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Pope John Paul II has written no less than fourteen Encyclicals during his Pontificate. His most recent has been the subject of an introduction and discussion conducted by Father Peter Newsam at St Richard’s church. This introduction offers a chance to find out more and to explore ways in which the Encyclical may help enrich our understanding of the Mass. There will be a further session in the Special Ministers’ Day of Reflection on September 27th - details will be in the Parish Bulletin.

I suppose that I should begin this presentation by explaining why we are here at all. The reason that I first suggested this session was that I am aware of just how many words are written, how many documents are produced at every level in the Church, and how difficult it is to digest them all. This is partly a question of sheer volume - there is so much, where does one begin; it is also partly a question of style. Official documents of the Church are often written in a style that is quite difficult to understand, and we are tempted either to give up or else rely on summaries that are often very incomplete, or else heavily influenced by the particular point of view of the journalists writing them, and so we never discover what is really being said. For instance, if one were to believe the press coverage of this letter it would appear to be almost totally concerned with who may or may not receive communion in a Catholic Church, and while this is certainly an issue it addresses, it is far from the only one, or even a dominant one.

So here we are this evening, and I will try to introduce you to some of the contents of this particular document. Perhaps, if this proves to be helpful, we might repeat the exercise with other works in the future. What I am really hoping to do is to make more accessible to you something you might otherwise find difficult to gain access to. There is, in addition, a brief summary available that was produced by the Vatican, but of course this is no substitute for the real thing.

No one can deny that the Holy Father is now an old man. You may have read that on a number of occasions recently he has referred to his own death - something which, I suppose, one cannot avoid thinking about from time to time at his age. As I read this letter I was struck by just how personal it is in style, full or references to his own experiences, what the Eucharist has meant to him personally, and above all it appears to be driven by a profound gratitude, a gratitude for all that God has given to him, and given through him, in celebrating the eucharistic mystery. To read this document feels like sitting at the feet of a wise old man, anxious to share his experience and pass on something of his wisdom. Viewed in that light, it is an intensely moving experience. This is made all the more clear in those passages where the Holy Father switches away from a theological, teaching, style of writing, and embarks on what are in essence extended meditations. After a busy and stressful week I must say when I sat down to write this talk I felt as if it was the very last thing I needed, but gradually as I was able to enter deeply into the document it became a real source of refreshment, inspiration and joy.

This letter is, as I said, a work shot through with gratitude. The Pope turns to consider his theme with great emotion and gratitude (9). He looks back with gratitude on more than 50 years of encountering Christ in the Eucharist as a priest. He recalls all the varied and different places where he has celebrated Mass, in cathedrals and basilicas, in stadiums and city squares, in great churches and in tiny chapels by lake shores, mountain paths or sea coasts.

"Today I have the grace of offering the Church this Encyclical on the Eucharist on the Holy Thursday which falls during the twenty-fifth year of my Petrine ministry. As I do so, my heart is filled with gratitude. For over a half century, every day, beginning on 2 November 1946, when I celebrated my first Mass in the Crypt of Saint Leonard in Wawel Cathedral in Kraków, my eyes have gazed in recollection upon the host and the chalice, where time and space in some way "merge" and the drama of Golgotha is re-presented in a living way, thus revealing its mysterious "contemporaneity". Each day my faith has been able to recognize in the consecrated bread and wine the divine Wayfarer who joined the two disciples on the road to Emmaus and opened their eyes to the light and their hearts to new hope (cf. Lk 24:13-35).(59)"

[DISCUSSION POINT]

So this letter is a very personal one, offered with great gratitude. What, though, is its purpose, what is the Holy Father aiming to achieve? There are two purposes which the author himself gives: one is to observe that, in spite of the many benefits of liturgical reform in recent decades, there have been shadows, too (for example the virtual disappearance of Eucharistic adoration in some places, or a style of celebration that strips the Mass of its sacrificial meaning and turns it into no more than a ‘fraternal banquet’), and so there must be a careful appraisal of practices that obscure the true glory of the Mass. The second, and more striking, purpose of the letter is to equip the Church for the ‘new evangelization’. This expression is one that has been used frequently, by the Pope and others, in recent years. It refers to the task of proclaiming the gospel not to people who have never heard it before, but to people who have half understood and then rejected it, or else understood and half accepted it. It involves awakening and deepening a faith that perhaps lay dormant, or deepening a faith that was purely nominal, or helping people to internalize a faith that was largely limited to external observances. This is to be founded on a renewed ‘amazement’ at the wonder, the beauty, the glory of the Eucharist.

