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59. Ave, verum corpus natum de Maria Virgine! Several years ago
I celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of my priesthood. Today I have
the grace of offering the Church this Encyclical on the Eucharist on
the Holy Thursday which falls during the twenty-fifth year of my
Petrine ministry. As I do so, my heart is filled with gratitude.
For over a half century, every day, beginning on 2 November
1946, when I celebrated my first Mass in the Crypt of Saint
Leonard in Wawel Cathedral in Krakow, my eyes have gazed in
recollection upon the host and the chalice, where time and space in
some way “merge” and the drama of Golgotha is re-presented in a
living way, thus revealing its mysterious “contemporaneity”. Each
day my faith has been able to recognize in the consecrated bread and
wine the divine Wayfarer who joined the two disciples on the road to
Emmaus and opened their eyes to the light and their hearts to new hope
(cf. Lk 24:13-35).
Allow me, dear brothers and sisters, to share with deep emotion, as
a means of accompanying and strengthening your faith, my own testimony
of faith in the Most Holy Eucharist. Ave verum corpus natum de
Maria Virgine, vere passum, immolatum, in cruce pro homine! Here
is the Church's treasure, the heart of the world, the pledge of the
fulfilment for which each man and woman, even unconsciously, yearns.
A great and transcendent mystery, indeed, and one that taxes our
mind's ability to pass beyond appearances. Here our senses fail us:
visus, tactus, gustus in te fallitur, in the words of the hymn Adoro
Te Devote; yet faith alone, rooted in the word of Christ handed
down to us by the Apostles, is sufficient for us. Allow me, like
Peter at the end of the Eucharistic discourse in John's Gospel, to
say once more to Christ, in the name of the whole Church and in the
name of each of you: “Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words
of eternal life” (Jn 6:68).
60. 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. As I wrote in my Apostolic Letter Novo
Millennio Ineunte, “it is not a matter of inventing a 'new
programme'. The programme already exists: it is the plan found in
the Gospel and in the living Tradition; it is the same as ever.
Ultimately, it has its centre in Christ himself, who is to be
known, loved and imitated, so that in him we may live the life of the
Trinity, and with him transform history until its fulfilment in the
heavenly Jerusalem”.[103] The implementation of this programme of a
renewed impetus in Christian living passes through the Eucharist.
Every commitment to holiness, every activity aimed at carrying out the
Church's mission, every work of pastoral planning, must draw the
strength it needs from the Eucharistic mystery and in turn be directed
to that mystery as its culmination. In the Eucharist we have Jesus,
we have his redemptive sacrifice, we have his resurrection, we have
the gift of the Holy Spirit, we have adoration, obedience and love
of the Father. Were we to disregard the Eucharist, how could we
overcome our own deficiency?
61. The mystery of the Eucharist – sacrifice, presence, banquet
– does not allow for reduction or exploitation; it must be experienced
and lived in its integrity, both in its celebration and in the intimate
converse with Jesus which takes place after receiving communion or in a
prayerful moment of Eucharistic adoration apart from Mass. These are
times when the Church is firmly built up and it becomes clear what she
truly is: one, holy, catholic and apostolic; the people, temple and
family of God; the body and bride of Christ, enlivened by the Holy
Spirit; the universal sacrament of salvation and a hierarchically
structured communion.
The path taken by the Church in these first years of the third
millennium is also a path of renewed ecumenical commitment. The final
decades of the second millennium, culminating in the Great Jubilee,
have spurred us along this path and called for all the baptized to
respond to the prayer of Jesus “ut unum sint ” (Jn 17:11).
The path itself is long and strewn with obstacles greater than our
human resources alone can overcome, yet we have the Eucharist, and in
its presence we can hear in the depths of our hearts, as if they were
addressed to us, the same words heard by the Prophet Elijah:
“Arise and eat, else the journey will be too great for you” (1 Kg
19:7). The treasure of the Eucharist, which the Lord places
before us, impels us towards the goal of full sharing with all our
brothers and sisters to whom we are joined by our common Baptism. But
if this treasure is not to be squandered, we need to respect the
demands which derive from its being the sacrament of communion in faith
and in apostolic succession.
By giving the Eucharist the prominence it deserves, and by being
careful not to diminish any of its dimensions or demands, we show that
we are truly conscious of the greatness of this gift. We are urged to
do so by an uninterrupted tradition, which from the first centuries on
has found the Christian community ever vigilant in guarding this
“treasure”. Inspired by love, the Church is anxious to hand on to
future generations of Christians, without loss, her faith and
teaching with regard to the mystery of the Eucharist. There can be no
danger of excess in our care for this mystery, for “in this sacrament
is recapitulated the whole mystery of our salvation”.[104]
62. Let us take our place, dear brothers and sisters, at the
school of the saints, who are the great interpreters of true
Eucharistic piety. In them the theology of the Eucharist takes on
all the splendour of a lived reality; it becomes “contagious” and,
in a manner of speaking, it “warms our hearts”. Above all, let us
listen to Mary Most Holy, in whom the mystery of the Eucharist
appears, more than in anyone else, as a mystery of light. Gazing
upon Mary, we come to know the transforming power present in the
Eucharist. In her we see the world renewed in love. Contemplating
her, assumed body and soul into heaven, we see opening up before us
those “new heavens” and that “new earth” which will appear at the
second coming of Christ. Here below, the Eucharist represents their
pledge, and in a certain way, their anticipation: “Veni, Domine
Iesu!” (Rev 22:20).
In the humble signs of bread and wine, changed into his body and
blood, Christ walks beside us as our strength and our food for the
journey, and he enables us to become, for everyone, witnesses of
hope. If, in the presence of this mystery, reason experiences its
limits, the heart, enlightened by the grace of the Holy Spirit,
clearly sees the response that is demanded, and bows low in adoration
and unbounded love.
Let us make our own the words of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an eminent
theologian and an impassioned poet of Christ in the Eucharist, and
turn in hope to the contemplation of that goal to which our hearts
aspire in their thirst for joy and peace:
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Bone pastor, panis vere,
Iesu, nostri miserere...
Come then, good Shepherd, bread divine,
Still show to us thy mercy sign;
Oh, feed us, still keep us thine;
So we may see thy glories shine
in fields of immortality.
O thou, the wisest, mightiest, best,
Our present food, our future rest,
Come, make us each thy chosen guest,
Co-heirs of thine, and comrades blest
With saints whose dwelling is with thee.
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Given in Rome, at Saint Peter's, on 17 April, Holy
Thursday, in the year 2003, the Twenty-fifth of my
Pontificate, the Year of the Rosary.
IOANNES PAULUS II
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