980), 119-121.

Explanatory Notes

A - Causal principle: the reason and means by which a thing or reality comes into existance.
B - His “hour”: Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension; His victory over sin and death.
C - Jesus “sleeping” in death: We read texts sometimes very simply — a series of words with meanings: assemble the words, assemble the meanings. The ancients, as well as students of literature and theologians read not only words but the images and symbols of the text. Such reading produces deeper understanding. In the Old Testament story of Adam and Eve, we see a symbol/type foreshadowing Jesus, the reality/archetype. The Old Testament story gives us insight into the new.
D - Primary causality: principle cause.
E - Ontological: ontology is the study of what a thing is and how and why it exists.

This one of a weekly series of excerpts from Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis. You are encouraged to read the entire document. The Vatican link to that document as well as to Pope Benedict’s first encyclical can be found on the website, www.stthomasaquinas.org.

The Holy Spirit and the Eucharist-2

Bulletin insert #11 from our parish's series of excerpts about Sacramentum Caritatis.

The Holy Spirit and the eucharistic celebration

13. Against this backdrop we can understand the decisive role played by the Holy Spirit in the eucharistic celebration, particularly with regard to transubstantiation. An awareness of this is clearly evident in the Fathers of the Church. Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, in his Catecheses, states that we “call upon God in his mercy to send his Holy Spirit upon the offerings before us, to transform the bread into the body of Christ and the wine into the blood of Christ. Whatever the Holy Spirit touches is sanctified and completely transformed” (25). Saint John Chrysostom too notes that the priest invokes the Holy Spirit when he celebrates the sacrifice: (26) like Elijah, the minister calls down the Holy Spirit so that “as grace comes down upon the victim, the souls of all are thereby inflamed” (27). The spiritual life of the faithful can benefit greatly from a better appreciation of the richness of the anaphora*: along with the words spoken by Christ at the Last Supper, it contains the epiclesis**, the petition to the Father to send down the gift of the Spirit so that the bread and the wine will become the body and blood of Jesus Christ and that “the community as a whole will become ever more the body of Christ” (28). The Spirit invoked by the celebrant upon the gifts of bread and wine placed on the altar is the same Spirit who gathers the faithful “into one body” and makes of them a spiritual offering pleasing to the Father (29).

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With our understanding of the way the Holy Spirit has been moving in and through the world since Creation, it naturally follows that He would also be the chosen instrument for the creative act of the transformation of bread and wine into the Eucharist, the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ.

While Pope Benedict here traces the Holy Spirit’s involvement in this transformation, the Holy Spirit’s action does not stop here, although one would think that transubstantiation of bread and wine into the living Christ would be more than enough. Even more interesting and involving for us is the fact that, as St. John Chrysostom says, “as grace comes down upon the victim, the souls of all are thereby inflamed.” The Holy Spirit’s power comes upon us, transforms us in ways that are not visible to the eye but are substantial changes to our souls, and sends us forth into the world again to do the Father’s will. A careful reading of the Eucharistic prayers will find a kind of double epiclesis, the transformation not only of the bread and wine, but the transformation of ourselves into the Church, the body of Christ.

We can prepare ourselves for these changes, in part, by being open to doing the Father’s will and by recognizing the power of the Holy Spirit to make us into His gift to the world.

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(25) Cat. XXIII, 7: PG 33, 1114ff.
(26) Cf. De Sacerdotio, VI, 4: PG 48, 681.
(27) Ibid., III, 4: PG 48, 642.
(28) Propositio 22.
(29) Cf. Propositio 42: “This eucharistic encounter takes place in the Holy Spirit, who transforms and sanctifies us. He re- awakens in the disciple the firm desire to proclaim boldly to others all that he has heard and experienced, to bring them to the same encounter with Christ. Thus the disciple, sent forth by the Church, becomes open to a mission without frontiers.”
* Anaphora: (Greek, ànaphorá), offering, sacrifice, a word used commonly for the Eucharistic prayer.
** Epiclesis: The name of a prayer that occurs after the words of Institution, in which the celebrant prays that God may send down His Holy Spirit to change this bread and wine into the Body and Blood of His Son.
This is one of a weekly series of excerpts from Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis. You are encouraged to read the entire document. The Vatican link to that document as well as to Pope Benedict’s first encyclical can be found on the website, www.stthomasaquinas.org.

