Diocesan Celebration of
The Year of the Eucharist

by The Most Reverend John C. Nienstedt

Church of St. Catherine - Redwood Falls, Minnesota

October 9, 2005

Scripture:  Luke 24:13-35

“. . . he took bread, pronounced the blessing, then broke the bread and began to distribute it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him . . .”

I chose this Scripture passage for this afternoon’s meditation for two reasons.  First of all, it was the text that our late, beloved Pope John Paul II used as his opening point of reflection for the Apostolic Letter, Mane Nobiscum, Domine, in which he formally announced the Year of the Eucharist.  And secondly, because it involves Jesus encountering the two disciples on a journey, along the way – an encounter much like that which 69 pilgrims from our Diocese experienced this past August at World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany.

Something quite wonderful happened at that event, which I believe will have a life-long impact.  By far, the highlight of that week of religious activities was the Saturday night Vigil and Sunday Eucharistic celebration presided over by Pope Benedict XVI in a large tract of land – 92 football fields in length and breath – fifteen miles outside Cologne called Marienfeld, or Mary’s Field.

Prior to his arrival . . . everyone was asking how the new Pope would be received.  His predecessor, the late, much loved Pope John Paul II had begun these international youth festivals and his personality had been a big factor in their success.  And so, along with the commentators in the media, we wondered, “How will he do?  What will he say?  Will he connect with a much younger crowd?”

In reality, such concerns proved unfounded and were quickly laid to rest as the shy, but energetic “laborer of the Lord” entered Marienfeld for the Saturday evening vigil of prayer.

The World Youth Day theme was “We have come to worship Him” taken from the words of the Three Wise Men to Herod in St. Matthew’s Gospel (2:1).  The new Pope was obviously intent on identifying himself and the rest of us as modern-day Magi, who possess a deep felt need to render adoration to Jesus, the Incarnate Son of God.  Pope Benedict referred to the Greek etymology of the word, “adoration,” that implies a gesture of submission, which recognizes God as the true measure of our lives and the norm for our actions.   He went on to say that the Latin sense of the word implies mouth to mouth contact as in a kiss or an embrace.  Thus the combination of the two meanings teaches us that submission leads to love, because He to whom we submit is love.  And this love is not imposed from without, but liberates us from deep within.

And then a wonderful “something” happened, where for the first time in World Youth Day history, the Pope led the crowd in a period of adoration, followed by Benediction.  As he lifted the golden monstrance in blessing, thousands upon thousands of youthful heads were bowed in silent adoration, submitting their hearts to Jesus in love.  It was a powerful and profound moment.

Earlier that day, the Pope had reminded the members of the German episcopate that adoration is not a “luxury but a priority.”  To seek Christ, he said, must be the incessant longing of all believers, of youth and adults, of the faithful and their pastors.  This search, he added, is always encouraged, supported and guided by the Church’s activities.  Faith, he went on to say, is not simply the adherence to a set of dogmas complete in itself that would quench the thirst of God present in the human spirit, but on the contrary faith projects for humanity a path in time toward God who is ever new in his infinitude.  The Christian believer, therefore, is at the same time one who seeks as well as one who finds.  It is precisely this, the Pope concluded, that makes the Church young, open to the future, rich in hope for the whole of humanity.

Pope Benedict obviously brought to this world gathering a vision that reached far beyond those few days of shared, living faith.  I was struck by the following line he used in his Sunday homily:  “In vast areas of the world today there is a strange forgetfulness of God.  It seems as if everything would be just the same even without him.”

Surely that “strange forgetfulness” is reflected in the extremely low percentage of Europeans who practice their faith.  Evidently it is reflected in the minds of the founders of the new European Union who would not even allow a reference to a heritage of Christian faith in their new constitution.  Even more, it is reflected in the reality of those great cathedrals of Europe, Cologne’s included, which have been reduced to tourist attractions rather than holy places of worship.  To counter this “strange forgetfulness,” Pope Benedict challenged the assembled youth with a summons to go forth and re-light the sanctuary lamps of the world.  In his closing homily, he not only shared with them a rich and ardent theology of Eucharist, he also called upon the vast assembly to become faith-sharers.  He spoke of the sacramental union with our Lord as a oneness with Christ to be shared with the whole world.  Listen to his actual words:

“Christ is within us and we are within him.  His dynamic presence enters into us and then seeks to spread outward to others until it fills the whole world so that the love of Christ can truly become the dominant measure of the world.”

