|
1. The Church draws her life from the Eucharist. This truth does
not simply express a daily experience of faith, but recapitulates the
heart of the mystery of the Church. In a variety of ways she joyfully
experiences the constant fulfilment of the promise: “Lo, I am with
you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28:20), but in the
Holy Eucharist, through the changing of bread and wine into the body
and blood of the Lord, she rejoices in this presence with unique
intensity. Ever since Pentecost, when the Church, the People of
the New Covenant, began her pilgrim journey towards her heavenly
homeland, the Divine Sacrament has continued to mark the passing of
her days, filling them with confident hope.
The Second Vatican Council rightly proclaimed that the Eucharistic
sacrifice is “the source and summit of the Christian life”.[1] “For
the most holy Eucharist contains the Church's entire spiritual
wealth: Christ himself, our passover and living bread. Through his
own flesh, now made living and life-giving by the Holy Spirit, he
offers life to men”.[2] Consequently the gaze of the Church is
constantly turned to her Lord, present in the Sacrament of the
Altar, in which she discovers the full manifestation of his boundless
love.
2. During the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 I had an
opportunity to celebrate the Eucharist in the Cenacle of Jerusalem
where, according to tradition, it was first celebrated by Jesus
himself. The Upper Room was where this most holy Sacrament was
instituted. It is there that Christ took bread, broke it and gave it
to his disciples, saying: “Take this, all of you, and eat it:
this is my body which will be given up for you” (cf. Mk 26:26;
Lk 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24). Then he took the cup of wine
and said to them: “Take this, all of you and drink from it: this is
the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant.
It will be shed for you and for all, so that sins may be forgiven”
(cf. Mt 14:24; Lk 22:20; 1 Cor 11:25). I am
grateful to the Lord Jesus for allowing me to repeat in that same
place, in obedience to his command: “Do this in memory of me” (Lk
22:19), the words which he spoke two thousand years ago.
Did the Apostles who took part in the Last Supper understand the
meaning of the words spoken by Christ? Perhaps not. Those words
would only be fully clear at the end of the Triduum sacrum, the time
from Thursday evening to Sunday morning. Those days embrace the
myste- rium paschale; they also embrace the mysterium eucharisticum.
3. The Church was born of the paschal mystery. For this very
reason the Eucharist, which is in an outstanding way the sacrament of
the paschal mystery, stands at the centre of the Church's life.
This is already clear from the earliest images of the Church found in
the Acts of the Apostles: “They devoted themselves to the
Apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the
prayers” (2:42). The “breaking of the bread” refers to the
Eucharist. Two thousand years later, we continue to relive that
primordial image of the Church. At every celebration of the
Eucharist, we are spiritually brought back to the paschal Triduum:
to the events of the evening of Holy Thursday, to the Last Supper
and to what followed it. The institution of the Eucharist
sacramentally anticipated the events which were about to take place,
beginning with the agony in Gethsemane. Once again we see Jesus as
he leaves the Upper Room, descends with his disciples to the Kidron
valley and goes to the Garden of Olives. Even today that Garden
shelters some very ancient olive trees. Perhaps they witnessed what
happened beneath their shade that evening, when Christ in prayer was
filled with anguish “and his sweat became like drops of blood falling
down upon the ground” (cf. Lk 22:44). The blood which
shortly before he had given to the Church as the drink of salvation in
the sacrament of the Eucharist, began to be shed; its outpouring
would then be completed on Golgotha to become the means of our
redemption: “Christ... as high priest of the good things to
come..., entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the
blood of goats and calves but his own blood, thus securing an eternal
redemption” (Heb 9:11- 12).
4. The hour of our redemption. Although deeply troubled, Jesus
does not flee before his “hour”. “And what shall I say?
'Father, save me from this hour?' No, for this purpose I have
come to this hour” (Jn 12:27). He wanted his disciples to
keep him company, yet he had to experience loneliness and abandonment:
“So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you
may not enter into temptation” (Mt 26:40- 41). Only John
would remain at the foot of the Cross, at the side of Mary and the
faithful women. The agony in Gethsemane was the introduction to the
agony of the Cross on Good Friday. The holy hour, the hour of the
redemption of the world. Whenever the Eucharist is celebrated at the
tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem, there is an almost tangible return to his
“hour”, the hour of his Cross and glorification. 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.