The Holy Spirit and the Eucharist-1

Continuing my occasional attempts to share our parish's bulletin inserts. This series focuses on excerpts from Sacramentum Caritatis. I believe this is the 10th insert.

Jesus and the Holy Spirit

12. With his word and with the elements of bread and wine, the Lord himself has given us the essentials of this new worship. The Church, his Bride, is called to celebrate the eucharistic banquet daily in his memory. She thus makes the redeeming sacrifice of her Bridegroom a part of human history and makes it sacramentally present in every culture. This great mystery is celebrated in the liturgical forms which the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, develops in time and space. (23) We need a renewed awareness of the decisive role played by the Holy Spirit in the evolution of the liturgical form and the deepening understanding of the sacred mysteries. The Paraclete, Christ’s first gift to those who believe, (24) already at work in Creation (cf. Gen 1:2), is fully present throughout the life of the incarnate Word: Jesus Christ is conceived by the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit (cf. Mt 1:18; Lk 1:35); at the beginning of his public mission, on the banks of the Jordan, he sees the Spirit descend upon him in the form of a dove (cf. Mt 3:16 and parallels); he acts, speaks and rejoices in the Spirit (cf. Lk 10:21), and he can offer himself in the Spirit (cf. Heb 9:14). In the so-called “farewell discourse” reported by John, Jesus clearly relates the gift of his life in the paschal mystery to the gift of the Spirit to his own (cf. Jn 16:7). Once risen, bearing in his flesh the signs of the passion, he can pour out the Spirit upon them (cf. Jn 20:22), making them sharers in his own mission (cf. Jn 20:21). The Spirit would then teach the disciples all things and bring to their remembrance all that Christ had said (cf. Jn 14:26), since it falls to him, as the Spirit of truth (cf. Jn 15:26), to guide the disciples into all truth (cf. Jn 16:13). In the account in Acts, the Spirit descends on the Apostles gathered in prayer with Mary on the day of Pentecost (cf. 2:1-4) and stirs them to undertake the mission of proclaiming the Good News to all peoples. Thus it is through the working of the Spirit that Christ himself continues to be present and active in his Church, starting with her vital centre which is the Eucharist.

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Quite often people will say that relating to the Holy Spirit is one of the the most difficult aspects of growing in our relationship with God. Perhaps that is because He is dificult to personify. We can’t get a good “picture” of Him in our minds. However, as Pope Benedict reminds us, the Holy Spirit is there from the beginning of time flowing through history, through Jesus’ life, through the life of the Church, and even now through our own lives as believers.

Take the time to look through the scriptural references which the Holy Father has given us above and see the Spirit moving through history, affecting lives and moving God’s works into space and time.

Perhaps we might find it fruitful to contemplate this simple prayer in which the Church has given us essential the truth about the Holy Spirit, indeed about God the three persons in one:

Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit:
As it was in the beginning, is now,
and ever shall be, world without end.
Amen.

With our participation in the Eucharist and the effort to do God’s will, we too allow the Holy Spirit to be active in the world, which is a world without end.

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(23) Cf. Propositio 3.
(24) Cf. Roman Missal, Eucharistic Prayer IV.

This is one of a weekly series of excerpts from Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis. You are encouraged to read the entire document. The Vatican link to that document as well as to Pope Benedict’s first encyclical can be found on the website, www.stthomasaquinas.org.

The Institution of the Eucharist

Continuing catching up on posting the bulletin inserts commenting on excerpts from Sacramentum Caritatis. This is #7.