He then went on to say :
"The Eucharist must become the center of our lives.  Anyone who has really discovered Christ must lead others to him.  This is a joy we must not keep to ourselves.  It must be passed on.  Let us seek to know him better and better so that we may guide others to him by our own deep conviction.”

Leading the assembled youth in adoration and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, Pope Benedict XVI bore personal testimony to the central place that the Holy Eucharist holds in the life of our Church as the “source and summit” of our Catholic faith.  It is precisely that kind of witness that the late, beloved Pope John Paul II desired to foster more than a year ago in proclaiming the Year of the Eucharist.

In his encyclical, Ecclesia in Eucharistia, he wrote:

“At the dawn of this third millennium, we, the children of the Church, are called to undertake with renewed enthusiasm the journey of Christian living . . . The implementation of this programme of a renewed impetus in Christian living passes through the Eucharist.” (no. 60)

Thus, it is so terribly appropriate for us to gather today and reflect on this marvelous gift that the Lord Jesus has given to us and for which we, in faith, have an obligation to make use of, to esteem and to promote.  To those ends, I propose speaking about our Catholic understanding of the Holy Eucharist from the vantage point of its personal, its communal (or ecclesial) and its social dimensions.  Secondly, I wish to apply those understandings to the practical situations of 1) Sunday Mass, 2) the relationship of the Eucharist to Sacramental Penance; and 3) a proper Eucharistic understanding with our brothers and sisters of the Lutheran faith.  Thus, we will investigate three theological dimensions of the Holy Eucharist and then apply them to three practical situations in living these Eucharistic truths.

It was Bishop Paul Zipfel of Bismarckwho first gave me the idea that there is an inherent “trajectory” or dynamic movement within the Holy Eucharist that moves us from the level of personal faith first to an ecclesial (or communal) expression and then to social outreach.

In a Pastoral Letter written earlier this year, Bishop Zipfel began with the story of Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, who as Archbishop of Saigon, was thrown into prison after that city fell into the hands of the North Vietnamese Communists in 1975.  He remained there for the next thirteen years, stripped of every possession as well as the very ministry with which he had been entrusted for the faithful under his care.

In his owns words, the Cardinal later wrote that in the moment of his arrest he had absolutely no time to take anything with him.  However, he was allowed later to write his assistants requesting some clothes and other personal effects.  He also took the occasion to ask for “a bit of medicine for his bad stomach.”  His assistants understood that this was a coded language and sent him a small bottle of wine labeled “stomach medicine.”  The Cardinal states:

“I will never be able to express my immense joy:  every day, with three drops of wine and one drop of water in the palm of my hand, I celebrated my Mass.”

His only companion those thirteen years was our Eucharistic Lord, but that Sacramental Presence proved sufficient strength and consolation for him to endure this rigorous ordeal.  The Cardinal’s friendship with Christ grew closer and more intimate as a result of their time together.

The Cardinal’s experience should remind us that the Holy Eucharist is not just a symbol like our American flag which can and should evoke deep personal sentiments.  Rather, the Holy Eucharist is the very presence of the Risen Jesus – Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity – here and now in our midst.

As Cardinal Jozef Tomko said at the recent International Eucharistic Congress in Guadalajara:

       “The Eucharist is not a “what” but a “who.”

In theological terms, we describe the Eucharist as a sacrificial memorial, which is to say, it is the unbloody sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross, not so much repeated in time, as made present in the here and now to such a degree that we can be drawn into it and made participants of it.  It is, therefore, more than an anniversary meal, though, of course, its context is always that of the Last Supper event.  But it is even more so a share in Jesus’ sacrificial death and glorious Resurrection from the Dead, which becomes the means of our own personal salvation.

