What Happens in the Eucharist?
Thursday, 23 May 2013 10:51
Written by
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI 
In accepting the passion, persecution and death, Jesus changed it into an act of GIVING. We too Change!
What
Jesus gave to us in the intimacy of the Upper Room we express openly,
because the love of Christ is not reserved for a few but is destined for
all. I stress that it is in the Eucharist that the transformation of
the gifts of this earth takes place - the bread and wine - whose aim is
to transform our life and thereby to inaugurate the transformation of
the world.
Everything
begins, one might say, from the heart of Christ who, at the Last
Supper, on the eve of his passion, thanked and praised God and by so
doing, with the power of his love, transformed the meaning of death
which he was on his way to encounter. The fact that the Sacrament of the
Altar acquired the name “Eucharist” - “thanksgiving” - expresses
precisely this: that changing the substance of the bread and wine into
the Body and Blood of Christ is the fruit of the gift that Christ made
of himself, the gift of a Love stronger than death, divine Love which
raised him from the dead. This is why the Eucharist is the food of
eternal life, the Bread of Life. From Christ’s heart, from his
“Eucharistic prayer” on the eve of his passion flows that dynamism which
transforms reality in its cosmic, human and historical dimensions. All
things proceed from God, from the omnipotence of his Triune Love,
incarnate in Jesus. Christ’s heart is steeped in this Love; therefore he
can thank and praise God even in the face of betrayal and violence, and
in this way changes things, people and the world.
This
transformation is possible thanks to a communion stronger than
division, the communion of God himself. The word “communion”, which we
also use to designate the Eucharist, in itself sums up the vertical and
horizontal dimensions of Christ’s gift.
The
words “to receive communion”, referring to the act of eating the Bread
of the Eucharist, are beautiful and very eloquent. In fact, when we do
this act we enter into communion with the very life of Jesus, into the
dynamism of this life which is given to us and for us. From God, through
Jesus, to us: a unique communion is transmitted through the Blessed
Eucharist.
Listen
to the words of the Apostle Paul to the Christians of Corinth: “The cup
of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of
Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body
of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for
we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor 10:16-17).
St
Augustine helps us to understand the dynamic of Eucharistic communion
when he mentions a sort of vision that he had, in which Jesus said to
him: “I am the food of strong men; grow and you shall feed on me; nor
shall you change me, like the food of your flesh into yourself, but you
shall be changed into my likeness” (Confessions, vii, 10, 18).
Therefore
whereas food for the body is assimilated by our organism and
contributes to nourishing it, in the case of the Eucharist it is a
different Bread: it is not we who assimilate it but it assimilates us in
itself, so that we become conformed to Jesus Christ, a member of his
Body, one with him. This passage is crucial. In fact, precisely because
it is Christ who, in Eucharistic communion changes us into him, our
individuality, in this encounter, is opened, liberated from its
egocentrism and inserted into the Person of Jesus who in his turn is
immersed in Trinitarian communion. The Eucharist, therefore, while it
unites us to Christ also opens us to others, makes us members of one
another: we are no longer divided but one in him. Eucharistic communion
not only unites me to the person I have beside me and with whom I may
not even be on good terms, but also to our distant brethren in every
part of the world.
Hence
the profound sense of the Church’s social presence derives from the
Eucharist, as is testified by the great social saints who were always
great Eucharistic souls. Those who recognize Jesus in the sacred Host,
recognize him in their suffering brother or sister, in those who hunger
and thirst, who are strangers, naked, sick or in prison; and they are
attentive to every person, they work in practice for all who are in
need.
Therefore
our special responsibility as Christians for building a supportive,
just and brotherly society comes from the gift of Christ’s love.
Especially in our time, in which globalization makes us more and more
dependent on each other, Christianity can and must ensure that this
unity is not built without God, that is, without true Love, which would
give way to confusion, individualism and the tyranny of each one seeking
to oppress the others. The Gospel has always aimed at the unity of the
human family, a unity that is neither imposed from the outside nor by
ideological or economic interests but on the contrary is based on the
sense of reciprocal responsibility, so that we may recognize each other
as members of one and the same Body, the Body of Christ, because from
the Sacrament of the Altar we have learned and are constantly learning
that sharing, love, is the path to true justice.
Let
us now return to Jesus’ action at the Last Supper. What happened at
that moment? When he said: “this is my body which is given for you, this
is the cup of my blood which is poured out for many, what happened? In
this gesture Jesus was anticipating the event of Calvary. Out of love he
accepted the whole passion, with its anguish and its violence, even to
death on the cross. In accepting it in this manner he changed it into an
act of giving. This is the transformation which the world needs most,
to redeem it from within, to open it to the dimensions of the Kingdom of
Heaven.
However,
God always wishes to bring about this renewal of the world on the same
path followed by Christ, that way which is indeed he himself. There is
nothing magic about Christianity. There are no short-cuts; everything
passes through the humble and patient logic of the grain of wheat that
broke open to give life, the logic of faith that moves mountains with
the gentle power of God. For this reason God wishes to continue to renew
humanity, history and the cosmos through this chain of transformations,
of which the Eucharist is the sacrament. Through the consecrated bread
and wine, in which his Body and his Blood are really present, Christ
transforms us, conforming us to him: he involves us in his work of
redemption, enabling us, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, to live
in accordance with his own logic of self-giving, as grains of wheat
united to him and in him. Thus are sown and continue to mature in the
furrows of history unity and peace, which are the end for which we
strive, in accordance with God’s plan.
Let
us walk with no illusions, with no utopian ideologies, on the highways
of the world bearing within us the Body of the Lord, like the Virgin
Mary in the mystery of the Visitation. With the humility of knowing that
we are merely grains of wheat, let us preserve the firm certainty that
the love of God, incarnate in Christ, is stronger than evil, violence
and death. We know that God prepares for all men and women new heavens
and a new earth, in which peace and justice reign- and in faith we
perceive the new world which is our true homeland.
അജപാലനാചാരങ്ങളുടെയും
ചട്ടങ്ങളുടെയും എട്ടാമത്തെ കൂദാശ സൃഷ്ടിക്കരുതെന്നു ഫ്രാന്സീസ്
മാര്പാപ്പ. ആത്മീയാവശ്യങ്ങള്ക്കെത്തുന്നവരെ പ്രോട്ടോക്കോള് പാലിക്കാന്
നിര്ബന്ധിക്കുന്പോള് ഇതാണു സംഭവിക്കുന്നതെന്നു മാര്പാപ്പ വ്യക്തമാക്കി.
കുഞ്ഞുങ്ങളെയും കൊണ്ടു ക്രിസ്തുവിനരികില് വിശ്വാസികള് വന്ന ബൈബിള്
ഭാഗത്തെ ആസ്പദമാക്കി, ദിവ്യബലിയില് സുവിശേഷപ്രസംഗം നടത്തുകയായിരുന്നു
മാര്പാപ്പ.