10. This leads us to reflect on the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. It took place within a ritual meal commemorating the foundational event of the people of Israel: their deliverance from slavery in Egypt. This ritual meal, which called for the sacrifice of lambs (cf. Ex 12:1-28, 43-51), was a remembrance of the past, but at the same time a prophetic remembrance, the proclamation of a deliverance yet to come. The people had come to realize that their earlier liberation was not definitive, for their history continued to be marked by slavery and sin. The remembrance of their ancient liberation thus expanded to the invocation and expectation of a yet more profound, radical, universal and definitive salvation. This is the context in which Jesus introduces the newness of his gift. In the prayer of praise, the Berakah, he does not simply thank the Father for the great events of past history, but also for his own “exaltation.” In instituting the sacrament of the Eucharist, Jesus anticipates and makes present the sacrifice of the Cross and the victory of the resurrection. At the same time, he reveals that he himself is the true sacrificial lamb, destined in the Father’s plan from the foundation of the world, as we read in The First Letter of Peter (cf. 1:18-20). By placing his gift in this context, Jesus shows the salvific meaning of his death and resurrection, a mystery which renews history and the whole cosmos. The institution of the Eucharist demonstrates how Jesus’ death, for all its violence and absurdity, became in him a supreme act of love and mankind’s definitive deliverance from evil.

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As the Holy Father has carefully shown us in past excerpts, the Eucharist is a radical, self-giving of Jesus for our sakes. It makes sense then that Jesus would carefully select the most meaningful time to institute it. Just as a speech made from “Ground Zero” on September 11 has many layers of meaning for us, presenting this special, new gift at the Passover would have been deliberate and the disciples would have understood that.

In the context of the Passover, the apostles would have noticed the significance of historical and cultural clues necessary to help understand the significance of this salvific gift. They would not have full understanding until they received the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, but the basic grounding in their faith provided a solid foundation upon which was built our understanding of the Eucharist. This is confirmed by the verses quoted by Pope Benedict from The First Letter of Peter (1:18-20): ... realizing that you were ransomed from your futile conduct, handed on by your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ as of a spotless unblemished lamb. He was known before the foundation of the world but revealed in the final time for you ...

We no longer have the cultural markers that the disciples did. Our connection with this reality is through the liturgy, especially during Holy Week before Easter. We may identify it as a ritual and be moved only by the drama and passing sentiment of the moment, without ever experiencing more. How do we achieve this? Our thoughtful reflection and prayerful contemplation, as noted in the Holy Father’s words, should awaken within us the deepest appreciation of the Eucharist as living and transforming reality - present in our lives yet also a promise of what is to come. We must acknowledge that there is so much more for us - in Christ and in the Eucharist - than we are asked to consider in everyday life.
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This is one of a weekly series of excerpts from Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis. You are encouraged to read the entire document. The Vatican link to that document as well as to Pope Benedict’s first encyclical can be found on the website, www.stthomasaquinas.org.

The Blessed Trinity and the Eucharist: A Free Gift

I realize that I have forgotten for some time to put up our parish's bulletin inserts that have been running with excerpts and commentary about Sacramentum Caritatis. Here is insert #5.

The Blessed Trinity and the Eucharist

A free gift of the Blessed Trinity

8. The Eucharist reveals the loving plan that guides all of salvation history (cf. Eph 1:10; 3:8- 11). There the Deus Trinitas*, who is essentially love (cf. 1 Jn 4:7-8), becomes fully a part of our human condition. In the bread and wine under whose appearances Christ gives himself to us in the paschal meal (cf. Lk 22:14-20; 1 Cor 11:23-26), God’s whole life encounters us and is sacramentally shared with us. God is a perfect communion of love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. At creation itself, man was called to have some share in God’s breath of life (cf. Gen 2:7). But it is in Christ, dead and risen, and in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, given without measure (cf. Jn 3:34), that we have become sharers of God’s inmost life. (16) Jesus Christ, who “through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God” (Heb 9:14), makes us, in the gift of the Eucharist, sharers in God’s own life. This is an absolutely free gift, the superabundant fulfilment of God’s promises. The Church receives, celebrates and adores this gift in faithful obedience. The “mystery of faith” is thus a mystery of trinitarian love, a mystery in which we are called by grace to participate. We too should therefore exclaim with Saint Augustine: “If you see love, you see the Trinity.” (17)

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If we will truly pause to reflect after receiving the Eucharist, we are drawn into contemplating the special intimacy with Jesus to which we are invited when we receive His Body and Blood. This is a true and fair reflection for we receive the whole Christ — Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity. Pope Benedict asks us to open our minds and hearts to be led through intimacy with Christ into a deeper and more real relationship with the Triune God through Jesus Himself. Here the Holy Father reminds us, “God is a perfect communion of love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”

As this is the case, we come unfailingly with Pope Benedict to the understanding that, when we par­take of the Eucharist, we participate, not simply in the life of Christ, but we are partaking in that very life possessed by the Triune God. “Jesus Christ, who “through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God” (Heb 9:14), makes us, in the gift of the Eucharist, sharers in God’s own life.”