At the heart of the Eucharist is the reality of “change” – a change, of course, of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus, but also and at the same time, the change of transforming each of us to be more like Christ.  This is what the early Fathers of the Church meant when they said that the Christian is “divinized” or made “God-like” through his relationship to Christ in the Eucharistic celebration.

St. Paulreminded the Corinthians that they receive the Body of Christ so as to be the body of Christ.  And Pope John Paul II taught us that the Church makes the Eucharist and the Eucharist makes the Church.  Our participation at Mass, therefore, should never be limited to a “me and Jesus” event.  The Eucharist is a communal event and, as such, it provides the source of unity for all its members.  It is also clear from that same Epistle that as a result of their internal divisions and squabbles, the Corinthians give evidence of a serious deficiency of the love that gives the Eucharist its very meaning.  This point is relevant for our parish communities today: if we fail to confront and overcome factions or disagreements among ourselves, our Eucharist will be a source of scandal, rather than a witness of charity.

Thirdly, that charity is intended not only for the internal well-being and spiritual growth of the Church community, it is also intended for her outreach of service to the society-at-large, especially the poor, the sick, the stranger, the outcast among us.  One of my favorite quotes from St. John Chrysostem touches on this reality:  In one discourse, this great saintly preacher encouraged Christ’s followers to show a high degree of dignity and reverence for the Holy Eucharist in the quality of vessels and vestments they used as well as in the appropriate decorum they observed at Mass.  But then he adds:

“. . . do not, while you honor him here with silken garments, neglect him perishing because of cold and nakedness . . . For what is the profit when his table is full of golden cups while he perishes with hunger?”

The author of Philippians reminds us:

“Your attitude must be that of Christ:  Though he was in the form of God, he did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at.  Rather he emptied himself and took the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of God.”  (Phil 2:5-7)

In this way, Jesus identified so fully with the poor and the disadvantaged that he could say in his great Sermon on the Mount:  “Whatsoever you do for the least of my brothers and sisters, you do for me.” (Mt 25:40)

Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta spent ninety minutes in adoration each day before Mass, placing herself in front of the tabernacle over which were written the words of Jesus, “I thirst.”  She would tell her sisters, “If we do not see Jesus each morning in the Eucharist, we will surely miss him in the many disguises he takes on the faces we meet throughout the rest of our day.”

This spiritual insight helps me to rephrase Bishop Zipfel’s trajectory in the following way:

      “We receive the Body of Christ (as sacrament),

       to become the Body of Christ (as Church),

       so as to serve the Body of Christ (in the poor).”

In other words, the Eucharistic transformation of bread and wine are meant to transform us in a Christ-like manner so that we can go forth to transform the hungers of the world.

Spanish

Queridos Hermanos y Hermanas,

La Eucaristía es la fuente y la cumbre de la vida de la Iglesia, en la cual Jesús une  a todos los miembros de su novia, la Iglesia, con su sacrificio de alabanza y agradecimiento ofrecidos en la cruz a su Padre. Por ese sacrificio, él derrama la gracia de salvación en su Cuerpo que es la Iglesia. Cuando el sacerdote quien celebra la Eucaristía, él actua a través del poder del Espíritu Santo, para transformar el pan y el vino en el Cuerpo y Sangre de Cristo pero también la congregación de la Iglesia se transforma en el Cuerpo de Cristo. En este sentido el  Papa Juan Pablo II dijo: “La Eucaristía esta compuesta por la Iglesia y la Iglesia esta compuesta por la Eucaristía.” La cual, la Eucaristía es un memorial de la pascua de Cristo que tiene como significado el trabajo de salvación logrado por su vida, muerte y resurrección.

Al mismo tiempo, es un banquete de creyentes, aquellos llamados en la fe y el credo a participar en el sacrificio del Señor. Finalmente, la Eucaristía nos llama a contemplar el rostro de Jesús en Adoración. La Madre Teresa nos dice que fuera de la misa debemos dedicar un momento al Santísimo sacramento para así, apreciar su presencia en la misa.

En resumen, nosotros recibimos el cuerpo de Cristo (como sacramento) que se transforma en el cuerpo de Cristo (como Iglesia) para servir el Cuerpo de Cristo (en los pobres, enfermos, y los necesitados).