"I would like to rekindle this Eucharistic "amazement" by the present Encyclical Letter.... To contemplate the face of Christ, and to contemplate it with Mary, is the "program" which I have set before the Church at the dawn of the third millennium, summoning her to put out into the deep on the sea of history with the enthusiasm of the new evangelization. To contemplate Christ involves being able to recognize Him wherever He manifests Himself, in His many forms of presence, but above all in the living sacrament of His body and His blood. The Church draws her life from Christ in the Eucharist; by Him she is fed and by Him she is enlightened."(6)

In considering this letter we should never lose sight of the Holy Father’s express wish that it be a tool for rekindling ‘eucharistic amazement’.

The Introduction

This letter consists of six chapters, ‘bookended’ by an introduction and a conclusion.

The Introduction firmly establishes the connection between the Mass, in fact between every Mass, and the events of Holy Week. On one level, of course, this is not surprising as the letter was published on Holy Thursday, but the Holy Father has a deeper purpose. One of the themes that runs through this letter is the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist. The Eucharist brings about what he calls a ‘oneness in time’ between the Easter Triduum and today, so that through the priest we hear the voice of Christ: "This is my body...This is my blood..."; we walk with Jesus to Gethsemane; we watch his agony in the garden; we see him lifted high on the cross for "every priest who celebrates Holy Mass, together with the Christian community which takes part in it, is led back in spirit to that place and that hour"; we proclaim with joy his resurrection. It is this fact, that in the Mass we stand outside time, that is the basis for the amazement the Holy Father wishes to rekindle.

This theme is one to which the letter returns in Chapter 1, The Mystery of Faith. In the Mass the sacrifice of Christ is re-presented at every celebration. The sacrifice of Christ on the cross is so significant that he "returned to the Father only after he had left us a means of sharing it as if we had been present there" (underlining added). More than this, every eucharist, in placing before us the sacrifice of Christ, invites us to join in with this and to offer our own selves to God.

The letter continues by reaffirming the Church’s faith in the real presence of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine; they become his body and blood. We call this the ‘real’ presence not to contrast it with some other sort of presence, but by reference to the Latin word ‘res’, which means thing. Christ’s presence is a ‘thingly’ presence - not purely a spiritual one, or a symbolic one, but a substantial one.

Having reinforced the importance of seeing the Mass as a sacrifice, the Holy Father goes on to remind us that the Eucharist is also a banquet, in which Christ feeds us with his own body and blood, so that through Holy Communion we may be united more closely with him. In our union with Christ we are also more closely united with the saints, with the Church in heaven. In the Eucharist we experience the beginnings of what heaven will be like, Already we are able to taste eternal life. This is expressed beautifully in these words:

This pledge of the future resurrection comes from the fact that the flesh of the Son of Man, given as food, is his body in its glorious state after the resurrection. With the Eucharist we digest, as it were, the "secret" of the resurrection. For this reason Saint Ignatius of Antioch rightly defined the Eucharistic Bread as "a medicine of immortality, an antidote to death". (18)

Finally, the Pope emphasises forcefully that the wonders and glories of the Mass are not a reason for us to withdraw from the everyday concerns and material needs of the world. Far from it, the Eucharist drives us to be even more committed to transforming the world in which we live:

So we have to ask ourselves, is this our experience of the Eucharist? To what extent do we allow our participation in the Mass to transform us, to change our way of living?

[DISCUSSION POINT]

Chapter two is entitled The Eucharist Builds the Church. From the moment that the twelve apostles gathered with Christ in the Upper Room, Eucharistic communion has drawn people closer to God. Our relationship of friendship with Christ is sustained, strengthened and deepened through communion. This is not simply a one-way experience where we receive Christ, but in the Eucharist he receives each of us too. Once more, this is not to be something inward-looking, for our own benefit alone. Drawn closer to Christ in holy communion, we are drawn closer to one another, and this gives the Church the spiritual power it needs to make Christ present to the world. When I receive Jesus in holy communion I am tied more closely to him, and when you receive him so are you, and so we are brought closer to one another, and this bond that unites us both inspires and strengthens us in presenting Christ to the world. Where sin tends to cause fragmentation, and drive people further apart, the Eucharist does precisely the opposite in bringing people closer together, building up the Church, and creating community.