This gift, this grace, this life is ours — freely given and unmerited — the participation and sharing in uncreated, that is, God’s own life. It is what we grew up calling Sanctifying Grace. This grace is ultimately relationship with the Trinity, life-sharing with God, motivated by and producing, bearing fruit in Love.

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(16) Cf. Propositio 4.
(17) De Trinitate, VIII, 8, 12: CCL 50, 287.
* Deus Trinitas: Triune God. In other words, God as Trinity, a single being existing simultaneously as three distinct persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
This is one of a series of excerpts from Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis. You are encouraged to read the entire document. The Vatican link to that document as well as to Pope Benedict’s first encyclical can be found on the website, www.stthomasaquinas.org.

Bread From Heaven

The most recent of the series that has been running in our bulletin with excerpts from Sacramentum Caritatis

The Blessed Trinity and the Eucharist

The bread come down from heaven7. The first element of eucharistic faith is the mystery of God himself, trinitarian love. In Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus, we find an illuminating expression in this regard: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (Jn 3:16-17). These words show the deepest source of God’s gift. In the Eucharist Jesus does not give us a “thing,” but himself; he offers his own body and pours out his own blood. He thus gives us the totality of his life and reveals the ultimate origin of this love. He is the eternal Son, given to us by the Father. In the Gospel we hear how Jesus, after feeding the crowds by multiplying the loaves and fishes, says to those who had followed him to the synagogue of Capernaum: “My Father gives you the true bread from heaven; for the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world” (Jn 6:32-33), and even identifies himself, his own flesh and blood, with that bread: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh” (Jn 6:51). Jesus thus shows that he is the bread of life which the eternal Father gives to mankind.

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In this passage Pope Benedict XVI traces the connection between Jesus and the Eucharist. In so doing, he makes it easier for us to understand the source of the apostles’ faith in Jesus as “the bread of life come down from heaven.” Their faith is the same that has been passed to us 2,000 years later and it is good to be reminded of the original sources. If we take the time to go read the scriptural references for ourselves they come to life even more as we see the context.

We also are reminded that God’s generosity to us knows no bounds. In the Eucharist Jesus does not give us a “thing,” but himself; he offers his own body and pours out his own blood. As Saint Catherine of Siena says, “We are purchased not with gold, nor merely with love’s sweetness, but with blood.” Jesus gives literally everything that he has and is. What is more, he does it every time Mass is celebrated which is something to contemplate before we go to Holy Communion.

A Mystery to Be Believed

Another from the weekly installments that have been appearing in our church bulletin. I can't believe I forgot to post this until now. I really have been enjoying the way that this is taking us through the document so slowly ... it makes me really think about each paragraph.

The Eucharist:
A Mystery to Be Believed

“This is the work of God: that you believe in him whom he has sent” (Jn 6:29)

The Church’s eucharistic faith
6. “The mystery of faith!” With these words, spoken immediately after the words of consecration, the priest proclaims the mystery being celebrated and expresses his wonder before the substantial change of bread and wine into the body and blood of the Lord Jesus, a reality which surpasses all human understanding. The Eucharist is a “mystery of faith” par excellence: “the sum and summary of our faith.” (13) The Church’s faith is essentially a eucharistic faith, and it is especially nourished at the table of the Eucharist. Faith and the sacraments are two complementary aspects of ecclesial* life. Awakened by the preaching of God’s word, faith is nourished and grows in the grace-filled encounter with the Risen Lord which takes place in the sacraments: “faith is expressed in the rite, while the rite reinforces and strengthens faith.” (14) For this reason, the Sacrament of the Altar is always at the heart of the Church’s life: “thanks to the Eucharist, the Church is reborn ever anew!” (15) The more lively the eucharistic faith of the People of God, the deeper is its sharing in ecclesial life in steadfast commitment to the mission entrusted by Christ to his disciples. The Church’s very history bears witness to this. Every great reform has in some way been linked to the rediscovery of belief in the Lord’s eucharistic presence among his people.