Al culminar este Año de la Eucaristía, no nos olvidemos de las misericordias que hemos recibido. Que nos acerquemos más a la presencia sacramental de Cristo que es el centro de nuestra fe católica.

Part II

Now I would like to complete this presentation by reflecting briefly on three practical issues that are regularly discussed, if not often misunderstood, in Church circles today.

The first of these is our obligation to attend Sunday Mass.  This may first strike you as an old saw, (“there he goes again.”)  But I am convinced that there is a new urgency to the matter.  And the reason for that lies in the fact that less and less Catholics are going to Sunday Mass than ever before (and here I include the Saturday Vigil Mass).  Here in our Diocese, about 30,000 Catholics out of 69,000 or roughly 44% attend Sunday Mass on a regular basis; this is down 3% or 3,200 practicing Catholics since 1999.  If you were ever looking for a reason to promote evangelization, here it is and we don’t even have to go outside our own Catholic backyard!

For me, as bishop, and for you, as invested members of the Body of Christ, the fact that 54% of those who claim to be Catholic but do not regularly go to Sunday Mass should be a major concern.  One priest told me of a fine mother and Catholic lady, one of the “pillars” of his parish, who told him without any remorse or shame that she always attends Sunday Mass except for those weekends during soccer season when her daughter has out-of-town games.  On those weekends, instead of looking for a Mass in the town where the game is taking place, she simply doesn’t bother to attend.

Now I am certain that on those same weekends that woman makes sure that she and her daughter eat regular meals.  What kind of mother would she be if, just because she is away from her own kitchen, she didn’t arrange meals for her child’s nourishment and subsistence?  Yet, when it comes to her family’s spiritual hungers, there apparently is no such sense of urgency or desire.  Surely a lack of hunger pangs in the spiritual realm of the soul reflects the dulling of one’s conscience.  If I truly love Jesus, I don’t miss those opportunities I have to be with him and Sunday Mass provides a verifiable standard for each of us to prove just how much we love him.

It simply amazes me, as well, that a number of Catholic parents can be so dogged about seeing that their child attends Religious Education on Wednesday evening, but then deliberately fails to take that same child to Church on Sunday.  There is a serious disconnect here, which more often than not the kids see much better their parents.  What’s really being said is that it is important for young Johnny and Mary to know about Jesus, but it is not so very important for them to know Jesus in and through his Bride, the Church.

Pope John Paul II wrote an Apostolic Letter, Dies Domini, on the importance of the Sunday Mass.  The late Pope pointed out that time itself is of the created order and therefore is made to share in God’s Glory.  Time, therefore, needs to be made holy by our returning that time to God as our gift.  The Pope also teaches that if the goal of time on earth is eternity in heaven, then you and I need to renew that “meaning” of time at least every seventh day.  Finally, the Pope tells us that time given to Christ is never “lost” time, rather it is time spent in love.

And Pope Benedict has already addressed this concern since his recent election.  He told us at World Youth Day on the Marienfeld:

“Dear friends! Sometimes, our initial impression is that having to include time for Mass on Sunday is rather inconvenient.  But if you make the effort, you will realize that this is what gives a proper focus to your free time.  Do not be deterred from taking part in Sunday Mass, and help others to discover it too.  This is because the Eucharist releases the joy that we need so much, and we must learn to grasp it ever more deeply, we must learn to love it.  Let us pledge ourselves to do this; it is worth the effort!”

“Let us discover the intimate riches of the Church’s liturgy and its true greatness:  It is not we who are celebrating for ourselves, but it is the living God himself who is preparing a banquet for us.” (Origins, 9-1-05, vol.  35, no.  12, p.  203)

Here, too, is where I believe the place of Adoration comes in to play.  How many of our Catholic people rush into a week-end liturgy as though they were entering a fast food outlet.  When I was a happy pastor, I would occasionally ask at the beginning of my homily who in the congregation could tell me what the first reading was about.  I’d even offer a “dollar” to anyone who could.  More often than not the dollar went back in my pocket.  My point here is that we have to prepare for Sunday Mass like we do a football game, or a business meeting, or a social event.  The best way to do so is spending time in silent adoration so as to recognize his Sacred Presence amidst the distractions of the week-end liturgy.

