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On the 8th October 2004, Pope John Paul II issued the apostolic letter Abide with us, Lord (Mane nobiscum Domine) in which he declared the year 2005 "the Year of the Eucharist". The purpose of this is to encourage us to re-focus our devotion and understanding of the Eucharist in its central role in the life of the church.
How do we do this? Well, one way is to re-visit the truths concerning the Eucharist, firstly to remind ourselves of what they actually are, and secondly to try and unpack them in order to appreciate how this gift is for our benefit!
In doing this we often discover new insights, new meanings for our active participation in celebrating the Eucharist in the liturgy of the Mass, as well as helping us to live out our faith in everyday life.
Perhaps we will find that we had never really fully understood and appreciated the purpose of the Mass. Perhaps we have found that we need answers to the following questions:
Why is it so important? Is it absolutely necessary for my salvation? Can I not be a Christian, a follower of Christ, without going to mass? What really happens to me when I receive holy communion? How is the celebration of the Eucharist in the Mass "the source and summit of our Christian life"?
These are important questions, the answers to which depend upon our understanding why our Lord gave such a gift to his church. In many instances we will not have the satisfaction of knowing the full answers to our many questions, but we do have the opportunity of knowing what God has revealed to us in and through his son, in the scriptures and tradition, both brought to his church by the holy spirit. Together they form the 'rock of truth' upon which we can rely.
Those of us who have reached a mature age will remember, I am sure, when our involvement at Mass was regarded as "attending". We simply had to be there in person and at one or two points in the Mass to join the priest in prayer, with some around us saying the rosary or other prayers.
Through the years preceding the Second Vatican Council in the early 60s, through the inspiration and motivation of the holy spirit, much work was done to re-focus our minds and hearts on what is 'church', and the central importance of the Eucharist. This work culminated in the debates and discussions of the council, the documents of which, and the later catechism, are a rich source of what it means for us to be 'the church', in essence, mission and worship. These days, we are much more involved in the Mass as a result of the restatement that the whole congregation, priest and people, are the 'celebrants'. Rather than merely attending in the passive sense, the congregation is praying to God, listening to God, thanking God, offering and receiving God. There is a dynamic two-way relationship.
As Catholic Christians we all know that the Eucharist was instituted by Jesus at the last supper on the night before his crucifixion. But do we understand why? What was so important to Jesus that this had to be done at that particular time?
One of the keys to our understanding this is the particular occasion on which Jesus chose to celebrate the last supper with his disciples. The setting was not one of an ordinary daily meal but was one which already had a religious significance for the Jewish community. It was the week of the Jewish festival of Passover in which the Jews celebrated the saving actions of God from their slavery to the Egyptians. God made it possible for them to pass over from slavery to freedom, from a death-like existence to a new life.
In choosing this special time to institute the wonderful gift of the Eucharist Jesus was showing his disciples that he was about to transform that celebration of Passover into a new one in which he would literally pass over from death to new life by sacrificing himself on the cross - I have ardently longed to eat this passover with you before I suffer; because I tell you, I shall not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. (Lk 22:15)
But this was not an ordinary meal in which Jesus' actions and words merely showed to his disciples what was to happen the next day. His sacrificial death was anticipated in a very real way at that supper. The bread and wine were truly his body and blood which were to be sacrificed the next day! This is the mystery of that special action of Jesus. We simply cannot understand how this could happen; it is beyond our grasp.
Yet because we believe that Jesus is the son of God, we accept his words at the last supper: This is my body....this is my blood.....poured out for many. Jesus' sacrificial "yes" to his father was made present and effective to his disciples and through them to everyone. Through divine power, the impossible, in human terms, becomes possible.
Jesus' command to "do this in remembrance of me" is more than asking for mere actions of our memories. First of all, the command "do" means that it is imperative that we do what he asks. Imperative because our celebration of Jesus' actions and words in the Eucharist is vital for our own passover from death to new life. It is the source of our Christian life! Listen to what Jesus said as written by John: In all truth I tell you, if you do not eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise him up on the last day. (Jn6:53-54)
Secondly, the word "remembrance" is to be understood in scriptural terms in the sense that the reality of what is commemorated is made present to us. When we do what our Lord commanded, the reality of his sacrificial death is made present to us. The Eucharist then becomes the means through which we join ourselves to Jesus' sacrifice in a real way, SO THAT in uniting ourselves to him in his death we will also pass over from death to new life in our own resurrection and ascension to Heaven.
We can now see how our celebration of the Eucharist in the Mass is the "source and summit of our Christian life". It is in the Eucharist that the work of our redemption is accomplished. It is in this great Eucharistic act of faith that each member of the church encounters the dynamic presence of the risen Christ as "the bread of life", the food of our spiritual life, the food of our eternal life. That new and fulfilling life is only present in us when we consume Jesus as the "bread of life" and the "cup of salvation".
This is why our full involvement in the celebration of the Eucharist in the Mass is so important so vital to our Christian life and our salvation. The magisterium of the church (the teaching ministry of the Pope and bishops) emphasises this vital importance when it tells us that we have an 'obligation' to take part in the celebration on each Sunday, "the Lord's day". This obligation arises not simply because our leaders say so, but because the Eucharist is the source of our life in the risen and glorified son of God. It is the source of our future fulfilment and happiness.
The catechism teaches us that our celebration of the Eucharist in the Mass is, at the same time, an act of giving thanks and praise to the Father, a sacrificial memorial of Christ and his body, and the presence of Christ by the power of his word and of his spirit (CCC.1358).