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The “mystery of faith” that is the Eucharist is something that we may not really consider much when in the habit of going to Mass regularly. It is human nature for us to become dulled to splendor when it is presented time after time. However, Pope Benedict reminds us that we are participating in a reality that “surpasses all human understanding” in the Eucharist. We actually are partaking of the body and blood, soul and divinity, of Jesus Christ himself. Indeed, how is it possible to adequately understand such a thing? The answer is that we cannot understand it, at least not with the ordinary comprehension that we apply to everyday things.

Saint Augustine said, “I believe, that I may understand.” Our understanding of the Eucharist grows not through any proof or scientific understanding but because of God’s grace. By partaking in the sacraments which nourish our faith and keeping the fact of this “mystery” in our minds during the Mass we may be privileged to see just a bit better when Heaven comes to earth as the Eucharist comes to us during Holy Communion.
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(13) Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1327.
(14) Propositio 16.
(15) Benedict XVI, Homily at the Mass of Installation in the Cathedral of Rome (7 May 2005): AAS 97 (2005), 752.
* Ecclesial: of or relating to a church

Sacramentum Caritatis: Truth and Freedom

Continuing the series that began last week in our church bulletin, here is the second excerpt. I thought I'd share it again ...

I was particularly struck by this: “Jesus is the lodestar of human freedom: without him, freedom loses its focus, for without the knowledge of truth, freedom becomes debased, alienated and reduced to empty caprice. With him, freedom finds itself.” This is true in so many ways in our lives. If we aren't basing what we do on the truth that is Jesus, we are basing everything on a false base ... like the man who built his house on sand.

The Eucharist:
The food of truth

2. In the sacrament of the altar, the Lord meets us, men and women created in God’s image and likeness (cf. Gen 1:27), and becomes our companion along the way. In this sacrament, the Lord truly becomes food for us, to satisfy our hunger for truth and freedom. Since only the truth can make us free (cf. Jn 8:32), Christ becomes for us the food of truth. With deep human insight, Saint Augustine clearly showed how we are moved spontaneously, and not by constraint, whenever we encounter something attractive and desirable. Asking himself what it is that can move us most deeply, the saintly Bishop went on to say: “What does our soul desire more passionately than truth?” (2) Each of us has an innate and irrepressible desire for ultimate and definitive truth. The Lord Jesus, “the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6), speaks to our thirsting, pilgrim hearts, our hearts yearning for the source of life, our hearts longing for truth. Jesus Christ is the Truth in person, drawing the world to himself. “Jesus is the lodestar of human freedom: without him, freedom loses its focus, for without the knowledge of truth, freedom becomes debased, alienated and reduced to empty caprice. With him, freedom finds itself.” (3) In the sacrament of the Eucharist, Jesus shows us in particular the truth about the love which is the very essence of God. It is this evangelical truth which challenges each of us and our whole being. For this reason, the Church, which finds in the Eucharist the very centre of her life, is constantly concerned to proclaim to all, opportune importune (cf. 2 Tim 4:2), that God is love.(4) Precisely because Christ has become for us the food of truth, the Church turns to every man and woman, inviting them freely to accept God’s gift.

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When we find something wonderful and true, what is the first thing that we do? We rush to tell our friends about it. We can’t wait to share it with others. Indeed, we know from scripture that this is the case quite often when people met Jesus. He is the ultimate truth and word spread quickly everywhere he went. Andrew immediately went to tell his brother, Simon Peter (John 1:40-43). Philip went to tell Nathaniel and bring him to Jesus (John 1: 44-46). Surely, as St. Augustine says above, this is because we all passionately desire the truth. When we actually find truth it is such a revelation to our longing hearts that we want others to know of this treasure also. No wonder the Church constantly proclaims that the Eucharist, the Christ, is there for all to know. The truth, in fact freedom itself, is there in our midst.

There is much food for thought packed into this single paragraph. Reading slowly, phrases leap off the page and demand our thoughtful consideration. Which of us can ignore truth and freedom at such a basic level? As revealed through Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, they become a wellspring of inspiration for contemplating God.
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(2) Saint Augustine, In Iohannis Evangelium Tractatus, 26,5: PL 35, 1609.

