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July 2, 2020Where charity and love prevail
In February 2007, then Pope Benedict gifted us with his Apostolic Exhortation “Sacramentum Caritatis,” on the Eucharist as the source and summit of the Church’s life and mission. It was the 22 nd of February, the Feast of the Chair of Peter. I would like to offer seven quotes from this exhortation that best summarize his eucharistic theology. Let’s begin with the first paragraph where the Eucharist as love is clearly expressed.
(1) The sacrament of charity, 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." Jesus did indeed love them "to the end." 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!
Pope Benedict connects the Eucharist to the whole Trinity in paragraph seven!
(2) 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.
The next step is to connect the Eucharist to salvation History in paragraph eight.
(3) The Eucharist reveals the loving plan that guides all of salvation history. There the “Deus Trinitas,” who is essentially love, 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, 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. But it is in Christ, dead and risen, and in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, given without measure, that we have become sharers of God's inmost life.
Jesus Christ, who "through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God," 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."
The next step is the connection of the Eucharist to the mystery of the cross in this portion of paragraph nine.
(4) As I have said elsewhere, "Christ's death on the cross is the culmination of that turning of God against himself in which he gives himself in order to raise man up and save him. This is love in its most radical form." In the Paschal Mystery, our deliverance from evil and death has taken place. In instituting the Eucharist, Jesus had spoken of the "new and eternal covenant" in the shedding of his blood. This, the ultimate purpose of his mission, was clear from the very beginning of his public life.
The Eucharist is food for our journey.
(5) The Lord Jesus, who became for us the food of truth and love, speaks of the gift of his life and assures us that "if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever." This "eternal life" begins in us even now, thanks to the transformation effected in us by the gift of the Eucharist: "He who eats me will live because of me."
After being nourished with the divine love of the Eucharist we must bring it to the world, we must bring Christ to others.
(6) In my homily at the eucharistic celebration solemnly inaugurating my Petrine ministry, I said that "there is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ. There is nothing more beautiful than to know him and to speak to others of our friendship with him." These words are all the more significant if we think of the mystery of the Eucharist.
The love that we celebrate in the sacrament is not something we can keep to ourselves. By its very nature it demands to be shared with all. What the world needs is God's love; it needs to encounter Christ and to believe in him. The Eucharist is thus the source and summit not only of the Church's life, but also of her mission: "an authentically eucharistic Church is a missionary Church."
The Eucharist draws us near to love and to persevere in that love from this life into the next and we find this reality in the church. Pope Benedict closes his exhortation with these words:
(7) The Eucharist makes us discover that Christ, risen from the dead, is our contemporary in the mystery of the Church, his body. Of this mystery of love we have become witnesses. Let us encourage one another to walk joyfully, our hearts filled with wonder, towards our encounter with the Holy Eucharist, so that we may experience and proclaim to others the truth of the words with which Jesus took leave of his disciples: "Lo, I am with you always, until the end of the world" (Mt 28:20).
Visit our Lord in the tabernacle and grow in his love then share his love with others. Just ask him, “Lord help me be your disciple of love. Amen.”