May 14, 2007

The Eucharist, a Mystery to Be Lived

(Fourth in a series of four reflections)

In the final section of Sacramentum Caritatis, Pope Benedict XVI wants us to realize “how the mystery ‘believed’ and ‘celebrated’ contains an innate power making it the principle of new life within us and the form of our Christian existence.” (n. 70) He finds in a verse of Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans, “a concise description of how the Eucharist makes our whole life a spiritual worship [in Greek: logiké latreía] pleasing to God: ‘I appeal to you therefore, my brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship’ (Rom 12:1).” (n. 70) He goes on to comment: “Christianity’s new worship includes and transfigures every aspect of life… Christians, in all their actions, are called to offer true worship to God. Here the intrinsically Eucharistic nature of Christian life begins to take shape. The Eucharist, since it embraces the concrete, everyday existence of the believer, makes possible, day by day, the progressive transformation of all those called by grace to reflect the image of the Son of God (cf. Rom 8:29ff.)… Worship pleasing to God thus becomes a new way of living our whole life.” (n. 71)

This “all-encompassing effect of Eucharistic worship,” this acute consciousness of “the radical newness which the Eucharist brings to human life” is expressed and accomplished in a significant way by “living in accordance with the Lord’s Day,” says the Pope, borrowing a phrase of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, a bishop and martyr of the early Church. “Living in accordance with the Lord’s Day” means “that this holy day becomes paradigmatic for every other day of the week” (n. 72), a kind of fundamental point of reference for Christian life. “[T]he first day of the week… commemorates the radical newness brought by Christ. Sunday is thus the day when Christians rediscover the Eucharistic form which their lives are meant to have. ‘Living in accordance with the Lord’s Day’ means living in the awareness of the liberation brought by Christ and making our lives a constant self-offering to God” (n. 70); it is “the day of our definitive deliverance” (n. 95) Awareness of “this new and vital principle which the Eucharist imparts to the Christian [reaffirms] the importance of the Sunday obligation for all the faithful… as a wellspring of authentic freedom… Sunday thus appears as the primordial holy day, when all believers, wherever they are found, can become heralds and guardians of the true meaning of time. It gives rise to the Christian meaning of time and a new way of experiencing time, relationships, work, life and death,” (n. 73). The Lord’s Day as a day of rest from daily exertions is highly significant, “for it relativizes work and directs it to the person: work is for man and not man for work… this protects men and women, emancipating them from a possible form of enslavement… it is indispensable that people not allow themselves to be enslaved by work or to idolize it” (n. 74)

Speaking of the importance of fostering a “Eucharistic culture,” the Holy Father states: “Today there is a need to rediscover that Jesus Christ is not just a private conviction or an abstract ideal, but a real person, whose becoming part of human history is capable of renewing the life of every man and woman.” (n. 77).There is, he says, “a link between true spiritual worship and the need for a new way of understanding and living one’s life. An integral part of the Eucharistic form of the Christian life is a new way of thinking.” (n. 77) This perspective has implications for believers in all walks of life. For example, for married couples, “The love between man and woman, openness to life, and the raising of children are privileged spheres in which the Eucharist can reveal its power to transform life and give it its full meaning.” (n. 79) It can give Catholic politicians the “moral energy” (n. 82) to practice “Eucharistic consistency” in recognizing that “fundamental values, such as respect for human life, its defence from conception to natural death, the family built upon marriage between a man and a woman… are not negotiable,” (n. 83). In the Eucharist, consecrated men and women find “the strength necessary for the radical following of Christ, obedient, poor and chaste,… the inspiration and nourishment for complete dedication to Christ.” (n. 81)

“Each celebration of the Eucharist makes sacramentally present the gift that the crucified Lord made of his life, for us and for the whole world” (n. 88); every Mass has “an objectively infinite value,… a unique spiritual fruitfulness,” (n. 80). For this reason the Holy Father concludes: “This most holy mystery thus needs to be firmly believed, devoutly celebrated and intensely lived in the Church” (n. 94)

Fr. Herald Joseph Brock, CFR

Convento San Serafin, Comayagua, Honduras

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