The Eucharist - taking a fresh look at the marvelous gift Jesus left us!

by Bob Zyskowski, The Catholic Spirit

People in your pew rise to get in the line headed up to receive Holy Communion.You get up, too, and do likewise. Why?

What are you thinking about? What benefits do you seek from receiving this consecrated bread and wine that has become the body and blood of Christ? How will your life be different because you have received?

And what about those with you in line, those now heading back to the pews? What are your expectations of them now that they have received Communion? Do you expect they will act differently? Think differently? And your parish? Your neighborhood? Your community? Your world? Will they change because all these people in your church have received Christ’s flesh into their own?

As part of his 25th Anniversary, Pope John Paul II issued an invitation to the People of God to take a fresh look at what we do when we go to Communion. In clear language the pope is saying, let’s be amazed again!

With the proclamation of his encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia ("On the Eucharist in Its Relationship to the Church"), the pope says, let’s recall - even re-learn - what the Eucharist is. Let’s awaken our thinking and revive all there is to know and experience about this marvelous gift that Jesus left for us.

Although this is a new encyclical, its teaching is not new. Instead it is "pointing out with new force," as John Paul puts it, "the centrality of the Eucharist. From it the church draws her life. From this ‘living bread’ she draws her nourishment. How could I not feel the need to urge everyone to experience it anew?"

Waxing nostalgic, the pope recalls when as the newly ordained Father Karol Wojtylas he presided at Mass in his first parish assignment in Niegowic, Poland, and then at chapels built along mountain paths and finally at altars built in stadiums and city squares as the successor to Peter. That remi-niscing led the pope to consider what he termed the "cosmic character" of the universal experi-ence of Mass being celebrated around the world.

"Yes, cosmic!" the pope exclaims. "Because even when it is cele-brated on a humble altar of a country church, the Eucharist is always in some way celebrated on the altar of the world. It unites heaven and earth. It embraces and permeates all creation."

What John Paul says is that we are so blessed with being able to partake in the Eucharist, well, we have to say something.

Beginning this issue with the article, Appreciating the Eucharist for what is is and does...., and in the coming months, this newspaper will take up the pope’s challenge, breaking down the teachings in Pope John Paul’s encyclical into digestible bites to help us all better understand and appreciate God’s gift of the Eucharist.

by Bob Zyskowski

Thanks to the changes in the Mass that came about from the Second Vatican Council, Catholics today have a better appreciation of the Eucharist, according to Pope John Paul II.

The pope credits the liturgical reform of Vatican II for the Catholic community’s "interior growth" about the eucharistic mystery, saying the 1962-65 ecumenical council "greatly contributed to a more conscious, active, and fruitful participation in the holy sacrifice of the altar on the part of the faithful." He praises the daily practice of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament as well.

But along side these "lights," as the pope describes them, there are also "shadows" - the abandonment of eucharistic adoration in some places and, "in various parts of the church" abuses that have led to confusion with regard to Catholic doctrine about the sacrament. The pope fears that at times the Eucharist isn’t appreciated for what it is and what it does to those who receive it.

"At times one encounters an extremely reductive understanding of the eucharistic mystery," the Holy Father writes in the encyclical "Ecclesia de Eucharistia" - ("On the Eucharist in Its Relationship to the Church"). "Stripped of its sacrificial meaning, it is celebrated as if it were simply a fraternal banquet."

Thomas Fisch, who teaches the Catholic Sacramental Life and Spirituality course and the Eucharist course at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity, explains what the pope means when he says the fullness of the Eucharist at times has been reduced:

"We’ve been trying to emphasize the meal dimension of the Mass because that’s what was emphasized after the council. The pendulum swung way over, and so the pope is calling us to swing it back, reminding us about the sacrificial and memorial dimensions of the Eucharist."

Not only is the pope reminding us that Mass is more than a community meal, he is reinforcing the Catholic teaching that Mass takes a priest to preside, one who is validly ordained.

That requirement is key to preserving the Catholic Church’s integrity derived from the continuation of the chain of apostolic succession, the holding that all priests through the centuries can trace their ordination to the ordination of a valid bishop going back to the apostles themselves, who were of course called to ministry by Jesus.

The Holy Father begins this pastoral approach to teaching about the Eucharist by recalling that the Eucharist is not only a reminder of the passion and death of Jesus but the sacramental representation of the First Eucharist on Holy Thursday and the sacrifice of the cross. He calls the Eucharist "the gift par excellence" - because it is the gift of Jesus himself and a gift that transcends time. It is a gift not confined to the past but one we can share today "as if we had been present there."

What the pope is teaching, the seminary’s Fisch said, is the idea that the sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice. By repeating this memorial celebration of the Christ’s sacrifice, that sacrifice is always present in time.

It may help to think about what is meant by something being "sacramentally perpetuated," that is, it has a sacred, mysterious nature that is understood through the eyes of faith.

Father Phillip Rask, a Scripture scholar and former seminary rector who is now a pastor in Minnesota, said in Scripture those who eat the "living bread" are viewed as "guests at a meal with Jesus," but ones who are "miraculously fed again, as they were in the desert after the Exodus, as they were at the shore of the Sea of Galilee."

The pope in his encyclical also teaches that the sacrifice of Christ’s death is more than just spiritual food for the faithful."The gift of his love and obedience to the point of giving his life is in the first place a gift to his Father," John Paul II points out.

To those of us who readily would say that Christ died for our sins, to redeem us, this is a new thought to add: Christ’s death was a gift to God the Father, and in return the Father gives us his own gift, eternal life.

And, even more than that, the pope echoes the teaching of Vatican II that, by our taking part in the eucharistic sacrifice, the faithful offer the divine victim to God, and offer themselves along with it.

Furthermore, what each Mass memorializes is not just the Passover meal that Christ shared with his apostles and not just his crucifixion but Christ’s resurrection, too.

"What the pope is saying," the seminary’s Fisch said, "is that by participating in Jesus’ sacrifice we also participate in a new immortal life, a life beyond our human limitations."

A thought to take away is that this "bread of life" or "living bread" that we receive in the Eucharist nourishes the spirit and strengthens our resolve and our ability to renew our lives.

NEXT MONTH: A meal but more: A meal for a purpose