The Pope then returns to a theme that he has pursued many times before, encouraging people to pray in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, which both prolongs and increases the fruits of our communion. Once more we can discern the personal nature of this letter as he writes:

"It is pleasant to spend time with him, to lie close to his breast like the Beloved Disciple and to feel the infinite love present in his heart. If in our time Christians must be distinguished above all by the "art of prayer", how can we not feel a renewed need to spend time in spiritual converse, in silent adoration, in heartfelt love before Christ present in the Most Holy Sacrament? How often, dear brothers and sisters, have I experienced this, and drawn from it strength, consolation and support!" (25)

[DISCUSSION POINT]

Chapter Three is called The Apostolicity of the Eucharist and of the Church. ‘Apostolic’ is one of the adjectives that describes the Church, and given the intimate connection between the Church and the Eucharist, it can be applied to the Eucharist in just the same way. So what does it mean? The Catechism gives three ways in which the Church is apostolic, each of which applies just the same to the Eucharist:

• it is apostolic in that it is ‘founded on the apostles’, that is to say it was initially entrusted by Christ to the apostles;
• it is apostolic in that the Eucharist today, and in every age, continues to express the same faith as it did when the apostles celebrated it;
• it is apostolic in that in every age it is presided over by the successors of the apostles, the bishops, and is celebrated by them and by priests ordained by them. These priests act "in the person of Christ" - not in the name of Christ, or even in place of him, but by a particular sacramental identification with Christ. The priest re-presents Christ in the sense of making him present to the community, not being there instead of one who cannot himself come.

At this stage the Pope meets head on an issue which is clearly being raised by all that he has said. Given the importance of the Eucharist in shaping the worshipping community, and of the priest in representing Christ, what of our shortage of priests, of worshipping communities with no resident priest? The identity of a parish is expressed through its celebration of the Eucharist. A situation that limits or restricts this is clearly unsatisfactory, and can only be seen as a temporary arrangement, until a priest becomes available. In the meantime those unable to celebrate the Eucharist as frequently as they would want must keep alive a "hunger" for the Eucharist. The question of what can be done to promote the vocations so badly needed is one we must never lose sight of.

There is in this chapter the beginning of a discussion of the Eucharist and non-Catholic Christians that continues in the next chapter, so I shall delay the discussion of that until it can be done as a whole.

[DISCUSSION POINT]

Chapter Four is called The Eucharist and Ecclesial Communion. It is directed at a discussion of communion, invisible and visible. Invisible communion is the bond that unites us to God, and it is the responsibility of every Christian to keep this bond intact by practising the virtues, primarily by practising faith, hope and love. If such a bond is truly to be maintained and strengthened we are challenged to a constant and repeated conversion of heart, and in particular we are challenged to turn our back on grave sin - hence the Church’s requirement that anyone conscious of grave sin must first confess their sins before receiving the Eucharist.

Visible communion is expressed in the celebration of the sacraments in communion with the bishop, who is himself in communion with the Holy Father. This is our cue to consider what the letter has to say about the Eucharist and Christians outside the Catholic Church. Although this is only one of many issues addressed by this letter, it is the one which has generated most attention in the press. Some commentators have expressed disappointment that there has been no relaxation of rules about Catholics receiving communion in other denominations, and vice versa. Because this has generated so much heat (and so little light) it is important to be clear about this. Almost all ecumenical commentators have praised this letter, as a clear and unambiguous statement of what the Catholic Church teaches about the Eucharist. This, together with a commitment to continuing joint study, was all that the Archbishop of Canterbury said in his official response - no complaints, no expression of disappointment. In the United States the director of the National Council of Churches Faith and Order Commission praised the encyclical for its commitment to justice, to mission, and for its familiarity with concerns raised by other ecclesial bodies about aspects of Eucharistic doctrine. She went on to say that in reading this encyclical "in the ecumenical community we can choose to be discouraged by how long the path is before us. Or we can join with Pope John Paul" in a more hopeful attitude characterised by his burning desire to join in celebrating the one Eucharist of the Lord. To me, this seems the wiser choice.

The Holy Father reaffirms that in special cases the sacraments can be given to non-Catholics, but these are only special cases where there exists a grave spiritual need. He is concerned that any concelebration in the absence of full communion would in fact be counter-productive. By masking the real differences both of doctrine and of discipline that exist, it would conceal how much work remains to be done, and weaken the drive for full and final solutions that bring about true unity.

At the risk of labouring the point, but it is one on which we are often challenged and we must be ready with the proper answer, the Church’s discipline is based on a desire for truth. It is not simply our words that convey meaning, but our gestures too. This is the basis for a sexual ethics based on the language of the body: if I make love to someone (wherein my body is saying ‘I am yours, totally, and for ever’) but my mind is saying ‘I will never see you again after tonight’ my body lies: it says something that is not true. In the same way, if we receive communion together with non-Catholics, we proclaim with our bodies ‘we are united, in doctrine and in discipline; we are one’ whereas in fact we are not so united, and once again our bodies say something that is not true. The truth is that we are not united, and our body language must be faithful to that truth.