“He was crucified, he suffered death and was buried; he descended to
the dead; on the third day he rose again”. The words of the
profession of faith are echoed by the words of contemplation and
proclamation: “This is the wood of the Cross, on which hung the
Saviour of the world. Come, let us worship”. This is the
invitation which the Church extends to all in the afternoon hours of
Good Friday. She then takes up her song during the Easter season in
order to proclaim: “The Lord is risen from the tomb; for our sake
he hung on the Cross, Alleluia”.
5. “Mysterium fidei! - The Mystery of Faith!”. When the
priest recites or chants these words, all present acclaim: “We
announce your death, O Lord, and we proclaim your resurrection,
until you come in glory”.
In these or similar words the Church, while pointing to Christ in
the mystery of his passion, also reveals her own mystery: Ecclesia de
Eucharistia. By the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost the
Church was born and set out upon the pathways of the world, yet a
decisive moment in her taking shape was certainly the institution of the
Eucharist in the Upper Room. Her foundation and wellspring is the
whole Triduum paschale, but this is as it were gathered up,
foreshadowed and “concentrated' for ever in the gift of the
Eucharist. In this gift Jesus Christ entrusted to his Church the
perennial making present of the paschal mystery. With it he brought
about a mysterious “oneness in time” between that Triduum and the
passage of the centuries.
The thought of this leads us to profound amazement and gratitude. In
the paschal event and the Eucharist which makes it present throughout
the centuries, there is a truly enormous “capacity” which embraces
all of history as the recipient of the grace of the redemption. This
amazement should always fill the Church assembled for the celebration
of the Eucharist. But in a special way it should fill the minister of
the Eucharist. For it is he who, by the authority given him in the
sacrament of priestly ordination, effects the consecration. It is he
who says with the power coming to him from Christ in the Upper Room:
“This is my body which will be given up for you This is the cup of my
blood, poured out for you...”. The priest says these words, or
rather he puts his voice at the disposal of the One who spoke these
words in the Upper Room and who desires that they should be repeated
in every generation by all those who in the Church ministerially share
in his priesthood.
6. I would like to rekindle this Eucharistic “amazement” by the
present Encyclical Letter, in continuity with the Jubilee heritage
which I have left to the Church in the Apostolic Letter Novo
Millennio Ineunte and its Marian crowning, Rosarium Virginis
Mariae. To contemplate the face of Christ, and to contemplate it
with Mary, is the “programme” 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. The Eucharist is both a
mystery of faith and a “mystery of light”.[3] Whenever the Church
celebrates the Eucharist, the faithful can in some way relive the
experience of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus: “their eyes
were opened and they recognized him” (Lk 24:31).
7. From the time I began my ministry as the Successor of Peter,
I have always marked Holy Thursday, the day of the Eucharist and of
the priesthood, by sending a letter to all the priests of the world.
This year, the twenty-fifth of my Pontificate, I wish to involve
the whole Church more fully in this Eucharistic reflection, also as a
way of thanking the Lord for the gift of the Eucharist and the
priesthood: “Gift and Mystery”.[4] By proclaiming the Year of the
Rosary, I wish to put this, my twenty-fifth anniversary, under the
aegis of the contemplation of Christ at the school of Mary.
Consequently, I cannot let this Holy Thursday 2003 pass without
halting before the “Eucharistic face” of Christ and pointing out
with new force to the Church 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 ever anew?
8. When I think of the Eucharist, and look at my life as a
priest, as a Bishop and as the Successor of Peter, I naturally
recall the many times and places in which I was able to celebrate it.
