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26. If, as I have said, the Eucharist builds the Church and the
Church makes the Eucharist, it follows that there is a profound
relationship between the two, so much so that we can apply to the
Eucharistic mystery the very words with which, in the
Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, we profess the Church to be
“one, holy, catholic and apostolic”. The Eucharist too is one and
catholic. It is also holy, indeed, the Most Holy Sacrament. But
it is above all its apostolicity that we must now consider.
27. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in explaining how the
Church is apostolic – founded on the Apostles – sees three meanings
in this expression. First, “she was and remains built on 'the
foundation of the Apostles' (Eph 2:20), the witnesses chosen
and sent on mission by Christ himself”.[51] The Eucharist too has
its foundation in the Apostles, not in the sense that it did not
originate in Christ himself, but because it was entrusted by Jesus to
the Apostles and has been handed down to us by them and by their
successors. It is in continuity with the practice of the Apostles,
in obedience to the Lord's command, that the Church has celebrated
the Eucharist down the centuries.
The second sense in which the Church is apostolic, as the Catechism
points out, is that “with the help of the Spirit dwelling in her,
the Church keeps and hands on the teaching, the 'good deposit', the
salutary words she has heard from the Apostles”.[52] Here too the
Eucharist is apostolic, for it is celebrated in conformity with the
faith of the Apostles. At various times in the two-thousand-year
history of the People of the New Covenant, the Church's
Magisterium has more precisely defined her teaching on the Eucharist,
including its proper terminology, precisely in order to safeguard the
apostolic faith with regard to this sublime mystery. This faith
remains unchanged and it is essential for the Church that it remain
unchanged.
28. Lastly, the Church is apostolic in the sense that she
“continues to be taught, sanctified and guided by the Apostles until
Christ's return, through their successors in pastoral office: the
college of Bishops assisted by priests, in union with the Successor
of Peter, the Church's supreme pastor”.[53] Succession to the
Apostles in the pastoral mission necessarily entails the sacrament of
Holy Orders, that is, the uninterrupted sequence, from the very
beginning, of valid episcopal ordinations.[54] This succession is
essential for the Church to exist in a proper and full sense.
The Eucharist also expresses this sense of apostolicity. As the
Second Vatican Council teaches, “the faithful join in the offering
of the Eucharist by virtue of their royal priesthood”,[55] yet it is
the ordained priest who, “acting in the person of Christ, brings
about the Eucharistic Sacrifice and offers it to God in the name of
all the people”.[56] For this reason, the Roman Missal prescribes
that only the priest should recite the Eucharistic Prayer, while the
people participate in faith and in silence.[57]
29. The expression repeatedly employed by the Second Vatican
Council, according to which “the ministerial priest, acting in the
person of Christ, brings about the Eucharistic Sacrifice”,[58] was
already firmly rooted in papal teaching.[59] As I have pointed out on
other occasions, the phrase in persona Christi “means more than
offering 'in the name of' or 'in the place of' Christ. In persona
means in specific sacramental identification with the eternal High
Priest who is the author and principal subject of this sacrifice of
his, a sacrifice in which, in truth, nobody can take his
place”.[60] The ministry of priests who have received the sacrament
of Holy Orders, in the economy of salvation chosen by Christ, makes
clear that the Eucharist which they celebrate is a gift which radically
transcends the power of the assembly and is in any event essential for
validly linking the Eucharistic consecration to the sacrifice of the
Cross and to the Last Supper. The assembly gathered together for
the celebration of the Eucharist, if it is to be a truly Eucharistic
assembly, absolutely requires the presence of an ordained priest as its
president. On the other hand, the community is by itself incapable of
providing an ordained minister. This minister is a gift which the
assembly receives through episcopal succession going back to the
Apostles. It is the Bishop who, through the Sacrament of Holy
Orders, makes a new presbyter by conferring upon him the power to
consecrate the Eucharist. Consequently, “the Eucharistic mystery
cannot be celebrated in any community except by an ordained priest, as
the Fourth Lateran Council expressly taught”.[61]
30. The Catholic Church's teaching on the relationship between
priestly ministry and the Eucharist and her teaching on the
Eucharistic Sacrifice have both been the subject in recent decades of
a fruitful dialogue in the area of ecumenism. We must give thanks to
the Blessed Trinity for the significant progress and convergence
achieved in this regard, which lead us to hope one day for a full
sharing of faith. Nonetheless, the observations of the Council
concerning the Ecclesial Communities which arose in the West from the
sixteenth century onwards and are separated from the Catholic Church
remain fully pertinent: “The Ecclesial Communities separated from
us lack that fullness of unity with us which should flow from Baptism,
and we believe that especially because of the lack of the sacrament of
Orders they have not preserved the genuine and total reality of the
Eucharistic mystery. Nevertheless, when they commemorate the
Lord's death and resurrection in the Holy Supper, they profess that
it signifies life in communion with Christ and they await his coming in
glory”.[62]
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.