Our Mass today is a long development of the early Christian Eucharistic celebrations which were held on the "first day of the week", the "Lord's day", or as we know it 'Sunday'. The essential structure is the same - the thanks, the offering and the receiving.
The Jewish passover was also a sacrificial meal, in which the animal victim, the most perfect they could find, was killed and offered to God through the priest. Once given to God the victim was eaten as a gift of God to them. In this eating of the gift they expressed their union with God.
In the bread and wine of the Eucharist we are able to eat of the harvest yielded by Christ's sacrificial death, his resurrection and 'breakthrough' into Heaven. It is a sacrificial meal because the body which is consumed has been given freely for all as an act of sacrificial love (agape).
There are two points in this dynamic relationship that I want to emphasise in relation to our response to God's call to the Eucharist. First of all, although each part of the liturgy of the Mass is important in the unity of the whole act of thanksgiving, there is one part which gives us the opportunity to make the most perfect offering to God the Father. This is that part called the "doxology" prayer and the "great amen", when the priest lifts up the consecrated bread and wine and says, Through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honour is yours, almighty Father, for ever and ever.
What exactly is happening here? We have already seen that the celebration of the Eucharist is essentially a re-presentation of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross which was made once and once only. Yet, that sacrifice is real for all time. The celebration of the Eucharist is the means whereby that reality and its fruit are brought to each one of us today until Jesus comes to Earth the second and final time.
In this prayer of praise, we join ourselves with the risen son of God. Jesus' real presence in the bread and wine becomes our perfect offering to the Father. Our "amen" is our act of union with the priest’s words and actions. Jesus takes our belief and faith in him to our Father and makes it a perfect offering for our sins. This is why it is so important for us to be totally involved and not merely 'attenders'; to give ourselves totally to the celebration of the Eucharist in the Mass.
The second point is our response to Jesus' call to consume him as the "bread of life". When we receive Jesus in 'communion' what effect does it have on us? What kind of "food for life" is it? When we receive the body and blood of our Lord every week or every day, why is it that we feel no different?
To find an answer we need to remember that we are called by God through his word to live a life of love - love of God and love of neighbour. Because of our weakness through the presence of sin in humanity, this can only be possible with God's loving help - what we call "the grace of God". The Eucharist is where the risen and glorified Jesus gives us his own life as nourishment to live out such a life of love. As brothers and sisters of Jesus in belief and faith (the baptised) we are able to draw upon him as "the vine" so that we as his "branches" will bear good fruit. His life-blood flows through the church, his body, to its members.
The source of that divine power to live such a life of love can only be found in the person of the risen Jesus who is "seated at the right hand of the Father". It is their Holy Spirit who makes it possible for Jesus to be present upon our altars through the words and actions of the priest. The words of Jesus in the "bread of life" discourse in John's Gospel are clear and unambiguous: As the living Father sent me and I draw life from my Father, so whoever eats me will also draw life from me.
What is this "life" we draw from Jesus in our reception of him each day or each week? Jesus gave us the form and manner in which we, as members of his body, receive this gift of life. It comes to us in the form of natural food, for how else could we eat it? But the life of Jesus in the form of bread and wine is food for our spirits, our souls. The Eucharistic food accomplishes in the spiritual order what earthly food does in the material order - it nourishes and supports life.
Once our own spirits are nourished with the life of Jesus, as though his life-blood is flowing through our spiritual veins, this in turn gives us spiritual strength to live out our Christian calling to love God and our neighbour. We experience the effects of this communion in the way we in fact do live out that calling in everyday life.
Having received the risen life of Jesus as food for our Christian life and mission, we are then sent by Jesus into the world. Pope John Paul II emphasised this dimension of the Eucharist preparing us for our Christian witness in the world: Every commitment to holiness, every activity aimed at carrying out the church's mission, every work of pastoral planning, must draw the strength it needs from the Eucharistic mystery and in turn be directed to that mystery as its culmination... ...Were we to disregard the Eucharist, how could we overcome our own deficiency? (Ecclesia de Eucharistia 60.2003).
The church has been described as "the sacrament of Christ", for it is the visible sign of God's activity in the world in the person of his son and in the power of his spirit. Therefore, it is the Eucharist which makes the church, for it is the very source of the life of the church. God the Father's love comes to his church through his risen and glorified son.
It is Jesus, by being at the right hand of the Father in Heaven, who has made it possible for us to follow him there. Through his sacrificial death, his resurrection and ascension into Heaven, Jesus achieved a 'breakthough' for our humanity to enter Heaven. As our "high priest", he is the perfect mediator of our access to Heaven. He became the "forerunner" (Gk. "archegon ", Hebrews 2:10) of our salvation. In the Eucharist the church celebrates this "breakthrough", where Heaven and Earth are united upon our altars. Our celebration of the Eucharist in the mass is the place of encounter with this heavenly reality. We need to be of God's household and become "partakers of Christ" (Hebrews 3) if we are to join him in our eventual fulfilment in Heaven.
As created free in the image of God, we are called in that freedom to that fufillment in Heaven, not forced or coerced; that would negate our free will. This freedom enables us to love, for true love is not love at all if it is not completely free. The Eucharist is given to us as a free loving gift from God. Our offering of ourselves in union with Jesus is our free act of love for God. In that communion of love when we "eat and drink" Jesus, we not only show our faith in him but we also receive the gift of a share in the new life which he guarantees for us in the future.
The Eucharist is a mystery of presence, the perfect fulfilment of Jesus' promise to remain with us until the end of the world. (John Paul II "Abide with us Lord" p.16).