 |
April 5, 2007 |
 |
Renew your faith in Eucharist
|
|
|
Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan |
|
 |
Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan |
|
Herald
of Hope is a weekly column started by
former Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland
in the Catholic Herald and written by
the bishops of the Milwaukee Archdiocese. |
|
It’s Holy Thursday, the most fitting day to renew our faith in the Eucharist. It was “on the night before he died,” at his Last Supper, that Our Lord gave us the Eucharist and commanded us to “Do this in memory of me.”
So, I thought it would be an appropriate time to take a look at the recent document from Pope Benedict XVI, on the Holy Eucharist, called “Sacramentum Caritatis.” As the headlines in one national Catholic newspaper put it, this is “Benedict’s Love Letter to the Eucharist.”
I’m not going to do a detailed commentary on the document. Here’s hoping you might read it. From my own reflective study, here are nine meaty points from the exhortation which I find inspirational for a renewed love of the holy Eucharist.
1. The document is a ringing affirmation of the authentic liturgical renewal sparked by the Second Vatican Council.
Those who thought Pope Benedict would “turn back the clock” and negate all the “changes” will be disappointed.
You wouldn’t know this, of course, from some press reports, whose 30-second sound-bites or catchy headlines would have us believe the Holy Father is a retrograde. Does he encourage the use of some Latin and Gregorian chant? Yes. Does he remind us that the Mass is not ours to alter, but that careful and reverent attention to liturgical guidelines is expected? Yes. But he also endorses fully the celebration of the Mass as renewed by the council, which, by the way, he attended.
2. Sacramentum Caritatis beautifully reminds us that the Eucharist is a mystery, to be believed, to be celebrated, and to be lived.
3. “In the Eucharist, Jesus does not give us a thing but himself. He offers his own body and pours out his own blood, thus giving us the totality of his life.” (#7)
Yes: in holy Communion, Jesus Christ is really and truly, personally, present, body, blood, soul, and divinity. Our faith is not in a thing but is in a person.
4. The church herself comes from the Eucharist. The very term Corpus Christi refers to Christ’s physical body, Christ’s Eucharistic body, and Christ’s mystical body, his Church.
Thus, the Eucharist is not mine, but the church’s. We don’t invent it or make it up as we go along; we receive it, it is handed on to us. At the Eucharist we are not “congregationalists” but “catholic,” as the whole church, in heaven and on earth, is united with us. There is then no such thing as a “private” Mass, as every Eucharist, even if offered by the priest by himself, embraces the entire church.
5. The Liturgy should be beautiful. It is a manifestation of God’s glory, ordered and coherent; it gives us a hint of the divine, the beyond, heaven, the transcendent.
6. All Catholics are called to full and active participation in the Eucharist. However, the Holy Father teaches (#53) the most essential way we participate is inside: our hearts, minds, and souls are united with Christ, with the community, with the celebrant. The liturgy is not to be a flurry of activity, a multiplication of roles, a frantic effort to get everybody involved.
7. “The best catechesis on the Eucharist is … the Eucharist well-celebrated.” The most effective classroom for teaching the faith is the Eucharist.
8. To use a term popular in this archdiocese, we aim for “a Eucharist without walls.” The Eucharist, Pope Benedict maintains, by its nature calls us to charity, justice, evangelization, conversion.
9. The Eucharist is a meal, yes; it is a sacrifice, sure; but it is also a presence. Jesus Christ remains really and truly with us in the Blessed Sacrament.
And, the Holy Father recommends, a particularly effective way to grow in holiness, to become a better friend of Jesus, to be more united with him, is through eucharistic adoration, as we keep company with Christ exposed on the altar in the Blessed Sacrament.
I hear catechumens tell me how they decided to enter the church while before the Eucharist; I hear young men and women describe how they discerned a call to priesthood or religious life while at eucharistic adoration; I hear busy physicians tell me how their one-hour a week at a chapel of eucharistic adoration, usually in the middle of the night, has rekindled their faith.
And now the successor of St. Peter urges it ….
A blessed Triduum, my friends!
A Happy Easter!
O Sacrament Most Holy!
O Sacrament divine!
All praise and all thanksgiving,
Be every moment thine!
|
|
|