Getting to Church early, reading the Scriptures ahead of time, maintaining silence (i.e. no talking in Church) for fifteen minutes before Mass are also great helps, but the surest method is silent adoration, preferably on a daily basis.

Secondly, there is a strong connection between the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist and the Sacrament of Penance.  St. Paul tells the Corinthians,

“Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.  Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.  For anyone who eats and drinks without deserving the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself.” (1 Cor 11:27-29) 

In following the interventions of the Synodal Bishops gathered at the Vatican this week, I noted that in this first week alone, three speakers have addressed the relationship between sacramental Penance and the Holy Eucharist.

A bishop from Lithuania said that without sacramental reconciliation, it is “impossible” for Catholics to experience the most profound union of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.  Sacramental Penance, he went on to say, encourages the positive formation of conscience on the basis of an objective, rather than a subjective, sense of right and wrong.  This allows for spiritual growth, while the habit of shunning sacramental Penance distances a person from God.

An Archbishop from Chile called for a “Year of Penance” to follow the “Year of the Eucharist.”  His point is that today’s loss of the sense of God and the influence of moral relativism has diminished our sense of sin and thus our need for conversion.  This in turn explains, at least in part, the lack of priestly and religious vocations.  He argued that the Sacrament of Reconciliation is a necessity for young people in order to grow spiritually.

An American Redemptorist reflected as well on the close relationship of these two Sacraments being rooted in the Paschal Mystery of Christ.  Without a deep sorrow over the sin for which Jesus came to die, one cannot experience the depth of liberated exaltation that is at the heart of the Eucharistic celebration.

I believe that these reflections are especially relevant for us in this Diocese, where the use of General Absolution, so long practiced, has severed a personal sense of responsibility for sin within the individual, resulting in a confusion about the very reality of sin itself.  And if conscience has been dulled to the presence of sin in a person’s life, one’s heart cannot readily respond to the sanctifying Presence which is the Holy Eucharist.  Our regular celebration of the Sacrament of Penance and our regular celebration of the Holy Eucharist depend upon each other and, in turn, deepen within us the experience of both.

Lastly, the question of intercommunion between Catholics and Lutherans:  why is this not allowed?

The answer here is both theological and historical.  First of all, there are different understandings among our two denominations and among Lutherans themselves on the nature of the Eucharist.  Theologians cite three of these understandings as transfiguration, transfinalization or transubstantiation.

Transignification is a theological understanding of the Holy Eucharist based on Christ’s gift of himself to believers and, through them to the Father.  The Eucharist becomes the sacramental visibility (i.e. a sign) of this continuous self-giving.  The words of consecration are not simply directed toward the bread and wine, but toward the believing assembly.  The bread and wine are given new meaning by Christ’s gift of himself for the community.

Transfinalization rests on the fact that Christ gave the Church his body, the body which was born of Mary, which was crucified and raised to new life.  In giving new meaning to created things, the Risen Christ now gives new being to the ultimate reality (or substance) of the bread and wine as his gift to the Church even though the empirical reality of the bread and wine remains the same.

Transubstantiation, as defined by the Catholic Catechism, declares that there takes place in the consecration a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of Christ’s body and the whole substance of the wine into the substance of Christ’s blood.  The Eucharistic presence of Christ begins at the moment of consecration and endures in each of the species and whole and entire in each of their parts, in such a way that the breaking of the bread does not divide Christ.  (no. 1376)

My point here is not to test your ability to distinguish between differing theological understandings of the Holy Eucharist with their corresponding degrees of accuracy, but rather to illustrate the point that intelligent scholars have made it their life’s work to study what it is that we, as Catholics, believe about this Divine Sacrament.  For any of us, therefore, to say that Communion in one denomination is the same as another or that these differences don’t matter because “it’s the same God after all” is the height of religious indifferentism and the witness of an appalling ignorance.