31. If the Eucharist is the centre and summit of the Church's
life, it is likewise the centre and summit of priestly ministry. For
this reason, with a heart filled with gratitude to our Lord Jesus
Christ, I repeat that the Eucharist “is the principal and central
raison d'être of the sacrament of priesthood, which effectively came
into being at the moment of the institution of the Eucharist”.[63]
Priests are engaged in a wide variety of pastoral activities. If we
also consider the social and cultural conditions of the modern world it
is easy to understand how priests face the very real risk of losing
their focus amid such a great number of different tasks. The Second
Vatican Council saw in pastoral charity the bond which gives unity to
the priest's life and work. This, the Council adds, “flows mainly
from the Eucharistic Sacrifice, which is therefore the centre and
root of the whole priestly life”.[64] We can understand, then, how
important it is for the spiritual life of the priest, as well as for
the good of the Church and the world, that priests follow the
Council's recommendation to celebrate the Eucharist daily: “for
even if the faithful are unable to be present, it is an act of Christ
and the Church”.[65] In this way priests will be able to counteract
the daily tensions which lead to a lack of focus and they will find in
the Eucharistic Sacrifice – the true centre of their lives and
ministry – the spiritual strength needed to deal with their different
pastoral responsibilities. Their daily activity will thus become truly
Eucharistic.
The centrality of the Eucharist in the life and ministry of priests is
the basis of its centrality in the pastoral promotion of priestly
vocations. It is in the Eucharist that prayer for vocations is most
closely united to the prayer of Christ the Eternal High Priest. At
the same time the diligence of priests in carrying out their
Eucharistic ministry, together with the conscious, active and
fruitful participation of the faithful in the Eucharist, provides
young men with a powerful example and incentive for responding
generously to God's call. Often it is the example of a priest's
fervent pastoral charity which the Lord uses to sow and to bring to
fruition in a young man's heart the seed of a priestly calling.
32. All of this shows how distressing and irregular is the situation
of a Christian community which, despite having sufficient numbers and
variety of faithful to form a parish, does not have a priest to lead
it. Parishes are communities of the baptized who express and affirm
their identity above all through the celebration of the Eucharistic
Sacrifice. But this requires the presence of a presbyter, who alone
is qualified to offer the Eucharist in persona Christi. When a
community lacks a priest, attempts are rightly made somehow to remedy
the situation so that it can continue its Sunday celebrations, and
those religious and laity who lead their brothers and sisters in prayer
exercise in a praiseworthy way the common priesthood of all the faithful
based on the grace of Baptism. But such solutions must be considered
merely temporary, while the community awaits a priest.
The sacramental incompleteness of these celebrations should above all
inspire the whole community to pray with greater fervour that the Lord
will send labourers into his harvest (cf. Mt 9:38). It should
also be an incentive to mobilize all the resources needed for an
adequate pastoral promotion of vocations, without yielding to the
temptation to seek solutions which lower the moral and formative
standards demanded of candidates for the priesthood.
33. When, due to the scarcity of priests, non-ordained members of
the faithful are entrusted with a share in the pastoral care of a
parish, they should bear in mind that – as the Second Vatican
Council teaches – “no Christian community can be built up unless it
has its basis and centre in the celebration of the most Holy
Eucharist”.[66] They have a responsibility, therefore, to keep
alive in the community a genuine “hunger” for the Eucharist, so that
no opportunity for the celebration of Mass will ever be missed, also
taking advantage of the occasional presence of a priest who is not
impeded by Church law from celebrating Mass.
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