(3) Benedict XVI, Address to Participants in the Plenary Assembly of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (10 February 2006): AAS 98 (2006), 255.

(4) Benedict XVI, Address to the Members of the Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops (1 June 2006): L’Osservatore Romano, 2 June 2006, p. 5.

A Closer Look at Sacramentum Caritatis

I have to admit that when I read Sacramentum Caritatis, I did it as more of a "duty" than anything else. Consequently, I zipped through it, marked it off my list and moved on.

Shame on me.

Our church began something new this week ... the first of a series of weekly excerpts that made me read slowly, think carefully, and realize the beauty and truth-packed goodness of this document. I'm not sure if anyone else read it but I certainly was glad that I was forced to take another look. I am going to put the excerpt up here and share with y'all as well. (And yes I typed this ... that is how much I love y'all!).

Loving Us to “The end”

The sacrament of charity (1), the Holy Eucharist is the gift that Jesus Christ makes of himself, thus revealing to us God’s infinite love for every man and woman. This wondrous sacrament makes manifest that “greater” love which led him to “lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13). Jesus did indeed love them “to the end” (Jn 13:1). In those words the Evangelist introduces Christ’s act of immense humility: before dying for us on the Cross, he tied a towel around himself and washed the feet of his disciples. In the same way, Jesus continues, in the sacrament of the Eucharist, to love us “to the end,” even to offering us his body and his blood. What amazement must the Apostles have felt in witnessing what the Lord did and said during that Supper! What wonder must the eucharistic mystery also awaken in our own hearts!

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The reverent and tender words above call us to reflect on the Eucharist as Jesus’ eternal love for us in this offering of his body and his blood.

We might expect to find this sort of inspirational commentary in a devotional. What a surprise, then, to find that this is the introductory paragraph of Pope Benedict’s recently released report on the bishops’ synod on the Eucharist held in 2005. Or as it is more formally titled:

POST-SYNODAL
APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION
SACRAMENTUM CARITATIS*
[Sacrament of Charity]
OF THE HOLY FATHER
BENEDICT XVI
TO THE BISHOPS, CLERGY,
CONSECRATED PERSONS
AND THE LAY FAITHFUL
ON THE EUCHARIST
AS THE SOURCE AND SUMMIT
OF THE CHURCH’S LIFE AND MISSION

As formidable as that title sounds, this introductory paragraph shows us that we are being given an intimate look into how Pope Benedict and the bishops reflect upon the Eucharist itself. As the Holy Father says, further into the exhortation:

... I wish here to endorse the wishes expressed by the Synod Fathers (11) by encouraging the Christian people to deepen their understanding of the relationship between the eucharistic mystery, the liturgical action, and the new spiritual worship which derives from the Eucharist as the sacrament of charity. Consequently, I wish to set the present Exhortation alongside my first Encyclical Letter, Deus Caritas Est,** in which I frequently mentioned the sacrament of the Eucharist and stressed its relationship to Christian love, both of God and of neighbour: “God incarnate draws us all to himself. We can thus understand how agape*** also became a term for the Eucharist: there God’s own agape comes to us bodily, in order to continue his work in us and through us” (12).

That is much more what could be expected as an introduction and yet it comes five paragraphs into the exhortation. Clearly Pope Benedict wishes to first plunge us into the heart of the matter which is the complete and self-sacrificing love of Jesus for each of us through the Eucharist. Which is exactly as we should wish also.

(1) Cf. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 73, a. 3.
(11) Cf. Propositio 1.
(12) No. 14: AAS 98 (2006), 229.

* Sacrament of Charity. (Caritatis, meaning “charity,” is from Latin and translates in this case as “Christian love..”)
** God Is Love.
*** Agape is from the Greek and was used by the early Christians to refer to the self-sacrificing love of God for humanity, which they were committed to reciprocating and practicing towards God and among one another. One example of this is found in Matthew 22:37-41, when Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment and answered “’Love (agape) the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love (agape) your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

This is the first of a series of weekly excerpts from Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis. You are encouraged to read the entire document. The Vatican link to that document as well as to Pope Benedict’s first encyclical can be found on the website, www.stthomasaquinas.org.