[DISCUSSION POINT]

Chapter Five is The Dignity of the Eucharistic Celebration. On one level this is an injunction to priests that the liturgy is not their private property, and that while creativity and adaptation have their place in the development of a living liturgy, their proper limits must not be overstepped. The Apostolic nature of the Eucharist makes it clear that its celebration is governed and regulated by the Church, not by any individual. More significant, though, is the time the Holy Father spends in the chapter returning to his theme of "Eucharistic amazement". He does this by returning to the Last Supper, which was celebrated with a mix of solemnity and simplicity. The disciples were critical of the extravagance of the woman who poured costly perfume over Jesus, but he rejected their criticism. The celebration of Mass, which takes so many forms in different circumstances, is often rightly marked by an exuberant extravagance, and careful preparation just as the disciples were told to "prepare carefully" the upper room.

"Like the woman who anointed Jesus in Bethany, the Church has feared no "extravagance", devoting the best of her resources to expressing her wonder and adoration before the unsurpassable gift of the Eucharist. No less than the first disciples charged with preparing the "large upper room", she has felt the need, down the centuries and in her encounters with different cultures, to celebrate the Eucharist in a setting worthy of so great a mystery. In the wake of Jesus' own words and actions, and building upon the ritual heritage of Judaism, the Christian liturgy was born".

Pursuing this theme the Pope considers sacred art - architecture, music and all other aspects of art that enrich the liturgy such as church furnishings and vestments, all of which fulfil a vital role in heightening a sense of mystery, and calling us to adore. Quite rightly he goes on to point out that care must be taken with all these aspects of sacred art that they do truly help in this, and that they do not in fact impoverish or compromise this sense of mystery. There is no question that there is in the Eucharist an element of the banquet, a feast, but it is a sacrificial banquet rather than a brotherly gathering, and: "the bread which is broken on our altars, offered to us as wayfarers along the paths of the world, is panis angelorum, the bread of angels, which cannot be approached except with the humility of the centurion in the Gospel: ‘Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof’."

[DISCUSSION POINT]

The final Chapter is a Marian meditation, entitled At the School of Mary, "Woman of the Eucharist". This draws the link between the Eucharist as a mystery far beyond our understanding that calls for sheer abandonment to the word of God, and the similar response called for from Mary at the Annunciation: "there is a profound analogy between the Fiat which Mary said in reply to the angel, and the Amen which every believer says when receiving the body of the Lord". And there follows a surprising thought, a matter for meditation: how must Mary, who bore Christ in her womb, have felt when she received from the apostles the body of Christ at the Eucharist - received back him who she first received at an angel’s message.

[DISCUSSION POINT]

The Conclusion closes the letter with a challenge, a challenge to deepen our knowledge and understanding of the Eucharist, so that we can deepen the influence it has in our lives. If we have let our love for Christ present in the Blessed Sacrament drift, now is the time to relocate it.

"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. In the Eucharist we have Jesus, we have his redemptive sacrifice, we have his resurrection, we have the gift of the Holy Spirit, we have adoration, obedience and love of the Father. Were we to disregard the Eucharist, how could we overcome our own deficiency?"(60)

Somewhere in all that I have said, I hope that there has been something to touch or inspire you. In many ways this document is shot through with the Pope’s poetic vision, and I close with a few quotations. Rather in the style of those "Love is..." cartoons, these quotations all give us glimpses of different facets of what the Eucharist is.

• the most precious possession the Church can have (9);
• the sacrifice of the cross perpetuated down the ages (11);
• a mysterium fidei, a mystery which surpasses our understanding and can only be received in faith (15);
• a true banquet, in which Christ offers himself as our nourishment (16);
• a straining towards the goal, a foretaste of the fullness of joy promised by Christ...in some way the anticipation of heaven, the ‘pledge of future glory’ (18);
• truly a glimpse of heaven appearing on earth (19);
• a glorious ray of the heavenly Jerusalem which pierces the clouds of our history and lights up our journey (19);
• both the source and the summit of all evangelization, since its goal is the communion of mankind with Christ and in him with the Father and the Holy Spirit (22);
• a priceless treasure: by not only celebrating it but also praying before it outside of Mass we are enabled to make contact with the very wellspring of grace (25).

Peter Newsam
Chichester
June 2003

Read the encyclical text (external link) in full.