Martin Luther’s belief in the Eucharist has been called “Consubstantiation.”  He believed that not just the accidents (appearances) but also the substance (reality) of the bread and wine remained in the sacrament on the altar.  The Mass, then, for him was not a sacrifice offered to God, but a memorial celebration of the Last Supper which when celebrated by the Body of Christ which is the baptized assembled becomes the Body of Christ made present in sign and symbol.  In Luther’s Mass drawn up in 1523, there is no Offertory or Eucharistic Prayer, even though he prescribed the recitation of the words of consecration in I Cor. 11:23-25 over the bread and wine.  However, the presence of Christ does not remain in the bread and wine after the believing assembly has dispersed.  Because baptism constitutes the believing assembly as the priesthood of Christ, there is no need for a Sacrament of Holy Orders as demanded by Catholic doctrine.  Therefore, Lutheran pastors and bishops are not ordained, but installed.  Their authority depends upon the mandate of the assembly of believers.

A Lutheran bishop, for example, may be elected for a term and then return to his duties as a member of the Church.  No “ontological” change as we understand it as Catholics takes place.  Since there is no ordained priest to consecrate bread and wine by means of priestly powers, the notions of transfiguration and transfinalization are more easily discovered. But it is also clear to see that we are not dealing with the same reality that each of us calls “the Eucharist.”  This may not be a question of apples and oranges, but neither is it a question of apples and apples.  Here are definitions of the Eucharist by each which are inherently different.  To pretend that these differences do not exist or do not matter does violence to the theological understandings of both Churches.  Rather than fostering ecumenical relations, intercommunion between Catholics and Lutherans or the sharing in a common Eucharistic service by a Catholic priest and a Lutheran pastor actually confuses the understanding needed to achieve Church unity and thus becomes a further obstacle to the attainment of that unity.

Pope John Paul II, recognizing this fact, said in his encyclical, Ecclesia De Eucharistia:  “The Catholic faithful, therefore, while respecting the religious convictions of these separated brethren, must refrain from receiving the communion distributed in their celebrations, so as not to condone an ambiguity about the nature of the Eucharist and, consequently, to fail in their duty to bear clear witness to the truth.  This would result in slowing the progress being made towards full visible unity.  Similarly, it is unthinkable to substitute for Sunday Mass ecumenical celebrations of the Word or services of common prayer with Christians from the aforementioned Ecclesial Communities, or even participation in their own liturgical services.  Such celebrations and services, however praiseworthy in certain situations, prepare for the goal of full Communion, including Eucharistic Communion, but they cannot replace it.”

“The fact that the power of consecrating the Eucharist has been entrusted only to Bishops and priests does not represent any kind of belittlement of the rest of the People of God.  For in the Communion of the one Body of Christ, which is the Church, this gift redounds to the benefit of all.” (no. 30)

This is not to say that intercommunion can never happen, but it is understandably permitted in extremely rare instances.  If, for example, a Lutheran pastor who had been imprisoned with Cardinal Van Thuan in Saigon for those thirteen years and that Lutheran knew that he would be so deprived for those years of the Eucharistic nourishment and if he was also without the resources necessary for his own celebration, spontaneously asked to receive Holy Communion from the Archbishop, after giving evidence of holding the Catholic faith in the sacrament, that, I believe, would be legitimate.   The terms are the inaccessibility of his own denomination for a long period of time, the spontaneous desire for the Eucharist, and an act of faith in the Catholic belief in that Sacrament.  However, these are certainly not the conditions we are talking about in our own situation here on the Prairie.

In summary, then, we receive the Body of Christ (as sacrament) to become the Body of Christ (as Church) so as to serve the Body of Christ (in the poor).

This is a teaching full of hope for our future.  That message, too, has been wonderfully summarized by our new Holy Father who said:

“[Here] . . . is the substantial transformation which was accomplished at the Last Supper and was destined to set in motion a series of transformations leading ultimately to the transformation of the world when God will be all in all (cf 1 Cor. 15:28).  In their hearts, people always and everywhere have somehow expected a change, a transformation of the world.  Here now is the central act of transformation that alone can truly renew the world:  Violence is transformed into love, and death into life.”

My dear sisters and brothers, this is a marvelous transformation for us to live not only for now, but to live forever.

Thank you!