I remember the parish church of Niegowi, where I had my
first pastoral assignment, the collegiate church of Saint Florian in
Krakow, Wawel Cathedral, Saint Peter's Basilica and so many
basilicas and churches in Rome and throughout the world. I have been
able to celebrate Holy Mass in chapels built along mountain paths, on
lakeshores and seacoasts; I have celebrated it on altars built in
stadiums and in city squares... This varied scenario of celebrations
of the Eucharist has given me a powerful experience of its universal
and, so to speak, cosmic character. Yes, cosmic! Because even
when it is celebrated on the 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.
The Son of God became man in order to restore all creation, in one
supreme act of praise, to the One who made it from nothing. He, the
Eternal High Priest who by the blood of his Cross entered the
eternal sanctuary, thus gives back to the Creator and Father all
creation redeemed. He does so through the priestly ministry of the
Church, to the glory of the Most Holy Trinity. Truly this is the
mysterium fidei which is accomplished in the Eucharist: the world
which came forth from the hands of God the Creator now returns to him
redeemed by Christ.
9. The Eucharist, as Christ's saving presence in the community of
the faithful and its spiritual food, is the most precious possession
which the Church can have in her journey through history. This
explains the lively concern which she has always shown for the
Eucharistic mystery, a concern which finds authoritative expression in
the work of the Councils and the Popes. How can we not admire the
doctrinal expositions of the Decrees on the Most Holy Eucharist and
on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass promulgated by the Council of
Trent? For centuries those Decrees guided theology and catechesis,
and they are still a dogmatic reference-point for the continual renewal
and growth of God's People in faith and in love for the Eucharist.
In times closer to our own, three Encyclical Letters should be
mentioned: the Encyclical Mirae Caritatis of Leo XIII (28
May 1902),[5] the Encyclical Mediator Dei of Pius XII
(20 November 1947)[6] and the Encyclical Mysterium Fidei of
Paul VI (3 September 1965).[7]
The Second Vatican Council, while not issuing a specific document
on the Eucharistic mystery, considered its various aspects throughout
its documents, especially the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church
Lumen Gentium and the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy
Sacrosanctum Concilium.
I myself, in the first years of my apostolic ministry in the Chair of
Peter, wrote the Apostolic Letter Dominicae Cenae (24 February
1980),[8] in which I discussed some aspects of the Eucharistic
mystery and its importance for the life of those who are its ministers.
Today I take up anew the thread of that argument, with even greater
emotion and gratitude in my heart, echoing as it were the word of the
Psalmist: “What shall I render to the Lord for all his bounty to
me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the
Lord” (Ps 116:12-13).
10. The Magisterium's commitment to proclaiming the Eucharistic
mystery has been matched by interior growth within the Christian
community. Certainly the liturgical reform inaugurated by the Council
has greatly contributed to a more conscious, active and fruitful
participation in the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar on the part of the
faithful. In many places, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is
also an important daily practice and becomes an inexhaustible source of
holiness. The devout participation of the faithful in the Eucharistic
procession on the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ is a
grace from the Lord which yearly brings joy to those who take part in
it.
Other positive signs of Eucharistic faith and love might also be
mentioned.
Unfortunately, alongside these lights, there are also shadows. In
some places the practice of Eucharistic adoration has been almost
completely abandoned. In various parts of the Church abuses have
occurred, leading to confusion with regard to sound faith and Catholic
doctrine concerning this wonderful sacrament. At times one encounters
an extremely reductive understanding of the Eucharistic mystery.
Stripped of its sacrificial meaning, it is celebrated as if it were
simply a fraternal banquet. Furthermore, the necessity of the
ministerial priesthood, grounded in apostolic succession, is at times
obscured and the sacramental nature of the Eucharist is reduced to its
mere effectiveness as a form of proclamation. This has led here and
there to ecumenical initiatives which, albeit well-intentioned,
indulge in Eucharistic practices contrary to the discipline by which
the Church expresses her faith. How can we not express profound grief
at all this? The Eucharist is too great a gift to tolerate ambiguity
and depreciation.
It is my hope that the present Encyclical Letter will effectively
help to banish the dark clouds of unacceptable doctrine and practice,
so that the Eucharist will continue to shine forth in all its radiant
mystery.
|
|